What's On My Reading List

I read books in spurts. Sometimes it takes me two days to read a book. Other times, it takes me a month. You may have noticed that I keep a running tally of recent books I've read on the column to your right.

Here are books that I plan to read. Incidentally, I usually get my recommendations from the Sunday New York Times book review, The Economist book review, and Fresh Air interviews.

On my nightstand right now waiting to be read:

• Sven Hedin's Silk Road (Epic 10,000 mile journey in the 1930s)
• Ted Conover's Coyotes (How illegal migrants cross into America)
• Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down (Novel set in WWII Europe)

Books in my Amazon queue:

Central Asia

• Out of Steppe: The Lost Peoples of Central Asia
• Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang
• Kashgar: Oasis City on China's Silk Road
• Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China (Biography of Rebiya Kadeer, Uyghur leader)
• Adventure on the Old Silk Road: From Venice to the Yellow Sea
• Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide
• The Great Gamble: The Soviet War In Afghanistan
• Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

History

• The Dutch Seaborne Empire: 1600-1800
• The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia
• The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold
• The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe

Cars

• Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile
• The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today

Food

• The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food-- Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal

Social Science

• Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture
• Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex
• Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
• Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities
• Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left
• Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Miscellaneous

• American on Purpose: The Improbably Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot (Craig Ferguson's memoir)