Book Lists
I have kept these lists since 2016 and felt like I should have a place to share them. I don‘t think it really makes sense to rate books on a common scale, but I decided to mark the books I had particular feelings about with emoji.
- ⭐️ books were revelations
- ❤️ books were favorites
- ✅ books are nonfiction recommendations
- 👎 books, imho, are books to avoid
In general, when I‘ve read a book before, I won‘t give it an emoji. Books without emoji are still on the whole great books, but I‘ve found again and again that there is always a set of books that end up defining each year, and I wanted a way to highlight those.
2023
- ❤️ God Emperor of Dune (Frank Herbert)
- How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt)
- The Two Towers (JRR Tolkien)
- Hidden Systems (Dan Nott)
- The Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
- Scatter, Adapt, Remember (Annalee Newitz)
- ✅ The Aftermath (Philip Bump)
- The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers)
- After the Funeral (Agatha Christie)
- Curtain (Agatha Christie)
- Neurotribes (Steve Silberman)
- The Wife of Willesden (Zadie Smith)
- The Dispossessed (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- Translation State (Ann Leckie)
- ⭐️ Howards End (EM Forster)
- User Friendly (Cliff Huang & Robert Fabricant)
- ✅ Homelessness is a Housing Problem (Gregg Colburn & Clayton Page Aldern)
- Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune)
- Half American (Matthew F Delmont)
- The Tempest (William Shakespeare)
- Pageboy (Eliot Page)
- 👎 The Terraformers (Annalee Newitz)
- Sourdough (Robin Sloan)
- ❤️ Solaris (Stanislaw Lem)
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan)
- Fair Play (Tove Jansson)
- ⭐️ Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
- To The Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf)
- Helgoland (Carlo Rovelli)
- ✅ The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard (Soren Kierkegaard, ed. WH Auden)
- Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
- The Sea and the Mirror (WH Auden)
- Eat a Peach (Dave Chang & Gabe Ulla)
- The Two Noble Kinsmen (William Shakespeare & John Fletcher)
- Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
- Gender Queer (Maia Kobabe)
- Pachinko (Min Jin Lee)
- The Six (Loren Grush)
- Poverty, by America (Matthew Desmond)
- ❤️ The Fraud (Zadie Smith)
- The Fourth Turning (Will Arbery)
- ✅ Until Justice Be Done (Kate Masur)
- ❤️ Beyond Measure (James Vincent)
- 👎 Plunder (Brendan Ballou)
- The Machine Stops (EM Forster)
- ⭐️ Doppelganger (Naomi Klein)
- Extremely Online (Taylor Lorenz)
- Tyranny of the Minority (Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt)
- ✅ The Vocation Lectures (Max Weber)
- ❤️ The Vaster Wilds (Lauren Groff)
- The Country of the Blind (Andrew Leland)
- What You Are Looking for is in the Library (Michiko Aoyama)
- Broad Band (Claire L. Evans)
- Romney: A Reckoning (McKay Coppins)
- Taste (Stanley Tucci)
- ✅ Worm (Edel Rodriguez)
- Land of Milk and Honey (C. Pam Zhang)
- Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner)
- Terrace Story (Hilary Leichter)
- ⭐️ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (George Saunders)
- ❤️ Bartleby, the Scrivener (Herman Melville)
- Tom Lake (Ann Patchett)
- The Mountain in the Sea (Ray Nayler)
2022
- Several People Are Typing (Calvin Kasulke)
- Drive Acts I, II, and III (Dave Kellett)
- ✅ Let the Record Show (Sarah Schulman)
- ✅ The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber and David Wengrow)
- The End of Policing (Alex S. Vitale)
- Dead Collections (Isaac Fellman)
- LaserWriter II (Tamara Shopsin)
- Maigret and the Man on the Bench (Georges Simenon)
- ⭐️ Debt (David Graeber)
- The Quiet Before (Gap Beckerman)
- Squire (Sara Alfageeh & Nadia Shammas)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone)
- ❤️ The Looking Glass War (John Le Carré)
- The Angel Room (Lee Call)
- ✅ Build (Tony Fadell)
- The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School (Sonora Reyes)
- ❤️ A Psalm for the Wild Built (Becky Chambers)
- The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
