My only measure for a book is “does it stick with me?”. Does some part of the book randomly pop up in my head as I go about my day? They happen to also be the books that I like to re-read. The following are books that have stuck with me for some reason or another (which are sometimes very random).
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Newspeak and the cycle of break, rebuild, breaking again.
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- The flavors of honey.
- Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel by Banesh Hoffmann with Helen Dukas
- Albert zoning out (or as the kid’s say, locking in)
- Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
- The concept of sleeves. And the name Takeshi Kovacs is hard to forget.
- Amp It Up by Frank Slootman
- The only thing worse than zero customers is a few customers.
- Assorted Short Stories by Alastair Reynolds
- Zima Blue. Galactic North. Weather. Diamond Dogs.
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Hank Rearden holding on.
- Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
- Every time I see the word “homeopathic”.
- Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
- A different but equally gripping type of addiction.
- Blindsight by Peter Watts
- Most people say the alien sticks with them, but for me it’s the vampires.
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- Enoch Root’s memo on his trip through the jungle is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
- Draft No. 4 by John McPhee
- The importance (and craft) of choosing the right word. Like listening to an Inuit describe snow.
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
- The algorithm and the absolute rejection of stasis.
- Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
- The birthing of an artificial reality. Painfully detailed only like Neal can.
- House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
- So much. The Shatterlings witnessing the rise and fall of civilizations through time dilation, and the machine people, perhaps a bit too anthropomorphized but still unforgettable.
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- The Shrike of course
- Now It Can Be Told by General Leslie R. Groves
- Simply what was accomplished. The speed and logistical complexity.
- Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
- The Neighbourhoods. Cats.
- Ra by qntm
- Magic as low-level code against the universe’s operating system.
- Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
- So much. I’ve read this book many times. Contact lens AR, ubiquitous networking/IoT, massive affiliate research networks, sming, gesture-based inputs.
- Reamde by Neal Stephenson
- Sokolov. Badass.
- Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
- The conjoiners. Skade’s crest.
- Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
- Nostalgia for Infinity. Hyperdiamond and ice shields.
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- The first sentence. The space elevator sling.
- Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- The overwhelmingly aliveness of India and optimism of the people who live there.
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
- Phil’s first list of maxims
- Shogun by James Clavell
- Blackthorne’s transformation. Honor and Seppuku.
- Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos
- Building incredible things on time and under budget.
- Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
- The hypotheticals and time dilation
- Swimming Across by Andrew S. Grove
- Arriving in New York with little money and no English, studying chemistry at City College.
- Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
- T.R. Schmidt’s agency – taking geoengineering into his own hands just yeeting sulfur into the atmosphere.
- The Accidental Superpower by Peter Zeihan
- The importance of geography
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- Simply the line that gives the book its name: “The elderly can’t die young. They can only die old. They are bone clocks.”
- The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen
- Overthrowing governments for bananas.
- The Last Lion, Volume 2 by William Manchester
- Churchill’s morning routine
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
- A microcosm, or entire universe for some creatures, within the top branch of one big redwood.
- The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
- Geel Piet
- The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
- Choice and voting in The Glitter Band.
- The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh
- Answering the phone.
- The Secret Life of Oaks by Peter Wohlleben
- Oaks as keystone organisms.
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- People acting alive but underneath being empty.
- The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
- The Wright Brothers as proto-tech-founders. Their work ethic and obsession.
- There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
- Blind spots. The lizard predator.
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
- Monopoly.