Books

Recommendations

I like recommending books to other people, and find that the best way to get good new recommendations is to find someone with overlapping tastes and then look for ones they like that I haven’t read yet. In that spirit, here are some books/authors I’ve enjoyed that I can recommend:

Sci-fi:

Anything by Asimov, anything by Douglas Adams (classics)
Anything by John Scalzi. “Lock In” if you want more gritty detective action, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” for something more absurd and funny, “old man’s war” for a good series
The Three Body Problem (dark forest trilogy) by Cixin Liu is excellent sci-fi from a different perspective, loved it
Seveneves by Neal Stevenson is great, as is lots of his other work
The Martian and its sequels are fun, by Andy Weir

Fantasy:

I like the Stormlight series from Brandon Sanderson.
Discworld series by Pratchett

Non-fiction:

The Righteous Mind: a fantastic book for understanding morality+religion. Can’t recommend this highly enough. If you skip the book at least read his paper “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail”.
Reality + by David Chalmers: philosophy of mind through a modern lens, great overview of lots of philosophy topics and an excellent defence of simulation realism
An Immense World by Ed Young, one of my favorite books. Animal senses and how their words differ from ours. Mind expanding.
The Seabird’s Cry. Poignant look at amazing creatures and how we’re changing their world, with a very poetic author.
I am a strange loop: Fun to see someone tackle an ambitious question for a second time (this is the same author as Godel, Escher, Bach). Be prepared for many long diversions and analogies as he tries to make his meaning unambiguous.

Others (WIP)

Here are a bunch of others I’ve read. As I read more I’m adding them to the top of this list, with mini-reviews. The bulk of the list is still just me trying to remember as many as possible, and should grow + become more orderly over time.