- The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune)
- ❤️ A Prayer for the Crown-shy (Becky Chambers)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
- Silverview (John Le Carré)
2021
- The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
- Stepping Stones (Lucy Knisley)
- ⭐️ Dune (Frank Herbert)
- Billy Collins Live (Billy Collins)
- ✅ The Vanity Fair Diaries (Tina Brown)
- Strangers on a Train (Patricia Highsmith)
- ❤️ Detransition, Baby (Torrey Peters)
- ❤️ Darryl (Jackie Ess)
- The Secret to Superhuman Strength (Alison Bechdel)
- On a Sunbeam (Tillie Walden)
- The Midwinter Witch (Molly Knox Ostertag)
- ✅ The Value of Everything (Mariana Mazzucato)
- Guantanamo Voices (Sarah Mirk)
- Medium Raw (Anthony Bourdain)
- Last Call (Elon Green)
- Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Elena Ferrante)
- Foundation (Isaac Asimov)
- The Passenger (Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz)
- Ninefox Gambit (Yoon Ha Lee)
- ✅ Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli)
- ⭐️ The Order of Time (Carlo Rovelli)
- ❤️ Lurking (Joanne McNeil)
- Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell)
- Any Way the Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell)
- Cat Among the Pigeons (Agatha Christie)
- Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell)
- ❤️ Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert)
- The Art of Communicating (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- Something Fresh (P.G. Wodehouse)
- Children of Dune (Frank Herbert)
- Network Effect (Martha Wells)
- Humankind (Rutger Bregman)
- A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood)
2020
- A Crime in Holland (Georges Simenon)
- The Idiot (Elif Batuman)
- Putting on the Ritz (Joe Keenan)
- Carry On (Rainbow Rowell)
- Rat Bohemia (Sarah Schulman)
- I Like To Watch (Emily Nussbaum)
- A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris)
- Calypso (David Sedaris)
- ⭐️ My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)
- ❤️ Stone Butch Blues (Leslie Feinberg)
- Much Ado About Nothing (William Shakespeare)
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
- Hall of Waters (Berry Grass)
- The Chaser (Torrey Peters)
- ✅ Gay New York (George Chauncey)
- Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow)
- Angels in America (Tony Kushner)
- Wayward Son (Rainbow Rowell)
- ✅ Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Samin Nosrat)
- Joy in the Morning (PG Wodehouse)
- Severance (Ling Ma)
- ❤️ Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain)
- The Story of a New Name (Elena Ferrante)
- How to Invent Everything (Ryan North)
- Close to the Knives (David Wojnarowicz)
- Rogue Protocol (Martha Wells)
- Call for the Dead (John le Carré)
- Exit Strategy (Martha Wells)
- Saga: Book 3 (Staples/Vaughn)
- Rocannon’s World (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- Planet of Exile (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- City of Illusions (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- A Murder of Quality (John le Carré)
- ❤️ The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For (Alison Bechdel)
- ⭐️ The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (John le Carré)
- Brideshead Resisted (Evelyn Waugh)
- Homie (Danez Smith)
- Thee Display (Nora Collen Fulton)
- ❤️ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John le Carré)
- Cleanness (Garth Greenwell)
- Beowulf (trans. Maria Dahvana Headley)
- ✅ Bullshit Jobs (David Graeber)
- Maggie Terry (Sarah Schulman)
- The Earthquake Room (Davey Davis)
- The Honourable Schoolboy (John le Carré)
- Smiley’s People (John le Carré)
2019
- Unnatural Death (Dorothy L. Sayers)
- Strong Poison (Dorothy L. Sayers)
- Whose Body (Dorothy L. Sayers)
- The Yellow Dog (Georges Simenon)
- Brighton Rock (Graham Greene)
- The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
- Partners in Crime (Agatha Christie)
- N or M (Agatha Christie)
- The Garden of Eve (KL Going)
- The Sittaford Mystery (Agatha Christie)
- All Systems Red (Martha Wells)
- Death in the Clouds (Agatha Christie)
- Artificial Condition (Martha Wells)
