Recommendations

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The following books are not just some of my favorite fantasy books, but also books which I found stylistically distinctive or innovative.

The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie
- There are no characters in fiction that I care more for than those written by Abercrombie, and The Wisdom of Crowds is his finest work to date.
Spellslinger by Sebastien De Castell
- This young adult series has surprisingly nuanced reflections on what it means to be a good person and live a good life.
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
- Three Parts Dead has one of the most inventive magic systems I've ever found.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
- Space necromancers.
The Vagrant by Peter Newman
- The three main characters are a mute, a baby, and a goat. Newman tells this story without any dialogue from the main characters.
Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Tchaikovsky's world-building is superb. I prefer his books to Brandon Sanderson's.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Clare North
- A mind-bending war between immortal time-travelers. One of the most inventive books I have ever read.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
- Martine created my candidate for best fictional culture.
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
- I love the main character in this book.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Life of Pi is a fascinating argument for god, and can be read in two utterly different ways.

Non-Fiction

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
- A poignant reflection on our cultural approach to death how we treat the elderly. I cried so many times reading this book.
The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
- Though I disagree with some of his conclusions, Haidt has a fascinating take on morality in politics.
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
- For those who are not into philosophy, the Blank Slate contests some key intuitions that many of us have about human nature from a scientific perspective.
Diet Cults by Matt Fitzgerald
- An interesting exploration of food taboos, recent diet fads, and what it means to eat healthily.
The Seductions of Quantification by Sally Engle Merry
- Quantitative data seems more objective than qualitative data. It often isn't, and Merry provides some excellent examples of how important it is to understand how quantitative data is created.

Philosophy

Not 'recommendations' per se, but below are works of philosophy that I have found impactful.