The goal for this part of my website is to have a list of my current library. One of my life goals is having a home where the library is the heart of it. I love collecting books across many topics, I think it keeps one humble. I'm also a huge fan of Umberto Eco's concept of the antilibrary: a collection of unread books one keeps or collects. In that spirit, the list won't be divided into neat categories. I find that boring. Instead, I'll highlight the books that made a strong impression on me, those I'd recommend to others.
This is my ever-growing library. One day I'll own hundreds of books, for now i'll settle for 54.
Literary Fiction
- Song of Solomon — Toni Morrison
- Beloved — Toni Morrison
- The Winter of Our Discontent — John Steinbeck
- The Days of Abandonment — Elena Ferrante
- The Lying Life of Adults — Elena Ferrante
- A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
- The Sun Also Rises — Ernest Hemingway
- The Unvanquished — William Faulkner
- Swan's Way — Marcel Proust
- The Mind-Body Problem — Rebecca Goldstein
- The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath
- Normal People — Sally Rooney
- The God of Small Things — Arundhati Roy
- The Alley Cat — Yves Beauchemin
- Gifts — Nuruddin Farah
- To the Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf
- Birthright — Nora Roberts
- The Autumn of the Patriarch — Gabriel García Márquez
Arabic Literature
- معزوفة اليوم السابع — جلال برجس
- ثلاثية غرناطة — رضوى عاشور
- اجبر هذا الأمل إن استطعت — نجوان درويش
- أحببتك أكثر مما ينبغي — عبير
- The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction — ed. Denys Johnson-Davies
Speculative Fiction & Fantasy
- The Satanic Verses — Salman Rushdie
- The Dispossessed — Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Priory of the Orange Tree — Samantha Shannon
- Dream Fever — Karen Marie Moning
Poetry
- Blue Horses — Mary Oliver
- The Butterfly's Burden — Mahmoud Darwish
- Love Poems — Pablo Neruda
- Selected Poems — W.H. Auden
- The Flame — Leonard Cohen
- The Inferno — Dante Alighieri
- A Midsummer Night's Dream — William Shakespeare
Philosophy
- Oneself as Another — Paul Ricœur
History & Politics
- The Scramble for Africa — Thomas Pakenham
- Dead Aid — Dambisa Moyo
- A Farewell to Alms — Gregory Clark
- Public Policy in Canada: An Introduction — Michael Howlett et al.
- Eve Bites Back — Anna Beer
Self-Help & Psychology
- The Charisma Myth — Olivia Fox Cabane
- How to Become a Straight-A Student — Cal Newport
- The Mindful Way Through Depression — Mark Williams et al.
Writing, Language & Reference
- The Elements of Style — William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
- Statistics as Principled Argument — Robert P. Abelson
- The Art of Description — Mark Doty
- Cooking as Courtship — Susan Weingand
- Kiss and Tell: A Trivial Study of Smooching — Kevin Dwyer
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- Colloquial Somali
- English-Somali Dictionary
- Somali Textbook
- A Field Guide to DTK's Art Walk
Last updated: January 2026