Julien Cohen

David Pye

One of those books that immediately propped open my brain and altered core principles, here on the act of creation; on building and the aesthetic...

Andy Weir

Fun but not great. Weir’s writing is clearly a vehicle for hard sci-fi exploration, and that part of this book is fun to read—how would a life form...

William Gibson

This did feel like the culmination of a worldbuilding arc. Destruction of the old, evolution into the new. Mostly existing characters from Idoru and...

William Gibson

All the hallmarks I love about Gibson. A surprisingly good climax and neat denouement (for him) tying up the story. Blackwell is a really fun...

Jorge Luis Borges

Read in the Collected Fictions anthology.The Immortal is immediately one of my favorite short stories ever. Some of the most astounding descriptive...

Dan Wang

3.5 stars. A good book with some wonderful writing and research… it would’ve delivered its message more efficiently with 40% less text.Wang’s thesis...

Jorge Luis Borges

Read in the Collected Fictions anthology. Though I perhaps enjoyed The Garden of Forking Paths more, Artifices generated more highlights for me, at...

William Gibson

3.5 stars. I held off on The Bridge trilogy for years, savoring the last of my unread Gibson.It’s a good book. Perhaps not GREAT, the way I felt when...

Jorge Luis Borges

Read in the Collected Fictions anthology.Immediately intoxicating, inchoate, confusing in its style as all now-classic then-revolutionary works are....

Jorge Luis Borges

Read in the Collected Fictions anthology.My first exposure to Borges—fascinating writing though to me pale in comparison to his later (and more...

Ezra Klein

[3.5 stars for me]I’m a long-time listener and fan of Ezra Klein’s podcast. For those who’ve spent hours listening to his incisive discourse, this...

Dan Simmons

Some books are hard to put down, some books make you say "DAMN, this is good stuff." Hyperion is both.Always funny to review a book like this with a...

qntm

4.5 stars to the first half, 3 stars to the second half. The story’s scale increases nonlinearly and loses itself in its own complexity.Halfway...

Alain de Botton

Attempts to distill positive lessons and practices from the frameworks of religion (specifically: Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist), and to synthesize...

Helen DeWitt

A lovely novella on taste, on a particularly elite view of patronage and cultivation of relationships, on craftsmanship and the ability to separate...

qntm

This is the aspirational form of an SCP story. The writing is quite good. The richness and depth of the characters, for science fiction generally and...

Liu Cixin

This book's scope expands well beyond the first two in the series. Is that a good thing? Yes and no.It's incredibly clear to me that the author is an...

Joseph Heller

Heaping praise on a book already described as one of the greatest American novels of the century. 4.5 stars.The language is so fantastic, Heller’s...

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Each piece of this book is wonderful—the worldbuilding of yet another human terraforming project in the universe Tchaikovsky created through his...

Andy Greenberg

3.5 stars for me (via the Audible audiobook read by Mark Bramhall). It’s engaging and interesting, I enjoyed it, but it didn’t blow my socks off....

Blake Crouch

An enjoyable and quick (though somewhat forgettable) read which lives and dies on the strength of its central multiverse travel machine. This is a...

Robert A. Caro

Few books contain this scope and scale. Few humans, perhaps none in American history, have impacted our infrastructure, our lived experience, the...

Terry Pratchett

Tiny lil short story from Pratchett that is just juking my reading stats this year. I love it.Accessible here for anyone else that was unsuccessfully...

Terry Pratchett

This is Grade A Discworld. I loved the insight on Assassin’s Guild training. Pratchett doesn’t do many real “twists” in his novels, but this one is...

Edward W. Said

A highly researched, deeply personal, pointedly erudite compendium of Palestinian-centered thoughts and imaginings on Palestine.Said again and again...

Viktor E. Frankl

Perhaps because I read The Unconscious God first, this book didn’t strike me as intensely as I think it does many people. I had already read and...

Liu Cixin

A sometimes enjoyable slog for me. A sequel which pales in comparison to The Three Body Problem.I liked some of the big picture plot points—...

David Grann

I listened to the Random House audiobook narrated by Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell, which was wonderfully produced and well paced at...

Mary Doria Russell

Beautifully written. Not easy to make a book about first contact via song and Jesuits in space shine primarily through its humanism and...

Terry Pratchett

Some of the best of the Witches series.

McKenzie Wark

All of the pieces are there but the whole didn’t connect for me. I am a cis white guy so not entirely of the culture described here— although I do,...

Terry Pratchett

Accidentally read Lords and Ladies before this one, but no harm no foul.It is true and utterly insufficient to say that every Discworld novel is a...

Richard Rhodes

Exceptional and exceptionally dense. I read this leading up to Christopher Nolan’s 2023 Oppenheimer film but now have all of Rhodes’ other nonfiction...

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Goddamn, this is exceptional science fiction.The initial third of the story is interesting, a parallel to the first book— worthy on its own but...

Marshall Brain

Interesting premise and enjoyable worldbuilding of the banality of the AI/Automation takeover, but ultimately a simplified parable on the interaction...

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Great science fiction. Tchaikovsky holds this millennia-long story together along parallel paths, human and spider, grounding it emotionally along...

Esther Perel

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not necessarily groundbreaking at any point, but bursting with a combination of psychological/sociological musings...

George Alec Effinger

Possible a case of a groundbreaking/early work in a genre feeling a little stale or known due to the conventions that it itself created. It has all...

Viktor E. Frankl

Much of this book is not about God. Instead it is a response and argument against Freudian psychoanalysis which (I gather) was the dominant form of...

