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A deep dive into Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt A deep dive into Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt
The Dawn of Everything Nicola's review of David Graeber & David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything

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One day or another, my e-reader will break, or the service tied to my e-reader will close, so I’m just publishing on the internet my reading list.

Since this page has six instances of the word dick, I totally expect it to be delisted from Google results, hi Google bot o/.

Another bit of useless trivia, this page contains a lot of funny characters, including âçðëïłøôŝ.

Unless specified otherwise, I’ve read the books in the language the title as I quote it is. For example, I’ve read “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers” in French, while I’ve read “Snow Crash” in English. If you can’t infer the language from the title, assume English.

There is a few books I’m not listing here because I don’t remember anything about them. I might have read them, but they are just not in my brain anymore.

Sci fi

• Neil Stephenson
  • Anathem (I disliked it, it took forever)
  • Snow Crash (I liked it because it is similar to Gibson’s bridge trilogy, and it’s insane insane insane)
  • The Diamond Age (Excellent, but a bit slow at the start)
  • Termination Shock (same issue as Anathem, insanely preachy)
• Walter Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz (Amazing! One of the best sci-fi I’ve read)
• Arthur C Clarke
  • Rendezvous with Rama and Rama II (Rama II is bad, it feels like a cash grab, writing is very different from first one, bad drama; Rama is interesting but very unfulfilling)
  • Childhood’s End (pretty good, but extremely weird ending)
• William Gibson
  • The Bridge Trilogy: Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties (I love the writing and story. Once you are into it, each paragraph is brain candy, I’ve read them twice)
  • Neuromancer (I found it too difficult to read and didn’t geta third of it)
  • The Blue ant trilogy (High recommendation on Pattern Recognition, very big nostalgic vibes, and just so good)
• Douglas Adams: Le Guide du Voyageur Galactique (Wasn’t that good. I mean, You are spoiled once you read Lem)
• Charles Stross, one of the authors I’ve read the most (probably second after Pratchett)
  • Glasshouse (first Stross novel I’ve read, liked it a lot)
  • Accelerando (better than Glasshouse)
  • All 10 novels of the Laundry Files, twice (Amazing, you need to read it, you can clearly see Stross’ literary talent grow as the series continue, the best novels are between The Rhesus Chart and Labyrinth Index)
  • All 6 novels of the Merchant Princes (Love the premise of drug smuggling medieval lords, and it gets amazing toward the end)
  • The 3 novels of The Empire Games series (Amazing, highly recommended, I’ve read the first two three times)
  • Saturn’s Children and Neptune’s Brood (again, amazing, especially Neptune’s Brood, the premise is so ridiculous yet it’s perfectly coherent)
  • The new management series (Doesn’t start strong as it was the first book after a long hiatus for Stross, but Quantum of Nightmare is absolutely amazing, Season of skulls is meh, but still pretty good)
  • Toast (Some really good short stories in there)
• Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • Children of Time (Amazing, may be my 2nd favorite sci-fi novel, read it twice)
  • Children of Ruin (great follow up for such an excellent book, read it twice)
  • Children of Memory (not good, very repetitive)
  • The Final Architecture Series (amazing, all three volumes)
• Philip K Dick
  • Short fictions (was my introduction to PKD, it’s free and you really get an idea about what PKD is about in those short stories, I read it twice)
  • Ubick (It was a while ago, but I remember liking it, despite not quite understanding it and finding it insane)
  • Do Androids dream of Electronic Sheep (I liked it, very good writing and still follows the PKD signature madness, very much worth a read, even if you’ve seen Bladeruner)
