Not one for making listicles but you can only stray so far from the Buzzfeed path before getting dragged back — crying, and flailing — to the dark side. Here are some of the books I read during those tumultuous times, not including books I picked up prior, in no particular order:

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

• Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, Ian Buruma

Politics & Government

• Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, Jason Burke

• Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions, John Gray

• Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond, Robert D. Kaplan

Sociology

• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid

History

Americas

• Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, Robert D. Kaplan

Europe

• Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943, Antony Beevor

East Asia

• A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture, Ian Buruma

• The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan, Ian Buruma

India

• May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India, Elisabeth Bumiller

Travel

Asia

• God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey, Ian Buruma

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

• A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

World Literature

• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano. Get the one translated by Natasha Wimmer

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Books

• The Swimming-Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst

Short Stories & Anthologies

• The Acid House, Irvine Welsh

• Foreign Land: A Novel, Jonathan Raban

Humanities

• One Palestine, Complete, Tom Segev

Research

Investigative Reporting & Journalism

• Cocaine Train: Tracing My Bloodline Through Colombia, Stephen Smith

Business & Money

Industries

• Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency, Michael T. Klare

Investing

• Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives, Satyajit Das

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

• Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, Bill Bryson

Movies

• Danse Macabre, Stephen King