Featured in Dense Discovery, issue 270
- A tale for the time being by Ruth Ozeki. Ruth tells her own story of moving from a big city to an island in BC alongside a fictional diary that she “finds on a beach” of a girl sharing her journey and struggles with moving back to Japan from Silicon Valley. I love the style of memoir meets magical realism and themes of native/foreigness.
- Anthem by Ayn Rand. If you read any of Ayn’s books, this is the one - simply because it’s a concise narrative (~100 page novella) of what she later expanded on in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (each come in at 1,000+ pages). It’s set in a dystopian future where technological advancements are rolled back and are carefully controlled, then two people discover that there’s more to life than what they’ve been told.
- Living High by June Burn. This autobiography is about June and her husband moving out to Washington state and their few decades of life living along the west coast of America: homesteading on a tiny island, starting a family signing troupe, city life, forest cabin. I like to think of my life as having many chapters like her’s, and her sense of adventure and wonder inspire me to consider what’s next for me and my family.
- Dune by Frank Herbert. If you’re skeptical about this one, don’t worry, I was too after starting the book twice then quitting and feeling “meh” after watching the movie on HBO. It wasn’t until moving to Tacoma, Frank’s hometown, that I picked it up again and stuck with it. It’s one of the greatest works of sci-fi/high fantasy as well as environmental, political, and religious writing.
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck. John is well-known for bring early Californian white settlement (~1920s) to life and he does this brilliantly by interweaving a multi-generational, inter-family tale into this landscape.
- Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Marco Polo recounts all the cities he’s visited— in their unique colors — to Kublai Khan in a poetic conversation. If you’re a romantic like me for city planning, culture, and travel, this is a must.