  • The Man in the High Castle (Very good, again insane, classic PKD; Loved the characters and how they do not accept the terrible world in which they live, and how it interacts with the narrative of the story)
• Gene Wolfe
  • The fifth Head of Cerberus (I hated it. It’s barely readable, it feels like Wolf uses a thesaurus of outdated and unknown words)
  • The book of the New Sun, the 3 novels (I hated it, same issue as with the other book, but far worst. I actually forgot I’ve read Wolfe before and hated it)
• David Brin: Existence (Good premise, good overall, thought provoking, but not the literary talent of other names mentioned here)
• John W Campbell: Islands of Space (Very bad and didn’t age well, more a reflection of prejudice of an old society than anything else)
• Daniel Suarez: Daemon & Freedom (excellent couple of books, but not a literary genius)
• Ursula K. Le Guin: The Dispossessed (Not very good, but made me think a lot)
• Isaac Asimov:
  • The Foundation series, 6 novels (Only read the first 3! The last 3 are a cheap mindless cash grab; Issue with this is that Asimov was not a good writer at the beginning of his career, but had good ideas, while he wrote far better afterward, but was in a drought of ideas)
  • I, Robot (not good, also victim of the Seinfeld effect, but also not good)
• Robert L. Forward: Dragon’s Egg (amazing book, also extremely thought provoking, but also great writing)
• Cory Doctorow: Little Brother (meh)
• Philip José Farmer: The world Of Tier, 8 novels (meh, unimaginative science fiction, very forgettable, no thought provoked, no literary talent)
• Greg Egan
  • Oceanic (I actually completely forgot it)
  • Distress (Very good, gave me a new perspective on sexual identity)
  • Diaspora (requires an advanced math degree to understand, I didn’t understand it)
  • Permutation city (Actually as insane as a PKD novel, but with way more math)
• Cixin Liu: The Three Body Problem (didn’t like it, but very interesting insight in Chinese culture and relationship with Maoist revolution)
• René Barjavel (very good French author, nice romantic style):
  • Ravage
  • La nuit des temps
  • L’Enchenteur (twice, this is the height of French literature, most romantic)
• Stanisław Lem: (He describes with accuracy the problems technology will bring in the end of the XXth and XXIth centuries from the perspective of the fifties and sixties. He’s both the most funny author of science fiction and the most credible hard sci-fi author, I swear, one day I’m going to publish a 300 pages essay on Lem)
  • The Cyberiad (Seriously amazing, I’ve not read something this funny since Pratchett, I read it twice back to back, because of how sad I was that it was over. May be my favorite sci-fi book)
  • Mortal Engines (as amazing as the cyberiad, I was so happy when I discovered it)
  • Fiasco (Very serious book, very good too. Discusses the trap of game theory and preconceptions, the impossibility to communicate with alien beings. One of the rare books that gave me goosebumps and blew my mind)
  • His master’s voice (Extremely serious book. It’s written with the dry tone of a scientific paper, the imitation is perfect, but it makes it fairly difficult to read. The story is interesting, but I thought a bit redundant with Fiasco)
  • The Invincible (Not the best Lem, though, as always, very thought-provoking)
  • Peace on Earth (Amazing, completely insane and hilarious)
• Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future (one of the worst sci-fi I’ve read. Similarly to Stephenson, it’s preachy and has a completely unrealistic plot driven by trying to make a point about dogmatic belief. The two authors have opposite views of the world, yet manage to write very similar books)
• Boris and Arkady Strugatsky: Monday Begins on Saturday Excellent novel, hilarious and frighteningly similar to the laundry files.
• Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (ok-ish I guess? Pretty absurd. There is likely a statement on free will, but not exactly wish. Maybe a criticism of idolisation of billionairs?)
• Ploume: Printeurs (pretty good, kinda hectic, though disapointing ending)
• Arkady Martine: Rose house (french, odd book, meh)
• Tom Sweterlitsch: Terminus (french, page turner, but god do I hate the plot, which makes absolutely zero sense)