Nicole Perlroth

I read Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon five years ago, and this book was a fantastic follow-up to...

Clifford Stoll

This is a wonderful book. The story is an enthralling peek into the 80s computing culture of Unix Wizards, MILNET, and early networks, but it's...

Jessica Fern

A useful book for laying out some of the basics of attachment theory and connecting it the spectrum of nonmonogamy in theory and practice. Some of...

J.L. Austin

I picked this up somewhat at random from a display of used books at a park music event in LA. I do not have an academic background in philosophy and...

Terry Pratchett

(Whoops I read this before Witches Abroad!)Easily my favorite of the Witches series so far. Every Discworld book is good, but a few of them transcend...

Stephen Greenblatt

3.5 stars for me.Part biography of Poggio Bracciolini and his circle of zealous humanist book hunters, part history on the practice and culture of...

Terry Pratchett

As Granny Weatherwax says— “… no worse than most and better than many …”Not my favorite Discworld book, but like every single one an incredible...

Christopher Hitchens

Listening to Hitchens speak is a joy like few others on this planet. Listening to him read his own work is entrancing; a silken scythe through the...

Geoffrey A. Moore

This is required reading for anyone involved in VC-funded tech startup life. I wish I had read it sooner.Unfortunately, I read it about three weeks...

Mike Davis

In the author’s words, “City of Quartz … is the biography of a conjuncture: one of those moments, ripe with paradox and non-linearity, when...

Alejandro Jodorowsky

I read The Incal forever ago when I first discovered Moebius... as an adult it hits different.I'm not going to say anything new on this seminal work...

Camille Fournier

Somewhere between a reference textbook and a practical guide for technical management roles. The book takes you through each step in the path from an...

Jedidiah Jenkins

This book is beautiful. It’s powerful, haunting, illuminating. A celebration of life and a sad longing for the unknowable. You should read it.

Stewart Brand

Truly one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. Stewart Brand’s writing reflects his clear love of “Low Road” architecture— accessible,...

Terry Pratchett

Listened to this one on audiobook read by Celia Imrie who did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life.

Terry Pratchett

More amazing Discworld. Not the strongest in the series for me, but always so good endlessly quotable.“I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND....

Albert Camus

This is my first foray into Camus’ work and more broadly into this class of French philosophic literature.This was a quick read on an airplane and...

Frank Herbert

4/6 of the way through the main Dune series, and God Emperor presents something much more philosophical than the previous three books. The...

The Invisible Committee

A fascinating short read. The authors do a wonderful job identifying, describing, and decrying in vivid and eloquent detail the global...

Frank Herbert

Broadly I liked Children equally as much as Dune itself, and potentially even more through most of the novel. It fleshes out the world building of...

Frank Herbert

Lacking some of the depth of Dune itself— still an incredible journey on Arrakis with the introduction of some more alien perspectives.

Kahlil Gibran

Truly life changing. A work I will come back to for the rest of my days.

Terry Pratchett

I stopped about a third of the way through on this one. I'm sure I'll pick it up again and read through a few chapters.I've read a ton of...

John Higgs

The second of Higgs’ books I’ve read, following KLF. The two deal with similar themes— where KLF dives into the specifics of that band and confluence...

Simon R. Green

I’ve read the whole series and just re-read this after lending it to a friend. I love the world building, turning hard-boiled detective noire up to...

David Kaiser

This was a fascinating book, one that starts by examining physics as an academic discipline in the early 20th century, noting its fundamental...

J.M.R. Higgs

I came to this book after hearing Higgs on the Ezra Klein podcast, and his opening comment to Higgs is much more understandable now: “just who the...

Karl Taro Greenfeld

Fascinating exploration of Japan’s youth subcultures in the late 80s-90s. Structurally it is a collection of vignettes, each diving into a particular...

Terry Pratchett

This is a great Discworld novel. I mean, every book in the series is an entertaining read— satirical and entertaining and humorous, surprisingly deep...

William Gibson

Look, Gibson is one of my favorite authors. Period. This one didn’t grab me like many of his previous novels. I love the continued worldbuilding...

Daniel Coyle

I can honestly say this is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Daniel Coyle shepherds you through the world of highly successful groups...

Dan Carlin

Note: I listened to this on Audiobook read by the author.Long time listeners of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast will immediately recognize the...

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

This book was recommended to me by multiple unconnected colleagues and friends in the advanced manufacturing field. I’m about 30 years late, but this...

John Drury Clark

FYI: “Ignition” is now widely available to download online for free in .pdf version.Any history of science book with a forward written by Isaac...

Michael Pollan

"And so what began as one of the most shattering experiences of my life ended half an hour later with a wan smile."Pollan approaches the topic of...

Neal Stephenson

One of the more gripping novels I've read in a long time, from one of my favorite authors.In true Stephenson fashion, the worldbuilding is...

Isaac Asimov

I'm struggling to put my finger on why I love this series so much. As described in countless reviews and by Asimov himself, the books contain very...

Isaac Asimov

The saga of the Foundation continues as the galactic empire has crumbled to provincial ruin and feudal anarchy.Considering the 1952 publication date...

Hunter S. Thompson

An absolute classic, of course. Dive into the beautiful, perverted, psychedelic, gloriously unhinged mind of the original Gonzo journalist.

Isaac Asimov

I tried to read this when I was 12 or 13 after devouring the rest of Asimov's popular science fiction, and it didn't click for me. I'm finally...

Charles C. Mann

This book was recommended on the excellent Context podcast by Brad Harris, whose effusive praise made me reprioritize my reading list.1493 is not...