Lisa Ling's Reading List

Lisa Ling is an American journalist and television presenter. She currently hosts the CNN series This is Life with Lisa Ling. She was the host of National Geographic Explorer, and has contributed to ABC's The View and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is the author of the book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home.

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Favorite books (2023)

Favorite books recommended by Lisa Ling, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/lisa-ling-favorite-books/.

Source: radicalreads.com

A People’s History of the United States

Howard Zinn (also rec’d by RATM ) · Buy on Amazon

"The book that made me question everything and propelled me to demand to know the truth. Zinn’s exhaustive account is an accurate telling of our nation’s brutal history of oppression. It is not the history of our school textbooks."

The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan (also rec’d by Kamala Harris ) · Buy on Amazon

"This emotional journey compelled me to want to understand the past of my own Taiwanese mother better. It is the story of four Chinese American women in San Francisco and how their mothers’ struggles in the Chinese homeland made them who they were. It is a highly emotional and exceptionally beautiful story."

Midnight’s Children

Salman Rushdie (also rec’d by Daniel Radcliffe & Deepak Chopra ) · Buy on Amazon

"Rushdie combines historical reality and mythical fiction to deliver a magnificent and magical account of India’s transition to independence and partition. It tells the story of a young man born along with hundreds of others at the very moment India becomes independent and through these new lives come hopes, dreams, curses and complication."

We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

Philip Gourevitch (also rec’d by Ben Affleck & Mia Farrow ) · Buy on Amazon

"If you want to know why the genocide in Rwanda happened in 1994, this is a must-read. This meticulously account is told from both the Hutu and Tutsi perspectives and is impressively comprehensive. It is so well told, in fact, that I felt like I was there experiencing the horror with my own eyes."

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho (also rec’d by LeBron James , Malala Yousafzai , Neil Patrick Harris & Uzo Aduba ) · Buy on Amazon

"So often we feel the need to travel far to find treasure—that’s what the shepherd boy protagonist, Santiago, in The Alchemist , believes he needs to do. After an exhaustive, yet richly colorful journey, he finds that the greatest treasure can be found inside. This simple little book contains hugely profound meaning."

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