- ⭐️ The Raven Tower (Ann Leckie)
- ✅ The Gentrification of the Mind (Sarah Schulman)
- Drive, Acts I and II (Dave Kellett)
- ❤️ We Both Laughed in Pleasure (Lou Sullivan, ed. Ellis Martin & Zach Ozma)
- Blue Heaven (Joe Keenan)
- The Charioteer (Mary Renault)
- ❤️ Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel (Julian K Jarboe)
2018 Books
- ✅ Playing the Whore (Melissa Gira Grant)
- The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- His Last Bow (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Class War (Megan Erickson)
- ✅ Conflict is Not Abuse (Sarah Schulman)
- All Things Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot)
- The Lord God Made Them All (James Herriot)
- Penguin Modern Poets 6 (Claudia Rankine, Denise Riley, & Maggie Nelson)
- How to Be Black (Baratunde Thurston)
- Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
- Hunger (Roxane Gay)
- Who Fears Death (Nnedi Okorafor)
- ⭐️ Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin)
- The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)
- A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond & Peggy Fortnum)
- ⭐️ Eat Up (Ruby Tandoh)
- Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
- Smile (Raina Telgemeier)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)
- All the Lives I Want (Alana Massey)
- Heartland (Ana Simo)
- Jane (Maggie Nelson)
- Fresh India (Meera Sodha)
- The Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)
- Emma (Jane Austen)
- The A.B.C. Murders (Agatha Christie)
- More About Paddington (Michael Bond & Peggy Fortnum)
- And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)
- Stephen Fry Presents a Selection of Oscar Wilde's Short Stories (Oscar Wilde)
- Persuasion (Jane Austen)
- A Murder Is Announced (Agatha Christie)
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha Christie)
- The Fox and the Star (Coralie Bickford-Smith)
- The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
- ⭐️ Little Fish (Casey Plett)
- Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
- Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh)
- A Handful of Dust (Evelyn Waugh)
- The Small Bachelor (PG Wodehouse)
- The Dream of Doctor Bantam (Jeanne Thornton)
- The Mating Season (PG Wodehouse)
- The Shining (Stephen King)
- The Cellars of the Majestic (Georges Simenon)
- ❤️ The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
- Lock No. 1 (Georges Simenon)
- Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
- The Great Escape (Paul Brickhill)
- ⭐️ The End of the Affair (Graham Greene)
- ✅ A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns (Archie Bongiovanni & Tristan Jimerson)
- Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition (Julia Kaye)
- The Witch Boy (Molly Knox Ostertag)
- Homeward Bound and other stories (Gillian Ybabez)
- To the North the Antillean Sea and The Insurgent (Esdras Parra)
- Whatsa Paintoonist? (Jerry Moriarty)
- My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (Nagata Kabi)
- My Solo Exchange Diary Vol. 1 (Nagata Kabi)
- The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
- ❤️ Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
- Super Mutant Magic Academy (Jillian Tamaki)
- The Unreal and the Real, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands (Ursula K Le Guin)
- ⭐️ Can You Say My Name Again (Nadia Nova)
- Now My Heart Is Full (Laura June)
- The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang)
- ❤️ The Pervert (Michelle Perez & Remy Boydell)
- Strong Female Protagonist (Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag)
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)
- I’m Afraid of Men (Vivek Shraya)
- Death on the Nile (Agatha Christie)
- Legalize Crime + Against Revolution (Winter & Jamie Berrout)
- Strong Female Protagonist Book Two (Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag)
- War Primer (Bertolt Brecht)
- ⭐️ The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien (Georges Simenon)
- Lara Croft Was My Family / Stealth Mechanic / I Must Be Doing Something Right (Carta Monir
- Maigret’s Mistake (Georges Simenon)