Playground (Richard Powers). I picked it for a weekend away specifically as a break from sci-fi/AI themes, turns out that features a little :) Fantastic writing though, sad in similar ways to ‘The Overstory’.
The Bobiverse series (Dennis E. Taylor, four books, beginning with ‘We are Legion, We Are Bob’). Great fun sci-fi, with lots of food for thought. I’m amused how much myself and a number of my friends found appeal in the main character’s situation: exploring the universe with a number of near-clones of yourself, advancing technology and doing side-quests, with all the time in the world to think and tinker.
Stories of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang). Lovely! Extremely well-written (especially after the last book haha) and thought-provoking. Glad to have discovered a new author I really like.
The Last Ringbearer. I recently found Julian Schrittwieser’s read page which had enough overlap with mine that I’m going to read the ones I haven’t yet. This one was a fun take on the Lord of the Rings universe from the other side. Maybe I got a bad translation, but the writing was clumsy although I enjoyed the idea enough to persevere until I could see how it would end.
Ringworld (Larry Niven). Corny old sci-fi - some fun concepts mixed with amusing bits that date it, like the futuristic holograms flickering due to worn tape. A little free library find.
Use of Weapons. 3’rd cuture series novel, a little darker.
The Player Of Games (Iain Banks). The second ‘Culture’ novel. Interesting, definitely gets you thinking and comparing both conflicting societies in the book with current ones today and potential future visions being peddled.
Consider Phlebas (Iain Banks). ‘The Culture’ referenced in Dario’s essay or related, a human+machine society. Less central to the book than expected, but fun to see. This author is not kind to his characters though, the universe he paints can be brutal. I’m moving onto the next in the series but not sure 10 of these will be great for my general happiness.
Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom (Cory Doctorow). I’m starting a jag looking at future as seen by scifi re: post-agi / post-scarcity civilization. This was a good one, impressive for (afaik) his first fiction work.
Unruly (David Mitchell, audiobook). Several very different friends were reading this. I have virtually no interest in British history but David Mitchell managed to make it vaguely interesting and funny at times (although there are too many Edwards, I skipped a bunch and often had trouble focusing despite his good writing).
Genius (a Richard Feynman biography). “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman” made a big impact on me growing up. This book is a more general look at Physics and a more general look at Feynman. Interesting, long.
The Death of a Lawer. A deeply touching book by someone I know and love. This fictional story captures so much that is real about living in Zimbabwe. The main character comes to grips with being too small and nice for history to notice, and yet shows so well the virtues of wisdom, courage, justice and moderation his grandfather taught him.
Cryptonomicon. I like Neal Stevenson, and this was a fun one. Long though - some books are ‘events’, this was a ‘period of my life’ - I read it on and off over about a month I think. Helped me bond with an uncle-in-law :)
Ultra-Processed People. Summary: ultra-processed food = bad. Interesting idea, a bit verbose for my taste. I appreciate the author did all that research, but didn’t feel the need to read about every bit of it. Still, glad I at least skimmed it as a reminder to eat real food where possible.
‘Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson’ (pg)
The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. Delightful
Altered Carbon. Another one I’ve heard lots about, but I didn’t enjoy it - very dark and depressing, although gripping. I don’t even know who recommended it so can’t cast blame or avoid in future haha.
‘Red Rising’ and ‘Who Are We Now’ both abandoned early, I need to filter my book recs better
Going Infinite. Michael Lewis’ SBF/FTX book. Interesting look at the craziness. Such a forein and weird world to me.
Already free: a dialog between psychotherapy and Buddhism, showing the value in both approaches without attempting to reconcile them.
The Diamond Age: Read primarily to see what all the references to ‘the young lady’s illustrated primer’ were about. I enjoy Stevenson although this was a little grim as they often are.
Children of Ruin (#2 in series). Another different view of what an (octopus) society could be, with a good scary threat to deal with. But less enguaging than the first one for me. Ditto ‘Children of Memory’ (#3) although I did like the corvid take on sentience :)
Children of Time. Keeps getting recommended to me since I like Jumping Spiders. Glad I got around to it - excellent exploration of a different tech-tree from a non-human POV. Sad view of humanity haha.
Birding without borders (Noah Strycker) - Account of an amazing achievement. Around the world, 6k birds for $60k. What a way to spend a year! Gives you a little glimpse of the world and a large glimpse of birds and birders.
