formative books 

1. ★el principito - de saint-exupéry
   

2. ★huasipungo - jorge icaza
   

3. ★los cachorros - mario vargas llosa
   

4. ★tales of the alhambra - washington irving
   

5. ★city: rediscovering the center - willian h white
   

6. ★tao te ching - lao tzu 
   

7. ★angst: cartography - baratloo, balch
   

8. ★a giacometti portrait - james lord
   

9. ★invisible cities - italo calvino
   

10. ★between silence and light: spirit in the architecture of louis i. khan - john lobell
    

11. ★the brutality of fact: interviews with francis bacon - david sylvester
    

12. ★irrational man: a study in existential philosophy - william barret
    

13. ★nausea - jean paul sartre
    

14. ★the myth of sisyphus and other essays - albert camus
    

15. ★the stranger - albert camus
    

 

books of fact and interpretation 

 

1. ★the great human diasporas: the history of diversity and evolution - luca cavalli-sforza
   

2. ★the journey of man: a genetic odissey - spencer wells
   

3. ★mass migration to modern latin america - samuel bailey 
   

4. ★cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world - mark kurlansky
   

5. ★the basque history of the world: the story of a nation - mark kurlansky
   

6. ★salt: a world history - mark kurlansky
   

7. ★why we eat what we eat: how columbus changed the way the world eats - raymond sokolov
   

8. ★zero: the biography of a dangerous idea - charles seife
   

9. ★a natural history of the senses - diane ackerman
   

10. ★deep play - diane ackerman 
    

11. ★ornament of the world: how muslims, jews and christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval spain - maria rosa menocal
    

12. ★tales of two cities: race and economic culture in early republican north and south america - camilla townsend
    

13. ★the little ice age: how climate made history, 1300-1850 - brian fagan
    

14. ★the long summer: how climate changed civilization - brian fagan
    

15. ★the end of oil: on the edge of a perilous new world - paul roberts
    

16. ★the roaring nineties: a new history of the world's most prosperous decade - joseph stiglitz 
    

17. ★globalization and its discontents - joseph stiglitz
    

18. ★the mystery of capital: why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else - hernando de soto
    

19. ★gente de cervantes - juan lodares
    

20. ★the origin of language: tracing the evolution of the mother tongue - merritt ruhlen
    

 

books of elucidation

 

1. ★theory of religion - georges bataille
   

2. ★the tears of eros - georges bataille
   

3. ★accursed share, vol 1: consumption - georges bataille 
   

4. ★a thousand years of non-linear history - manuel de landa
   

5. ★the expressiveness of the body and the divergence of greek and chinese medicine - shigehisa kuriyama 
   

6. ★machine beauty: elegance and the heart of technology - david gelernter
   

7. ★colonialism and neocolonialism - jean paul sartre
   

8. ★ever since darwin: reflections in natural history - stephen jay gould
   

9. ★existentialism: from dostoevsky to sartre - walter kaufmann 
   

 

books of fiction and narration 

 

1. ★cuentos del ecuador - jorge anhalzer
   

2. ★difficult loves - italo calvino
   

3. ★cosmicomics - italo calvino
   

4. ★persepolis - marjane satrapi
   

5. ★motorcycle diaries: notes on a latin american journey - ernesto “che” guevara
   

6. ★roominghouse madrigals - charles bukowsky
   

7. ★the melancholy death of oyster boy and other stories - tim burton
   

8. ★the gashlycrumb tinies - edward gorey
   

9. ★the hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy - douglas adams