Bridging worlds

An annotated reading of the books I finished in April 2026.

Books Read in April 2026

  1. War and Peace
  2. Debt
  3. Unreasonable Hospitality
  4. Between Two Kingdoms
  5. Incognito

Many ways to record history

Tolstoy’s War and Peace masterfully demarcates between nuanced viewpoints in the history surrounding the Napoleonic Wars. Told through a historical fiction lens, Tolstoy manages to build a true-to-life world in which change (i.e., destruction and reconstitution) feels inevitable and in which no individual is unaffected. Weaving French and Russian culture into the tapestry of the story’s character arcs, War and Peace delivers a (truly dense) one-of-a-kind novel that encapsulates with stunning detail what it was like to live in both cultures at a time of great international conflict.

Reinterpreting economics through a personal lens

In Debt, David Graeber managed to condense 5,000 years of economic history into a single conceptual framework: “Understand debt and what drives it, and you’ll understand much of human history”. One detour that Graeber interestingly takes is viewing patriarchy as an important underlying current in ancient (and modern) debt repayment strategies. Also intriguingly, Graeber finds that the frequent occurrence of the term “debt” in many ancient religious texts may have accelerated adoption of debt in economic circles as well. Put simply, Debt offers a useful framework for better understanding human behavior over long time frames.

Food is more than nutrition

Unreasonable Hospitality offers readers a inside scoop on what drives innovation in the hospitality industry. Viewing restaurants as temporary retreats from everyday life, author and restaurateur Will Guidara guides readers through his personal journey through the industry, from humble beginnings washing dishes to leading staff members to win a James Beard award for oustanding service. This book is a great fit for those looking to rekindle your passion for creative endeavors, using the hospitality industry as a jumping-off point.

Finding yourself through unending change

On mortality and its reflections, Between Two Kingdoms chronicles a personal tale like none other. Early-career cancer diagnoses, broken relationships, and lack of clarity on self-worth culminate in several dark periods in the life of author Suleika Jaouad. Some points on this timeline intersect with modern cultural icons like I wouldn’t have expected. Others resonate below the surface level as the author attempts to answer the question, “Who am I, and for what reason should I keep on fighting back unrelenting disease?”.

Reading the cognitive subtext

David Eagleman sets the stage for discovery when he presents the duality between conscious and unconscious behavior in Incognito. In a spirit echoing the work of Daniel Kahneman, Eagleman questions what percentage of our daily actions are the result of unconscious (and therefore hard-to-modify) cognitive processes informed by our genetics, upbringing, and environment. The answer is, unsurprisingly, complex, but this work leaves the reader with a sense of awe at how many influences the human brain contends with and ultimately synthesizes to make decisions in everyday actions.

Alex