38 Books That Changed Me

A non-exhaustive, unordered list .

I turned 38 this past week, and as with all birthdays, I sat for a few moments of early-morning reflection: where I’ve been, where I’m going, what kind of cake I’ll be eating when I get there. It’s been a wonderful year, made partially so by all of you who supported this newsletter and Banyan Moon. I couldn’t be luckier. And, if I’m honest, I’ll say it’s also been a year of disappointments and failures, moments where I could have been a better version of myself. I’m not sure why, but I go into every birthday thinking I’ll feel magically different. Wiser, more polished, less anxious. Like a light switch of maturity suddenly flicking, illuminating the chaos of life. 

Yet every birthday passes with an unsettling sameness. I’m still me, for better or worse, struggling with the same things as the year(s) before. But that’s how it is; evolution doesn’t usually happen in fits and starts. It’s a tectonic plate sliding infinitesimally apart, revealing the vast distance between before and after only through a retrospective lens. 

The one constant of every birthday is change, often invisible, but always present, simmering in our veins, pulling us in new directions. And sometimes, we have help along the way. For me, the greatest agent of change has always been books: the ones that push me, challenge me, clang a bell of recognition inside. It’s fitting that I take a moment to honor the ones that have moved me.

Below, a non-exhaustive, unordered list of 38 books that changed me. (I’m already stressed about the ones I forgot! Like forgetting friends in acknowledgements, which I have also done!) Each book touched me at the time of my life when I needed it most. Some introduced me to new worlds, new ways of being, while others made me feel seen. 

1. The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

2. Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward

3. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 

4. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

5. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

6. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

7. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

8. Becoming by Michelle Obama

9. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

10. Matrix by Lauren Groff

11. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones 

12. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

13. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

14. Beloved by Toni Morrison

15. Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

16. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

17. Townie by Andre Dubus III

18. Good Talk by Mira Jacob

19. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 

20. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

21. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

22. The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón

23. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

24. Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

25. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

26. Atonement by Ian McEwan 

27. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

28. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

29. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 

30. Hold Still by Sally Mann

31. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

32. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

33. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

34. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey 

35. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell 

36. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

37. The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

38. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

What are your life-changing books?