The 52 Book Café
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. Share your ideas.
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.
I. How to Be Human
Goodness, the Other, and the Human Life
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?
Week 1 — 1–7 September 2026
1. Iris Murdoch — The Sovereignty of Good
Can becoming a better person begin simply by learning to see reality—and other people—more truthfully?
Week 2 — 8–14 September 2026
2. Martin Buber — I and Thou
What changes when we stop treating another person as an object and begin to encounter them as a genuine "Thou"?
Week 3 — 15–21 September 2026
3. Emmanuel Levinas — Ethics and Infinity
Are we responsible for another person before we have even chosen to be?
Week 4 — 22–28 September 2026
4. Simone Weil — Gravity and Grace
What if truly paying attention were one of the deepest forms of love?
Week 5 — 29 September–5 October 2026
5. Josef Pieper — Leisure: The Basis of Culture
Have we become so busy producing that we have forgotten how to simply be?
Week 6 — 6–12 October 2026
6. Charles Taylor — The Ethics of Authenticity
What does it really mean to "be yourself"?
II. The human being in society
Work, Technology, and the World We Have Built
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?
Week 7 — 13–19 October 2026
7. Hannah Arendt — The Human Condition
What happens when work and productivity become more important than reflection and shared life?
Week 8 — 20–26 October 2026
8. Martin Heidegger — The Question Concerning Technology
Do we control technology—or does it change the way we see the world and ourselves?
Week 9 — 27 October–2 November 2026
9. Byung-Chul Han — The Burnout Society
What if the person exploiting you is no longer your boss—but yourself?
Week 10 — 3–9 November 2026
10. Mark Fisher — Capitalist Realism
Can we still imagine a world fundamentally different from the one we live in?
III. Power, Image, and Systems
Seeing What Usually Remains Invisible
Images, institutions, language, and culture shape what we believe to be natural. What stories are we living inside without even realizing it?
Week 11 — 10–16 November 2026
11. Walter Benjamin — Illuminations
What do we lose—and gain—when art and culture can be endlessly reproduced?
Week 12 — 17–23 November 2026
12. Roland Barthes — Mythologies
Which ideas seem "natural" only because we have been taught not to question them?
Week 13 — 24–30 November 2026
13. Michel Foucault — Discipline and Punish
How does power shape us most effectively when we no longer notice that it is there?
Week 14 — 1–7 December 2026
14. Theodor W. Adorno — Minima Moralia
How do we live a good life when the world itself often makes goodness difficult?
Week 15 — 8–14 December 2026
15. Gilles Deleuze — Negotiations
What if freedom is not about discovering who you are—but continually becoming?
Week 16 — 15–21 December 2026
16. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari — What Is Philosophy?
Is philosophy about finding answers—or creating new ways of thinking?
IV. Living your own life
Listening for Your Own Voice
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?
Week 17 — 22–28 December 2026
17. Rainer Maria Rilke — Letters to a Young Poet
What if you do not need to solve your biggest questions yet—but simply learn to live with them?
Week 18 — 29 December 2026–4 January 2027
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?
Week 19 — 5–11 January 2027
19. David Whyte — The Three Marriages
What relationships deserve your deepest commitment?
Week 20 — 12–18 January 2027
20. Oliver Burkeman — Four Thousand Weeks
If you cannot do everything, how do you decide what is truly worth doing?
Week 21 — 19–25 January 2027
21. Pico Iyer — The Art of Stillness
What might you discover if you stopped moving long enough to notice where you are?
Week 22 — 26 January–1 February 2027
22. Katherine May — Wintering
What if difficult seasons are not failures—but necessary parts of life?
Week 23 — 2–8 February 2027
23. Leo Tolstoy — The Death of Ivan Ilyich
What if it takes confronting death to realize that you have not yet truly lived?
Week 24 — 9–15 February 2027
24. Matt Haig — The Midnight Library
Would another life really have made you happier?
V. Meaning
When Life Becomes Difficult
There are moments when life cannot be fixed or controlled. What remains possible when suffering enters the story?
Week 25 — 16–22 February 2027
25. Paul Kalanithi — When Breath Becomes Air
How do you live meaningfully when the future you imagined is suddenly no longer available?
