Biography / memoirs

I especially appreciate autobiographical writing that candidly presents the ugly, painful, or embarrassing parts of life.

• Educated (brief review)
• Into Thin Air (brief review)
• The Rules Do Not Apply

Fantasy

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
• "The Paper Menagerie", from the book of that name
• Reincarnation Blues

General fiction

• An Abundance of Katherines
• Blood Meridian (brief review)
• "What, of this Goldfish, Would You Wish?"

History

• The Creationists (brief comment)
• Racism in Kansas City
• Religion and the Decline of Magic (brief review)

Philosophy

• Ethical Intuitionism
• The Existence of God (unconvincing, but a good framing of many issues)
• "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"
• Reasons and Persons
• The View from Nowhere

Science

• The Big Picture (review)
• The Selfish Gene
• Why Evolution is True

Sci-fi

• A Fire Upon the Deep
• Consider Phlebas
• The Dispossessed
• Hyperion

Self-help

People occasionally say things like, "if self-help books worked, people wouldn't need to keep buying them." In addition to the misguided assumption that life consists of a small set of problems to be "fixed" as opposed to an indefinitely large set of opportunities for improvement and progression, such glib comments ignore the wisdom that can be gained by exposing oneself to a multitude of perspectives.

• Essentialism (review)
• How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
• Learning How to Learn course

Software development

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
• On Lisp
• Simple Made Easy talk
• "Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction"