Book Recommendations #4

We haven’t done of one of these for a long time, this list has been percolating in the background for years while Muttroxia was on the shelf. There are so many good ones missing… I’m bad at book reviews, so just plug in “It was awesome!” for all of these.

Science-Fiction (or Fantasy)

• • Story of your life (and others), by Ted Chaing: For years, I’ve been told to read Ted Chiang. I finally did. These stories are wonderful at taking hard science ideas and applying them in unusual ways.
  • The three body problem trilogy, by Cixin Liu: This is by a Chinese-Chinese (not Chinese-American) author, it has been translated to English. Big ideas done well, this trilogy won pretty much every award they got. The first volume will particularly blow your mind.

• • Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke: I can’t wait until I have forgotten most of this book, so I can reread it. There is swords and sorcery, and then there are books like this. Placed in the very realistic world of Victorian England, what if faerie is real, what if magic is real (but very rare), how does that play out? Delightfully literate and mind-bending.
  • The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern: Much like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in tone, but with a more surreal atmosphere, and shorter. I read this while on a Disney World trip and spent more time with my nose in the book than anything else that weeek.

• SevenEves, by Neal Stephenson: Neal Stephenson is a category unto himself. All his books are great, some of them are truly remarkable, this is one of the remarkable ones. Recommended by Bill Gates and all thinking humans, go get a copy and dig in. After that read The Crytponomican and the Baroque Cycle.

Fiction

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  • Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain: Cited by many, this follows American soliders on break from Iraq, as they are brought out to be honored during a Dallas Cowboys game. Alternately funny and serious, it mostly feels real even as it clearly isn’t. This was made into a movie sometime in the last few years.
  • Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter
  • The Fault in our Stars, by Josh Green: Have you seen the movie already? I don’t care if it’s kids fiction or teen angst fiction or whatever they call it. It’s a great story, great characters, well told.
  • Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff: It will stay with you for a long time after you read it.
  • All the Light we Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr: I resisted reading this because the description seemed so dumb. In the WWII era, it follows a young German as he becomes a SS officer, and a young blind girl, and how their stories gradually overlap. Whoopee. But the book is wonderful, gorgeous language, wonderful imagery and a plot that’s well grounded in reality.
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles: Our book group was unanimously in love with this book. Any description won’t do it justice. Go read it. Marvelous!

  

Non-Fiction

• • Pre-suasion, Robert Cianaldi:

  Best know for his classic book Influence, Cianaldi returns with this very readable overview of how we are convinced. As clear as a Malcolm Gladwell book but with more science.

  • The Second Machine Age (by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee):

  They are not the only ones to draw the analogy between the inventions of fire, bronze, etc. to how the Industrial age changed the world, to the age we are in now. What is unusual is how cutting edge the information is, how broad the scope, and how well they walk through some of the economic implications. If you as a parent have ever wondered what education is most likely to ‘hold up’ in the information age, this is mandatory reading.

• Sapiens (A Brief History of Humankind), by Yuval Noah Harari: You want big scope, you got it. Just about every page in the first few section will take your understanding of the world and rearrange it before blowing it up. Another favorite from Bill Gates, it gets weaker as it moves toward the current day and beyond, but much like Gun Germs and Steel, he is such a master at putting together eclectic disciplines to support his argument it’s hard to know exactly how to object. A tour de force.
• What it Takes by Ben Richard Cramer: It’s an old book. Cramer follows several candidates for the 1988 Presidential Election. Following them all the way from their life story to their decision to run to their eventual defeat (except Bush of course). What separates it is two things. One, the incredible portrait drawn for each candidate. Two, the feeling of being there in a campaign. What does it take to be president – what sort of person, what sort of strategy, what sort of everything. You’ll never look at another campaign the same way.

Previous book recommendations:

• 2007: Here and here for finance.
• 2008:Here and here.
• 2009
• 2012 (un-recommendations)