- Fucking Trans Women (Mira Bellwether)
- ❤️ Provenance (Ann Leckie)
- Seek / Give Yourself a Self and Other Poems (Metal Femme)
- ⭐️ Anorexic Becomings (Valerie McLaren)
- Every Living Thing (James Herriot)
- Whose Body (Dorothy L. Sayers)
- ❤️The Third Man (Graham Greene)
- The Hidden Witch (Molly Knox Ostertag)
- Coyote Doggirl (Lisa Hanawalt)
2017
- ❤️ Penguin Modern Poets Two: Controlled Explosions (Michael Robbins, Patricia Lockwood, & Timothy Thornton)
- The Pearl (John Steinbeck)
- Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
- Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck)
- Jejuri (Arun Kolatkar)
- Mouchette (Georges Bernanos)
- Alfred and Guinevere (James Schuyler)
- Pericles (William Shakespeare)
- Cymbeline (William Shakespeare)
- King John (William Shakespeare)
- ❤️ A Month in the Country (JL Carr)
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Mrs. Rosie and the Priest (Giovanni-Boccaccio)
- As Kingfishers Catch Fire (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
- The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue (Anon)
- On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (Thomas De Quincey)
- Aphorisms on Love and Hate (Friedrich Nietzsche)
- ❤️ Traffic (John Ruskin)
- Wailing Ghosts (Pu Songling)
- A Modest Proposal (Jonathan Swift)
- Three Tang Dynasty Poets (Wang Wei, Li Po, & Tu Fu)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (JK Rowling)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (JK Rowling)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling)
- Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure (Ryan North)
- Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems (Allen Ginsberg)
- A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- The Valley of Fear (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Right Ho, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse)
- Very Good, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse)
- The Code of the Woosters (PG Wodehouse)
- The Collected Novellas (Stefan Zweig)
- Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
- Kindred Spirits (Rainbow Rowell)
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks)
- Gigi (Colette)
- The Cat (Colette)
- Elegy Department Spring (Kay Gabriel)
- Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
- England Your England (George Orwell)
- The Sea Close By (Albert Camus)
- Chéri (Colette)
- ❤️ All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)
- The Last of Chéri (Colette)
- Bluets (Maggie Nelson)
- 👎 Is Space the Place? Yes/No (Various)
- A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway)
- Three Lives (Gertrude Stein)
- The History of the Alphabet (Kevin Stroud)
- Beowulf Deconstructed: The Old English of Beowulf (Kevin Stroud)
- ❤️ Nature Stories (Jules Renard)
- Days of Reading (Marcel Proust)
- The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)
- The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún (JRR Tolkien)
- The Expendable Man (Dorothy B Hughes)
- Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)
- The Stranger (Albert Camus)
- I, Robot (Isaac Asimov)
- The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (Patrick N. Allitt)
- Collected Stories (Gabriel García Márquez)
- The Normal Heart (Larry Kramer)
- The Oedipus Plays (Sophocles)
- 1984 (George Orwell)
- Saga Book One and Book Two (Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples)
- Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)
- ⭐️ The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K Le Guin)
- ❤️ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams)
- Life, the Universe, and Everything (Douglas Adams)
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Douglas Adams)
- Mostly Harmless (Douglas Adams)
- Evicted (Matthew Desmond)
- Glamour Boutique (Torrey Peters)
- Reflections on the Theatre (Jean Genet)
- The Blacks (Jean Genet)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
- All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot)
- Mere Christianity (CS Lewis)
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Joan Didion)
