In case you are looking for a novel to enjoy with a nice cup of tea, a book that will give you a new perspective on life and existence, or simply some scientific and philosophical resources, you can find here some of the books and essays that I have read and that I would recommend. This list is a project under construction, and will surely get longer as I advance in life. There are definitely many important works which deserve to be here but are not, because I have not read them yet. Following conventions, titles of books are in italic and “titles of essays are in quotations”.

If you read any of these works and wish to discuss them, feel free to contact me, we’ll surely have a great conversation! :)

 

Literature

Classics

  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment
  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Idiot
  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Demons (The Possessed)
  • Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina
  • Tolstoy, Leo, How Much Land Does a Man Need?
  • Proust, Marcel, La confession d’une jeune fille
  • Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre
  • Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights
  • Eliot, George, Middlemarch
  • Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice
  • Forster, E.M., A Room with a View
  • Zola, Emile, Germinal
  • Balzac, Honoré (de), Eugénie Grandet
  • Balzac, Honoré (de), Le Père Goriot
  • Thoreau, Henry David, Walden

Modern Classics

  • Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters
  • Lewis, C.S., The Pilgrim’s Regress
  • Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse
  • Woolf, Virginia, The Waves
  • Lee, Harper, To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Orwell, George, 1984
  • Orwell, George, Animal Farm
  • Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
  • Williams, John, Stoner
  • Bradbury, Ray, Fahrenheit 451
  • Kazantzakis, Nikos, Zorba the Greek (Alexis Zorba)
  • Sagan, Françoise, Bonjour tristesse
  • Drabble, Margaret, Jerusalem the Golden

Contemporary

  • Yasmina Khadra, Les hirondelles de Kaboul (Swallows of Kabul)
  • Tartt, Donna, The Secret History
  • Hosseini, Khaled, The Kite Runner
  • Hosseini, Khaled, A Thousand Splendid Suns
  • Chbosky, Stephen, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
  • Doerr, Anthony, All the Light We Cannot See
  • Maalouf, Amin, Samarcande (Samarkand)

Poetry

  • Eliot, T.S., Four Quartets
  • Eliot, T.S., The Waste Land
  • Tagore, Rabindranath, Gitanjali
  • Brontë, Emily, The Night is Darkening Round Me

Theatre

  • Eliot, T.S., The Cocktail Party
  • Chekhov, Anton, The Seagull
  • Chekhov, Anton, Platonov

Literary Criticism

  • Calvino, Italo, Why Read the Classics
  • Orwell, George, “Politics and the English Language”
  • Orwell, George, “Why I Write”

 

Humanities

Classical Philosophy

  • Plato, The Symposium
  • Plato, The Republic
  • Plato, The Apology of Socrates
  • Epictetus, Enchiridion (The Handbook of Epictetus)

Ethics

  • Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Traité des devoirs (On Duties)
  • Breck, John & Lynn, Stages on Life’s Way: Orthodox Thinking on Bioethics
  • Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters

Culture & Society

  • Lewis, C.S., “The Necessity of Chivalry” (in English) (en français)
  • Orwell, George, “Notes on Nationalism”
  • Orwell, George, “The Limit to Pessimism”
  • Schiller, Friedreich, On the Aesthetic Education of Man
  • Ilouz, Eva, La fin de l’amour
  • Braunstein, Jean-François, La religion Woke
  • Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

History

  • Saint Gregory of Tours, Histoire des Francs
  • Varoufakis, Yanis, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism
  • Durant, Will & Ariel, The Lessons of History
  • Kishtainy, Niall, A Little History of Economics
  • Runciman, (Sir) Steven, The Eastern Schism (Le schisme d’Orient)

 

Sciences

Statistics, Probability & Machine Learning

Textbooks

  • Vapnik, V., The Nature of Statistical Learning Theory
  • Vovk, V., Algorithmic Learning in a Random World
  • Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Friedman, J., The Elements of Statistical Learning
  • Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A., Deep Learning
  • Escofier, Brigitte, & Pagès, Jérome, Analyses factorielles simples et multiples
  • Angrist, J.D., & Pischke, J-S., Mostly Harmless Econometrics

Papers

  • Breiman, L. (2001). Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures, Statistical Science, 16(3), 199-215.
  • Ramsey, Frank P., “Truth and Probability”
  • Hullermeier, E., & Waegeman, W., Aleatoric and Epistemic Uncertainty in Machine Learning: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods, Machine Learning, DOI:10.1007/s10994-021-05946-3.
  • Vovk, V. (2013). Conditional Validity of Inductive Conformal Predictors, Machine Learning.
  • Angelopoulos, A., & Bates, S. (2023). Conformal Prediction: A Gentle Introduction, Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, DOI:10.1561/2200000101.

Philosophy of Science

  • Hamming, Richard W., The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
  • Von Hayek, Friedrich, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”
  • Von Hayek, Friedrich, “Scientism and the Study of Society”
  • Lewis, C.S., “Religion and Science”

Popularised Science

  • Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, Fooled by Randomness
  • Singh, Simon, Fermat’s Last Theorem
  • Livio, Mario, Is God a Mathematician?

 

Theology

Patristics

  • Unknown, The Didache
  • Saint Clement of Rome, Épître aux Corinthiens (SC 167)
  • Saint John Chrysostom, No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Harm Himself
  • Romanides, (Fr.) John, Patristic Theology
  • Vlachos, (Met.) Hierotheos, The Mind of the Orthodox Church
  • Meyendorff, (Fr.) Jean, Initiation à la théologie byzantine

Theology & Philosophy

  • Saint Basil the Great, Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature
  • Rose, (Fr.) Seraphim, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age
  • Larchet, Jean-Claude, Les fondements spirituels de la crise écologique

Spiritual Life

  • Bloom, (Met.) Anthony, God and Man
  • Bloom, (Met.) Anthony, Courage to Pray (La Prière)
  • Bloom, (Met.) Anthony, Les étapes de la vie spirituelle
  • Rose, (Fr.) Seraphim, God’s Revelation to the Human Heart
  • Schmemann, (Fr.) Alexander, For the Life of the World
  • Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnika, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives
  • Vlad, (Mother) Silouana, Ma première véritable rencontre avec le Christ… au coeur de mon enfer

Contemporary Accounts

  • Vlachos, (Met.) Hierotheos, I Know a Man in Christ
  • Vlachos, (Met.) Hierotheos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain
  • Christensen, (Hier.) Damascene, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works
  • Markides, Kyriacos C., The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality
  • Joannidis, Klitos, Elder Porphyrios: Testimonies and Experiences