Other Genres

• Terry Pratchett
  • All 41 of the Discworld novels, twice (extremely high recommendation, all of them are amazing, Pratchett is a wizard, sad he has passed, GNU Pratchett)
  • Nation (excellent, as all Pratchett novels)
• Adrian Tchaikovsky:
  • Shadows of the Apt series
  • City of Last Chances (good)
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One hundred Years of Solitude (meh, quite an interesting surrealist setting, but didn’t catch me)
• Jaroslav Haŝek: Le brave Soldat Chvéïk (Very interesting, funny story about a simple-minded Czech soldier)
• Andre Seiple: Threadbare 3 novels (read it twice; Excellent LITRPG trilogy, I read it first as a series of forum posts, but then bought the ebook and read it again)
• Joël Dicker: La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert (Bad, so bad. The writting is fit for a 12 years old and the story doesn’t compensate the dry writing)
• J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, full saga (boring, from beginning to end, though not boring enough to make me stop it mid way)
• Dino Buzzati (imo he’s a bit too obsessed about death):
  • Le K short stories, French translation
  • Le désert des Tartares
• Boris Vian (love it, very surrealist and always bordering on baroque, I definitively prefer the books he wrote under the Vernon Sullivan pen name):
  • Les morts ont tous la même peau
  • L’écume des jours
  • J’irai cracher sur vos tombes
  • Et on tuera tous les affreux
• Daniel Pennac: The entire Malaussènes series. (The first books I’ve read, very funny and hectic)
• Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate. Reeks with cynicism, a terrible portrayal of American politics of the 50’s.
• Arnaldur Indriðason: Le roi et l’horloger (pretty nice story that digs into the difficulty of everyday life in medieval Iceland, and the story of the Dane kingship at the time)
• Cesar Pavese: La Casa in Collina (good, but missing closure)
• Rigioni Stern: Il Sergente nella Neve (pretty good description of the rout of the Italian army during the second world war)

Classics

• John Steinbeck:
  • East of Eden (Amazing)
  • The Grapes of Wrath (May be the best novel I’ve read, breathtaking from the beginning to the end, extremely moving social commentary)
• Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (very good, surprisingly modern for a 300 years old novel, typical example of British sour satirical humor)
• Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha (It was very thought provoking, it deeply changed the way I think and understand the world. I’ve read it twice)
• Jules Verne
  • Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Meh, has unending lists of species names. I guess the Nautilus is a very interesting concept)
  • Voyage au centre de la Terre (same issue as the other one)
• Oscar Wilde
  • The Importance of being Earnest (good, but nothing special, the title is a play on word)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray (good, but not extraordinary, similar to La Peau de Chagrin)
• Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (good, not extraordinary)
• Homer
  • The Iliad (Didn’t like it, just an endless description of gory war scenes and the main character Achilles is such a garbage twat)
  • The Odyssey (Amazing. 3000 year old text yet still relevant)
• Umberto Eco: Il nome della rosa (Amazing, the monastery setting for a murder mystery; writing is amazing, characters are amazing, setting and history lessons are amazing, a classic)
• Albert Camus: La Peste (Very good)
• Anton Chekhov:
  • The Duel (good, but seriously forgettable)
  • A collection of 300 short stories by Chekhov (A monument of literature, inspired me to learn russian)
• G. K. Chesterton:
  • The man who was Thursday (Amazing, completely insane, it goes somewhere)
  • The Father Brown short stories (pretty good, has the signature wit of Chesterton, and puts in perspective XIXth century british society and its contradictions)
• Dostoevsky:
  • Crime and Punishment (Five reads. Loved it. All other crime mysteries are nothing more than pale reflections of this; The characters are exquisite)
  • The Idiot (Amazing)
• Cervantes: Don Quixote (In English, crazy to think a 500 years old book is so modern)
• Bram Stroker: Dracula (I liked it)
• Nikolai Gogol
  • Short Fiction (great series of short stories, surrealist, but also beautiful descriptions of Ukrainian life)
  • Dead Souls (meh, the book is unfinished, such a shame)
• David Garnett: Lady into Fox (pretty good, endearing, sad, first furry)
• Voltairine de Cleyre: short stories (excellent, a window on woman life in the US Gilded Age)
• Jack London:
  • Lost Face (meh, kind of boring)
  • The Iron Heel (I read this twice, once at age 17 in French, once in English in 2023. It’s a sci-fi story about the proletariat being crushed by the evil bourgeoisie, which could be seen as describing accurately our current world)
• Fitz Hugh Ludlow: The Hashish Eater (amazing, in a way, way ahead of its time with the honest message on addiction, it really tries to help people deal with addiction. And also pretty nifty descriptions, dude)

