minn kim

I often think of books that left an impression as a snapshot of who I was at the time. My library, which is only occasionally updated, reflects this (2015 was a “get smart on startups” year while 2020 was a year of contemplation and looking inwards while a global pandemic rendered the world to stand still).

My 5 star ranking system for good reads is 1 star = Regret reading; 2 = Would not recommend; 3 = A fine read; 4 stars = Would read again; 5 stars = Perspective changing and would recommend widely.

Here are a few top-of-mind 5-star reads which have stood the test of time for me. I re-read these periodically or recommend to others:

Fiction

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin
• The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Non-fiction

• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (really, any of his writing)
• Confessions by St. Augustine
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
• The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato
• The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
• What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Essays

• Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
• In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell
• How to Be Successful by Sam Altman
• My Day columns by Eleanor Roosevelt
• Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Walking by Henry David Thoreau