Bookcafé
52 books. One year.
Every year, Transformation Storytelling Lab creates a curated reading list. For the coming year, we explore 52 books. We begin with one big question: What does it mean to be human? And then we follow where the question leads us. From Iris Murdoch to the question of goodness. From Martin Buber to the encounter with another person.
Download the reading list. Choose a book. Follow the questions. Read in your own language.
THE READING LIST
A year of books, organised around the questions that matter
This is not a list of books you have to read. It is a reading map. The books are organised into different paths and themes. You can follow the full reading journey throughout the year — or simply choose the book that speaks to you. Our library offers several different paths to explore.
You don't have to read English to participate.
Read in your own language.
I. How to Be Human
Before we ask what to achieve or become, we begin with something more fundamental: how do we become human—and how do we learn to live well with others?
1. Iris Murdoch — The Sovereignty of Good / De soevereiniteit van het goede
Can becoming a better person begin simply by learning to see reality—and other people—more truthfully?
2. Martin Buber — I and Thou / Ik en Jij
What changes when we stop treating another person as an object and begin to encounter them as a genuine "Thou"?
3. Emmanuel Levinas — Ethics and Infinity / Ethiek en oneindigheid
Are we responsible for another person before we have even chosen to be?
4. Simone Weil — Gravity and Grace / Zwaarte en genade
What if truly paying attention were one of the deepest forms of love?
5. Josef Pieper — Leisure: The Basis of Culture / Vrije tijd als grondslag van de cultuur
Have we become so busy producing that we have forgotten how to simply be?
6. Charles Taylor — The Ethics of Authenticity / De malaise van de moderniteit
What does it really mean to "be yourself"?
II. The human being in society
We are shaped not only by our personal choices, but also by the society, technology, and systems around us. Are we building our world—or is our world quietly building us?
7. Hannah Arendt — The Human Condition / De menselijke conditie
What happens when work and productivity become more important than reflection and shared life?
8. Martin Heidegger — The Question Concerning Technology / De vraag naar de techniek
Do we control technology—or does it change the way we see the world and ourselves?
9. Byung-Chul Han — The Burnout Society / De vermoeide samenleving
What if the person exploiting you is no longer your boss—but yourself?
10. Mark Fisher — Capitalist Realism / Kapitalistisch realisme: is er geen alternatief?
Can we still imagine a world fundamentally different from the one we live in?
III. Power, Image, and Systems
Images, institutions, language, and culture shape what we believe to be natural. What stories are we living inside without even realizing it?
11. Walter Benjamin — Illuminations / Illuminations
What do we lose—and gain—when art and culture can be endlessly reproduced?
12. Roland Barthes — Mythologies / Mythologieën
Which ideas seem "natural" only because we have been taught not to question them?
13. Michel Foucault — Discipline and Punish / Discipline, toezicht en straf: de geboorte van de gevangenis
How does power shape us most effectively when we no longer notice that it is there?
14. Theodor W. Adorno — Minima Moralia / Minima Moralia: reflecties uit het beschadigde leven
How do we live a good life when the world itself often makes goodness difficult?
15. Gilles Deleuze — Negotiations / Negotiations
What if freedom is not about discovering who you are—but continually becoming?
16. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari — What Is Philosophy? / Wat is filosofie?
Is philosophy about finding answers—or creating new ways of thinking?
IV. Living your own life
After looking at the world around us, we turn inward. Is this really my life—and what would it mean to live it more fully?
17. Rainer Maria Rilke — Letters to a Young Poet / Brieven aan een jonge dichter
What if you do not need to solve your biggest questions yet—but simply learn to live with them?
18. Parker J. Palmer — Let Your Life Speak
What if you stopped forcing your life into a plan and started listening to what it is trying to tell you?
19. David Whyte — The Three Marriages
What relationships deserve your deepest commitment?
20. Oliver Burkeman — Four Thousand Weeks / 4000 weken
If you cannot do everything, how do you decide what is truly worth doing?
21. Pico Iyer — The Art of Stillness
What might you discover if you stopped moving long enough to notice where you are?
22. Katherine May — Wintering / Winteren
What if difficult seasons are not failures—but necessary parts of life?
23. Leo Tolstoy — The Death of Ivan Ilyich / De dood van Ivan Iljitsj
What if it takes confronting death to realize that you have not yet truly lived?
24. Matt Haig — The Midnight Library / Middernachtbibliotheek
Would another life really have made you happier?
V. Meaning
There are moments when life cannot be fixed or controlled. What remains possible when suffering enters the story?
25. Paul Kalanithi — When Breath Becomes Air / Als adem lucht wordt
How do you live meaningfully when the future you imagined is suddenly no longer available?
26. Etty Hillesum — An Interrupted Life / Het verstoorde leven
Can we preserve our humanity when the world around us becomes inhuman?
27. George Saunders — Lincoln in the Bardo / Lincoln in de bardo
What happens when grief refuses to let us move forward?
VI. The courage to live
Courage is not always dramatic. Sometimes it means taking one more step, beginning again, or choosing a different life. What would happen if you dared to move?
28. Rachel Joyce — The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry / De onwaarschijnlijke reis van Harold Fry
Can one small decision change the direction of an entire life?
29. L.M. Montgomery — The Blue Castle
What would you do differently if you stopped living according to other people's expectations?
30. Becky Chambers — A Psalm for the Wild-Built
If you did not have to prove your usefulness, what would make your life worth living?
31. Susanna Clarke — Piranesi
How do you know who you are when memory and reality can no longer be trusted?
32. Lois Lowry — The Giver
Would a painless society be worth the price of giving up freedom and feeling?
VII. Goodness, compassion, and light
Goodness is often quiet. It appears in forgiveness, honesty, attention, and the decision not to look away. How can one person bring more light into another person's life?
33. Henri Nouwen — The Return of the Prodigal Son / Eindelijk thuis
Can we become not only someone who needs forgiveness, but someone capable of giving it?
34. Frederick Buechner — Telling Secrets
What happens when we finally tell the truth about the stories that shaped us?
35. Marilynne Robinson — Gilead
Can an ordinary life become extraordinary through attention and love?
36. Claire Keegan — Small Things Like These / Dit soort kleinigheden
What responsibility do we have when we see something wrong?
VIII. Ordinary life that turns out to be extraodinary
Not every meaningful life has a dramatic plot. What if the extraordinary has been hiding inside ordinary life all along?
37. James Herriot — All Creatures Great and Small / Alle schepselen groot en klein
Can a meaningful life be built through daily work, care, humour, and connection?
38. Tove Jansson — The Summer Book / Het zomerboek
What can we learn from the moments we usually think are too ordinary to remember?
39. Kent Haruf — Plainsong
What can happen when people simply begin to show up for one another?
40. Ann Patchett — Tom Lake
How do the stories we tell about our past change over time?
41. Elizabeth Strout — Olive Kitteridge
Can we ever fully understand another person—or ourselves?
IX. Small acts of heroism
Heroes are not always extraordinary people. Sometimes they simply choose kindness, courage, or persistence. Could an ordinary person change someone's world?
42. Winston Groom — Forrest Gump
What if wisdom does not always come from being the smartest person in the room?
43. R.J. Palacio — Wonder
What would change if we chose to see the world from another person's side?
44. Shelby Van Pelt — Remarkably Bright Creatures / Opmerkelijk slimme wezens
Can unexpected connections help us rediscover parts of ourselves we thought were lost?
45. Amor Towles — A Gentleman in Moscow / Een gentleman in Moskou
How much freedom can a person preserve when almost everything else has been taken away?
46. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — Wind, Sand and Stars / Wind, zand en sterren
What do we discover about ourselves when we move beyond comfort?
X. Memory, history, and light in the darkness
We inherit stories, memories, wounds, and history—but we are not only what came before us. How do we remember the darkness without allowing it to become the only story?
47. Markus Zusak — The Book Thief / De boekendief
Can words save us—and can they also destroy us?
48. Khaled Hosseini — The Kite Runner / De vliegeraar
What does redemption require from us?
49. John Steinbeck — East of Eden / Ten oosten van Eden
Are we defined by what we inherit—or can we always choose differently?
XI. Voice, writing, and story
The journey ends with the question of voice: who speaks, who is heard, who is silenced—and what happens when we find the courage to tell our own story?
50. Hélène Cixous — Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing
What must we be willing to risk in order to write something truly alive?
51. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak — Can the Subaltern Speak?
Is it possible to speak for another person without speaking over them?
52. Michael Oakeshott — The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind
What if human culture is not a search for one final truth, but an endless conversation between different voices?