Non-fiction

• François Châtelet: Une Histoire de la Raison (a very inspiring book about what reason meant for various philosophers from antiquity to modern age)
• Thomas Piketty:
  • Le Capital au XXIème siècle
  • Capital et Idéologie
• Jung Chang: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (Amazing, a very deep accounts of the crazy years that saw imperial China turn into communist China, so full of unexpected twist and amazing characters, not even fiction beats the fascination of Chinese history)
• Stephen Jay Gould: Wonderful Life (pretty good, but outdated by 30 years, check the wikipedia article for better information)
• Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier: The Enigma of Reason (excellent thesis, humans by nature are not logically rational. They are just good at defending their ideas and judging the validity of others. Hence, debate and discussion is necessary to obtain good decisions.)
• David Graeber (warning: extremely good at raising blood pressure):
  • Bullshit Jobs (Very good, made me think a lot)
  • The Dawn of Everything (very thought provoking, even if a bit fantasist at times)
  • The utopia of Rules
  • The Democracy Project
• Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People (The TLDR is treat people like you would like to be treated)
• Morten Strøksnes: Shark Drunk (Twice. Amazing book. The best book I’ve read about the sea; a treasure trove of anecdota about the sea)
• Jennifer Ackerman: The Genius of Birds (excellent book)
• Bertrand Russell: The problems of Philosophy (Metaphysics should be a required lecture for computer science degrees IMO, excellent and very approachable for anyone wanting to dip their feet in metaphysics; I actually never finished it)
• Max Kanat-Alexander: Code Simplicity (Excellent, Must read. Having read that before starting my programming career was a huge help. Exposes very simple principles that are easy to follow and helps tremendously in code maintainability; Read it twice)
• Gregory T Brown: Programming Beyond Practices (not useful at all; Read it twice)
• Peter Van Der Linden: Expert C Programming (very old book about C, I’ve read it twice because it’s super entertaining, and rich in amazing annecodtes. Great if you want to shine at a nerd meetup)
• Jason Gregory: Game Engine Architecture (I’ve never “read” it, I use it as a reference, but it has been precious help)
• Jason Kelly: Stock Market Investing (meh, I never grokked investing until I’ve read Piketty and got some basics of economy)
• Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct (amazing, thought provoking, good introduction to Chomskian linguistics)
• Jason Schreier: Press Reset (excelent book about the game industry’s horrible treatment of workers)
• Peter Godfrey-Smith: Other Minds (philosophy book maskerading as biology about octopuses, very thought provoking)
• Peter Sloterdijk: Repenser l’impôt. He uses tax as a controversial topic to promote a different idea of his. I think the point of the book is to advocate for more active citizen implication in politics and oppose technocracy. Though he still has a pretty naive opinion of Bill Gates and the effectiveness of his philantropy.
• Jean Ziegler:
  • La haine de l’occident
  • L’empire de la honte
  • Le bonheur d’être Suisse (pretty good autobiography)
• Jacob Mikanowski: Goodbye Eastern Europe (excellent, but a bit dispersed)
• Zeke Faux: Number Go Up (required read for anyone who wants to understand cryptocurrencies)
• Primo Levi:
  • Se Questo e un Uomo (deeply thought-provoking)
  • I Sommersi e i Salvati (kind of a follow up on Se Questo e un Uomo)
• R. H. Tawney: The Acquisitive Society (Decries the limit of capitalism and suggests improvements)
• Roberto Saviano: Gomorra (meh, though it’s a good reminder that SV mindset, is identical to milanese mafia)
• Margherita Hack and Viviano Domenici: Notte di Stelle (I liked it a lot, astronomy and world mythology popsci)
• Pierre Rabhi: Semeur d’espoirs (Weird vibes, turn out to be a sort of newage guru)
• Christopher Miller: The War Came to Us (amazing, very good source on Ukrainian culture before the Fire kingdom invaded)
• Monique Atlan and Roger-Pol Droit: Humain (amazing collection of interviews on contemporary thinking about what is to be human, pretty good place to start if you ask yourself that question a lot)