Week 26 — 23 February–1 March 2027
26. Etty Hillesum — An Interrupted Life
Can we preserve our humanity when the world around us becomes inhuman?
Week 27 — 2–8 March 2027
27. George Saunders — Lincoln in the Bardo
What happens when grief refuses to let us move forward?
VI. The courage to live
Choosing Life Again
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?
Week 28 — 9–15 March 2027
28. Rachel Joyce — The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Can one small decision change the direction of an entire life?
Week 29 — 16–22 March 2027
29. L.M. Montgomery — The Blue Castle
What would you do differently if you stopped living according to other people's expectations?
Week 30 — 23–29 March 2027
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?
Week 31 — 30 March–5 April 2027
31. Susanna Clarke — Piranesi
How do you know who you are when memory and reality can no longer be trusted?
Week 32 — 6–12 April 2027
32. Lois Lowry — The Giver
Would a painless society be worth the price of giving up freedom and feeling?
VII. Goodness, compassion, and light
What We Give to One Another
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?
Week 33 — 13–19 April 2027
33. Henri Nouwen — The Return of the Prodigal Son
Can we become not only someone who needs forgiveness, but someone capable of giving it?
Week 34 — 20–26 April 2027
34. Frederick Buechner — Telling Secrets
What happens when we finally tell the truth about the stories that shaped us?
Week 35 — 27 April–3 May 2027
35. Marilynne Robinson — Gilead
Can an ordinary life become extraordinary through attention and love?
Week 36 — 4–10 May 2027
36. Claire Keegan — Small Things Like These
What responsibility do we have when we see something wrong?
VIII. Ordinary life that turns out to be extraodinary
The Beauty of Paying Attention
Not every meaningful life has a dramatic plot. What if the extraordinary has been hiding inside ordinary life all along?
Week 37 — 11–17 May 2027
37. James Herriot — All Creatures Great and Small
Can a meaningful life be built through daily work, care, humour, and connection?
Week 38 — 18–24 May 2027
38. Tove Jansson — The Summer Book
What can we learn from the moments we usually think are too ordinary to remember?
Week 39 — 25–31 May 2027
39. Kent Haruf — Plainsong
What can happen when people simply begin to show up for one another?
Week 40 — 1–7 June 2027
40. Ann Patchett — Tom Lake
How do the stories we tell about our past change over time?
Week 41 — 8–14 June 2027
41. Elizabeth Strout — Olive Kitteridge
Can we ever fully understand another person—or ourselves?
IX. Small acts of heroism
You Do Not Have to Be Extraordinary to Matter
Heroes are not always extraordinary people. Sometimes they simply choose kindness, courage, or persistence. Could an ordinary person change someone's world?
Week 42 — 15–21 June 2027
42. Winston Groom — Forrest Gump
What if wisdom does not always come from being the smartest person in the room?
Week 43 — 22–28 June 2027
43. R.J. Palacio — Wonder
What would change if we chose to see the world from another person's side?
Week 44 — 29 June–5 July 2027
44. Shelby Van Pelt — Remarkably Bright Creatures
Can unexpected connections help us rediscover parts of ourselves we thought were lost?
Week 45 — 6–12 July 2027
45. Amor Towles — A Gentleman in Moscow
How much freedom can a person preserve when almost everything else has been taken away?
Week 46 — 13–19 July 2027
46. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — Wind, Sand and Stars
What do we discover about ourselves when we move beyond comfort?
X. Memory, history, and light in the darkness
What We Carry Forward
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?
Week 47 — 20–26 July 2027
47. Markus Zusak — The Book Thief
Can words save us—and can they also destroy us?
Week 48 — 27 July–2 August 2027
48. Khaled Hosseini — The Kite Runner
What does redemption require from us?
Week 49 — 3–9 August 2027
49. John Steinbeck — East of Eden
Are we defined by what we inherit—or can we always choose differently?
XI. Voice, writing, and story
Who Gets to Speak?
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?
Week 50 — 10–16 August 2027
50. Hélène Cixous — Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing
What must we be willing to risk in order to write something truly alive?
Week 51 — 17–23 August 2027
51. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak — Can the Subaltern Speak?
Is it possible to speak for another person without speaking over them?
Week 52 — 24–30 August 2027
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?
