If you are like me, you must read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I have always been a seeker—not the calm and peaceful type, but the restless, anxious, nervous, tragic type. And sometimes, I have been a “founder.” But not because all the restlessness, sleepless nights, and never-ending hours spent in trepidation did much to help….
To explain why I loved Honor by Elif Shafak, I should dwell a bit on my background. Being born in a Soviet-style communist country was far from a blessing but had its advantages. For one, women were encouraged to have an education and a job, the same as men, at least in the large urban…
I used to have this postcard on my desk in the office. It read, “Mindfulness is a source of happiness.” I found it on one of my business trips to Munich. After lunch, I left the cafeteria and rushed into meetings. It caught my attention and made me stop for a second from my “gold rush.”…
When I was little, my parents had a wallpaper depicting this lovely beach with azure water, white sand, and palm trees. My favorite game was imagining that I was there, on that beach. Years later, my dreams came true, and I actually got on that beach (okay, maybe not that exact one, but pretty close…
One of my favorite contemporary writers is the Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I stumbled upon her last summer when I read in a flight magazine about her highly acclaimed “Americanah.” This is how I discovered the author and her other book, Half of a Yellow Sun. Since then, I have read everything Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…