- The Hunting Gun (Yasushi Inoue)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Portland Diary (Jamie Berrout)
- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll)
- ✅ Other Minds (Peter Godfrey-Smith)
- Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha (Jack Kerouac)
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)
- La Vagabonde (Colette)
- Penguin Modern Poets Three: Your Family, Your Body (Malika Booker, Sharon Olds, & Warsan Shire)
- Penguin Modern Poets Four: Other Ways to Leave the Room (Kathleen, Don Paterson, and Nick Laird)
- Penguin Modern Poets Five: Occasional Wild Parties (Sam Riviere, Frederick Seidel, and Kathryn Maris)
- The Horse and His Boy (CS Lewis)
- Prince Caspian (CS Lewis)
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (CS Lewis)
- The Silver Chair. (CS Lewis)
- Maggot (Paul Muldoon)
- The Moon is Down (John Steinbeck)
- The Last Battle (CS Lewis)
- The Magician's Nephew (CS Lewis)
- ⭐️ Priestdaddy (Patricia Lockwood)
- SPQR (Mary Beard)
- ✅ Four Futures: Life After Capitalism (Peter Frase)
- Howard the Duck vols. 0, 1, and 2 (Chip Zdarsky & Joe Quinones)
- Call Me by Your Name (André Aciman)
- 2001: a Space Odyssey (Arthur C Clarke)
- A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
2016
- The Innocence of Father Brown (GK Chesterton)
- Selected Poems (Jorge Luis Borges)
- The Abolition of Man (CS Lewis)
- The Mother Tongue (Bill Bryson)
- ❤️ The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays (Oscar Wilde)
- ❤️ The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
- ✅ The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (Merlin Holland)
- Atypical: Life with Asperger's in 20 1/3 Chapters (Jesse A Saperstein)
- Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense (Lewis Carroll)
- The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
- Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (CS Lewis)
- Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
- Poetics (Aristotle)
- A Year With Hafiz (Daniel Ladinsky)
- The Wisdom of Father Brown (GK Chesterton)
- The Incredulity of Father Brown (GK Chesterton)
- The Secret of Father Brown (GK Chesterton)
- The Scandal of Father Brown (GK Chesterton)
- ⭐️ Prostitute Laundry (Charlotte Shane)
- Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley)
- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Omar Khayyam)
- The Winter's Tale (William Shakespeare)
- Othello (William Shakespeare)
- ❤️ The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
- Fresh Romance (Kate Leth, Sarah Winifred Searle, Marguerite Bennett, et al)
- Out of the Silent Planet (CS Lewis)
- Perelandra (CS Lewis)
- That Hideous Strength (CS Lewis)
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Gertrude Stein)
- Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
- Giant Days Vol 1 and Vol 2 (John Allison, Whitney Cogar, & Lissa Treiman)
- Herculine Barbin (Herculine Barbin)
- The Time Machine (HG Wells)
- The Invisible Man (HG Wells)
- The Island of Doctor Moreau (HG Wells)
- The War of the Worlds (HG Wells)
- The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster & Jules Feiffer)
- A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
- ❤️Bonjour Tristesse (Françoise Sagan)
- ⭐️ Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones (Torrey Peters)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote)
- ❤️ N.B. (Charlotte Shane)
- Modern Poets One: If I’m Scared We Can’t Win (Emily Berry, Anne Carson, & Sophie Collins)
- Gunshow (KC Green)
- Henry VIII (William Shakespeare)
- Troilus and Cressida (William Shakespeare)
- Timon of Athens (William Shakespeare)
- How To Eat (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- Zahra's Paradise (Amir & Khalil)
- Old Angel Midnight (Jack Kerouac)
- No Tomorrow (Vivant Denon)
- Tender Buttons (Gertrude Stein)
- ⭐️ Book of Sketches (Jack Kerouac)
- Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Bill Watterson)
- On Balance (ed. Charlotte Shane)
- 3 Conversations (merritt k & Charlotte Shane)
- ❤️ Picasso (Gertrude Stein)
- The World Is Round (Gertrude Stein)
- A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway)