Books I may read

Up Next

• The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp (2003)
• The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (2023)
• Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue (2026)

Recently Added

• Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn edited by Robert Lynn Asprin (1980)
• Shadows of Sanctuary edited by Robert Lynn Asprin (1981)

Fiction

• Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (1950)
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (1962)
• The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz (1963)
• Three Trapped Tigers by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1971)
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1974)
• The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1974)
• Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany (1975)
• JR by William Gaddis (1975)
• Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1977)
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1988)
• Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić (1988)
• Eternity by Greg Bear (1988)
• Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson (1988)
• The World at the End of Time by Frederik Pohl (1990)
• Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (1990)
• Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth by Christian Moore and Owen Seyler (1994)
• Permutation City by Greg Egan (1994)
• Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers (1995)
• The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay (1995)
• Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (1998)
• Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay (1998)
• The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Eskov (1999)
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (2003)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004)
• Remainder by Tom McCarthy (2005)
• House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds (2008)
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu (2010)
• Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (2010)
• A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård (2012)
• Outline by Rachel Cusk (2014)
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (2017)
• The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (2019)
• The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville (2024)

Nonfiction

• Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
• Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman (1960)
• The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari (1973)
• The Power Broker by Robert Caro (1974)
• Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary by Pico della Mirandola, edited by Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio, and Massimo Riva (2012)
• This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein (2014)
• The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu (2016)
• The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks (2017)
• Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (2017)
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari (2018)
• Asceticism of the Mind by Inbar Graiver (2018)
• Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani (2019)
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019)
• Courting the Wild Twin by Martin Shaw (2020)
• Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth (2025)

Consciousness and Meaning

• The Divided Self by R. D. Laing (1960)
• Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning by Eugene Gendlin (1962)
• Re-Visioning Psychology by James Hillman (1975)
• The Embodied Mind by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1991)
• The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger (2009)
• The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist (2009)
• All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly (2011)

Series

• Dumarest of Terra by E. C. Tubb (1968–2008)
• Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams (1988–1993)
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (1990–2013) REJECTED
• Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb (1995–2017)
• Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson (1999–2011)
• Kushiel’s Legacy by Jacqueline Carey (2001–2008)
• World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (2001–2016)
• The First Law by Joe Abercrombie (2006–2008)
• The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (2010–present)
• Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence (2011–2013)
• Caine Riordan by Charles E. Gannon (2014–2024)
• Broken Earth by N. K. Jemisin (2015–2017)

Curated Reading Paths

Military Science Fiction and Space Warfare

• The Face of Battle by John Keegan (1976): what combat is like for the soldier
• Supplying War by Martin van Creveld (1977): how armies are actually supplied
• Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson (1959): where the genre’s warrior cultures begin
• Hospital Station (Sector General) by James White (1962): a break, with medicine in place of war
• Necromancer (Childe Cycle) by Gordon R. Dickson (1962): Dickson at his most philosophical
• Retief: Envoy to New Worlds by Keith Laumer (1963): diplomats and bureaucrats, played for laughs
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974): Vietnam as interstellar war
• The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle (1977): soldiering as a business
• Hammer’s Slammers by David Drake (1979): mercenary tank warfare, told from the ground
• Sky Raiders by William H. Keith Jr. (1982): space marines
• Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (2000): war under real physics
• The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams (2002): fleet strategy at scale

Medieval Social History

• The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer (2008): what daily life was like
• Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies (1990): how a village was organized
• The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis (1983): a microhistory that reads like a detective story
• Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1975): one village’s beliefs, rebuilt from Inquisition records
• The Good Men by Charmaine Craig (2002): a novel of the Cathars

Celtic Britain and Arthurian Legend

• The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2007): the Welsh myths themselves
• Asterix in Britain by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (1966): Romans meet Britons, played for laughs
• The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (1954): Roman Britain, and the classic place to start
• The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff (1959): the Romans leave
• The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (1970): Merlin’s youth, leading into Arthur
• The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell (1995): Arthur without the magic
• Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott (2003): Boudica’s rebellion from the Celtic side
• Isolde, Queen of the Western Isle by Rosalind Miles (2002): Tristan and Isolde as romance
• The High Kings by Joy Chant (1983): Arthur’s Celtic ancestors, told as tales at his court
• Down the Long Wind by Gillian Bradshaw (1980–1982): Gawain’s story, to finish

Frank Lloyd Wright

• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: The House and Its History by Donald Hoffmann (1978)
• Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright by Robert McCarter (1994)
• Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E.J. Kaufmann, and America’s Most Extraordinary House by Franklin Toker (2003)