Dune. Since the movies are coming out. I noticed this read-through how much of the writing is dedicated to internal thoughts vs action.
The Overstory by Richard Powers. Touching, radicalizing, I see why people raved about it. Not my usual genre, made me a little sad, but good read and ideal for reading in bits while camping (which is how I read it).
Deep Utopia (Bostrom). He “writes engagingly but not concisely” as someone put it. An understatement! This book has some interesting ideas, but rather than reading the result of someone else thinking at length about this I recommend looking up a summary then sitting somewhere nice for a few hours and musing about the questions for yourself. I did not finish. Enjoyed the mini-stories though :)
Winds Twelve Quarters (Ursula K. Le Guin) - fantastic short stories, I really enjoy her work.
Fractal Noise - A ‘short story’ that is maybe longer than it needs to be, although in his defence he’d just written the Eragon series.
Lock In (John Scalzi) - Thrilling detective story in a fun world, both it and the sequel were fun to re-visit amid the online speculation re: Neuralink and the general AI discourse even though the main plot isn’t much focused on the tech.
What We Owe The Future. I finally read this after being a little frustrated with some longtermist takes. Annoyingly, Will is more reasonable than the loonies and the book was fairly interesting and well-written. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already been over the ideas a ton - if you’re less familiar with the ground it might be a good intro to this patch of philosophy and population ethics.
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons (Sam Kean). This author writes history very well - the parade of case-studies can get a little tiring but you do get sucked into the individual stories alongside a healthy dose of neuroscience (albeit not extremely deep technically).
At The Existentialist Cafe (Sarah Bakewell). TODO.
Old Man’s War (John Scalzi) A fun series, humanity in a ‘Starship Troopers’-like universe where you’re never quite sure if humans are really the baddies.
Going Zero (Anthony McCarten) Quick read, thanks to TITAA for the rec. Thriller, exploring surveillance and the dangers of power concentrated in the hands of SV elite types.
The Tao of Pooh. Great fun, worth a skim. The author has a very scathing view of scientists!
Determined (Robert Sapolsky). I enjoyed his course. The book is his ultimate debunk of the idea of free will, followed by an exploration of what that means in practice for how we should live. I enjoyed it but it’s snarkily written to the point of being off-putting for anyone not already on board with the idea - I don’t think this would be very useful for convincing someone to change their mind.
The Interdependency Trilogy (Scalzi). Future space civilizations, my least favourite of his. A few neat ideas, lots of inner thoughts of non-so-nice people.
The Kaiju Preservation society (Scalzi). A great read, very much in his style. Made me laugh out loud, which few authors manage. Also completely ridiculous but then this is Scalzi…
I Contain Multitudes (Ed Young). He writes really well. I was skeptical because ‘microbiome’ is so trendy, turns out this book started the craze and is a lot more measured and realistic than some subsequent hype. Hard not to get excited about bacteria after reading this :)
Klara and the Sun. Interesting book. Had me thinking a fair amount about how willing humans are to ascribe human-like intelligence and other qualities to very foreign things. See also: thinking jumping spiders are cute, pair-bonding with anything that has googley eyes. My family tried to turn this into a book club but stretched the discussion out too far. I did like his attempt to show Klara’s strange way of perceiving the world - how some things are, to her, obviously evil - much like my dog hates lawnmowers. Scary as we imagine future more competent yet foreign intelligences.
Entangled Life (Martin Sheldrake). Great read re: fungi, fun to get a picture of the author as your read through their work.
Strange Rites - New Religions for a Godless Age (author name). Fascinating dive into some contemporary ‘religions’, providing a useful lens for understanding a lot of things in the world today.
The Mistborn Trilogy (Brandon Sanderson). Not as good as his Stormlight series but I persevered. Worth a go if you’re fantasy-starved and like Sanderson.
Mindful Eating (Jan Chozen Bays). A reminder to slow down and savor things. A little weird and ‘extra’ but it’s their book, fair game.
Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer). A fascinating account of an interesting individual and his conflict with society. I’m always interested in anyone who refuses to walk the default path.
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho). I fondly remember a teacher read this to us in junior school. Manifest destiny and all that - interesting to think about, and seemingly fairly popular, but easy to take too far.
“Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending” (Elizabeth Dunn, Michael Norton). Fun in a Freakonomics-wannabe sort of way. Take the book’s own recommendation to buy time by skipping reading it and instead just ask ChatGPT to summarize the key actionable ideas.
“All That the Rain Promises and More” (David Arora). A highly entertaining field guide for mushrooms, sprinkled with fantastic anecdotes and tasting notes. Mandatory for trips around Oregon!
DUNE (Frank Herbert) and sequels. Interesting and genre-defining in some ways. The sequels got a little too weird for me.
“The End of the World Is Just the Beginning” (Peter Zeihan). Read it because it challenges my optimistic outlook. Reveals a lot about the interdependence we have through globalization, and how fragile these systems are. And made me more aware of America and their role in the world.
How To Be A Stoic (Massimo Pugliochi???). I like Stoicism, and think it should be much more popular. The book does a good job giving actionable tips in addition to condensing key ideas.
Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankel) - Underwhelming given the praise I’ve seen for it, but does make the point well that humans seem to want meaning :shrug:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal)
The Count of Monte Christo - loved this classic TODO re-read and review.
Discworld Series (Terry Pratchett). I’ve read all of these multiple times, such witty commentary on life.
Douglas Adams
Christopher Paolini
F.W. Dixon
Willard Price
Tolkein
Brian Jaques
Enid Blighton
The Body: A Guide for Occupants (Bill Bryson) - Recommended by a doctor friend, fun and interesting. Enjoyable if (like all pop sci) you read it with a hefty pinch of salt and don’t index too much on the specifics.
others by BB I’m sure.
Anthony Horowitz (Alex series)
Popco
Liveship trilogy
Guns, germs and steel (todo sequel ‘collapse’ to talk to FIL)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer) - a charming romance/war story my entire family enjoyed during lockdown.
You are not so smart and sequel
Goosebumps (a handful)
CUrious incident of the dog in the nighttime
John Wyndham (midwich cuckoos, triffids, a few others)
White fang and the call of the wild Jack London
Chicken soup for the preteen soul
The bible (several re-reads, lots of excerpts)
Freakonomics and sequel
How to spend X and do Y bjorn lomberg
Shakespeare (a few) and tales from shakespeare (banger)
Ignition (great book)
Bell Labs: Innovation Factory great
Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman (3+ reads, impactful)
6 easy pieces, 6 hard ones, QED by him too
A brief history of time and even briefer one
Astrophysics for people in a hurry
Skimmed thinking fast and slow, blink, think again and similar selg-help books
That crazy magical realism one about the SA village family
Tim Keller marriage book
That other marriage book
Bird book haha
The silent knife thing (lame)
The Hunger Games
That rip-off hunger games post apocalyptic one Ellie makes fun of
Make: the annotated build-it yourself
Making Embedded Systems
Laws guide to nature drawing and journalling
Reality +
P. G. Woodhouse (most if not all, several reads of Jeeves)
James Herriot (funny vet)
The doctor equivalent ‘A Doctor Abroad’ maybe?
Wilderness ways lovely
Gerrald Durrel problematic
The 100-year-old man who climbed out of his window and the sequel about the girl who saved the king of Sweden hilarious
The Rosie Project good laugh
Dr Seuss
S>A>S survival guide
Hatchett or something recd by E, that or my side of the mountain only one of the two
The Call of the wild (that guy who went into the woods)
Some Agatha Christie
Some Nancy drew maybe? Definitely a crossover with Hardy BOys IIRC
‘MLP: Friendship is optimal’ and some others on a weird list Hotz shared
That space series with a magical ship AI nanobots and such
‘Hothouse’ parasitic mind control scifi find author (I read several IIRC)
Scifi anthology
Science of the DIscworld
The Long Earth Series
The magic compass (trilogy, knife somethig something)
Ball Lightning and the Three Body trilogy
Sci-fi/horror theres a deep hole up come wasps or something, biological control for humans?
Outlive by Peter Attia
In Defence Of Plants - Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables (Michael Pollen?)
Lab Girl (boring)
Three Men on a bummel
Once upo a river magical realism
Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury)
Farenheight 451
A Brave New World
Trooper Peter Halket?
Wet Breams and sequel elephant guy
That one with the SA people who owned a lion?
Oh that weird AI thinkpiece by Kissenger and co that didn’t say much
Public Health in mid-VIctorian Britain
Grades, Sub-grades and Subbases (or subsomethings at least)
South Africa’s Vanishing Waterways
Why_’s poignant Guide to Ruby
Pride and Prejudice
The Idea Factory, Bell Labs
Make: The Annotated DIY Science Laboratory (hilarious safety warnings)
Make: Tips and Tales from the workshop
Roberts Field Guide to Birds of Southern Africa
Windmills (Jaap’s book)
You are Not So Smart + You Are Now Less Dumb (also enjoyed the podcast)
Tales from Shakespeare (Charles Lamb) - fantastic re-telling of Shakespeare’s plays as short stories, keeping in many good quotes and otherwise adapting them very well.
1984
Tess of D’Uberville
Far from the madding crowd
Pride and Prejudice
Don Qiote (spelling?)
Jade City and possibly sequels
THe man who mistook his wife for a hat
The Martian & Artemis by Andy Weir
THe Rangers Apprentice series, which I thoroughly enjoyed as a youngster