bookshelf
do you ever read something and feel nostalgic about a place you have never been to?
send me your book recommendations!
to read
The Paper Menagerie
Ken Liu
Range
David Epstein
Human Acts
Han Kang
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski
Dark Matter
Blake Crouch
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
2026
The Lover
Marguerite Duras
yup, when sixteen..
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
Alexander McCall Smith
don't slice them
The Complete Stories, Volume 1
Isaac Asimov
I❤️Multivac
2025
The Player of Games
Iain M. Banks
cozy, classic, good ol' human optimism
Excession
Iain M. Banks
interesting worldbuilding, lackluster plot (but part of the point)
We Are Legion
Dennis E. Taylor
:O amazing premise (couldn't finish the 2nd book though)
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir
rocky!!!!
The Martian
Andy Weir
i miss rocky :(
The NVIDIA Way
Tae Kim
just win guys
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
would've been cool when i was in 5th grade
The Hedgehog's Dilemma
Toon Tellegen
we need more squirrels
2024
Calypso
David Sedaris
crude family humor
Bad Blood
John Carreyrou
the liar of the century
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie
a good reminder to be grateful
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie
one of those cheesey must-reads
The Dark Forest
Cixin Liu
beautiful minds
Death's End
Cixin Liu
insanely majestic and fitting finale
The Samurai's Garden
Gail Tsukiyama
quaint
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
the product man
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson
as insane as you'd expect
The Gene
Siddhartha Mukherjee
really interesting tradeoffs
Interpreter of Maladies
Jhumpa Lahiri
extraordinary ordinary relationships
2023
Comic Wars
Dan Raviv
Marvel's investors, junk bonds, dummy corporations
The Dawn of Everything
David Graeber & David Wengrow
buried histories of ancient cultures
The Best of Peter Egan
Peter Egan
wholesome motorcycle tales
Paved Paradise
Henry Grabar
based
The Good Enough Job
Simone Stolzoff
your reward for good work is more work
The Three-body Problem
Cixin Liu
beautifully humanistic, optimistic sci-fi
The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch
a long message left by a dad for his kids
Ghost in the Wires
Kevin Mitnick
RIP a really cool person
2022
Born Standing Up
Steve Martin
sometimes not so funny behind the scenes
Freakonomics
Stephen Levitt & Stephen Dubner
overhyped sociology thought candies
Tools for Conviviality
Ivan Illich
choose technology wisely
Why Fish Don't Exist
Lulu Miller
the answer is love
Salt Fat Acid Heat
Samin Nosrat
Salt: liberally. Fat: also liberally. Acid: always. Heat: slow.
The Midnight Library
Matt Haig
cliche but thoughtful and cozy
Lab Girl
Hope Jahren
plants, cold pizza, road trips, smelly labmate
2021
Weapons of Math Destruction
Cathy O'Neil
mostly apologizing about 2008
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
give it a tap at just the right angle
Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell
luck snowballs
Blink
Malcolm Gladwell
good instinct, or coincidence?
The Fine Art of Small Talk
Debra Fine
just say it
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert Pirsig
where is Quality?
2020
Clean Code
Robert C. Martin
thanks Uncle Bob!
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman
he's pretty cool
2018
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Richard Feynman
worldview of a curious physicist
2017
Dead Poets Society
N.H. Kleinbaum
we love Robin Williams
What Every Body is Saying
Joe Navarro
check the direction of their feet
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
it was a pleasure to burn
The Illustrated Man
Ray Bradbury
fun short stories
Word by Word
Kory Stamper
art of lexicography
abandoned
The Arbornaut
Meg Lowman
ok we get it natural-born nature girl...
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
its like national geographic and star wars's bastard child (but worse than it sounds)