What I’m Reading
One of my personal goals is to read more. Some kinds of books I like to read are sci-fi and fantasy novels; U.S. and modern world history; feminism and antiracism; and, yes, the occasional book on math, network science, or computing.
Here’s what I’ve been reading recently.
Current
- Elements of Mathematical Ecology by Mark Kot
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Devotions by Mary Oliver
2025
Nonfiction
- AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
- The Sabbath World by Judith Shulevitz
Fiction
- The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson
- Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
2024
Nonfiction
- The Spirit of Tea by Frank Hadley Murphy
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
- Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb by Thomas Powers
- Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
- How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
- Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
- Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price
- Modeling Social Behavior by Paul Smaldino
- Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller
Fiction
- Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (reread)
- Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson
- Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (reread)
- Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson
- Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (reread)
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (reread)
- The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint
- Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
- Provenance by Ann Leckie
- Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
- Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- In the Lives of Puppets by T. J. Klune
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
2023
Nonfiction
- Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks
- Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It by Jessie Daniels
- The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack
- Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
- Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and Americaa’s First Imperial Venture by Julia Flynn Siler
- The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent
- Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin
- Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), edited by Susan D. Blum
Fiction
- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (reread)
- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (reread)
- Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Under the Whispering Door by T. J. Klune
- Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
2022
Nonfiction
- Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
- The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
- Fairness and Machine Learning: Limitations and Opportunities by Solon Barocas, Moritz Hardt, and Arvind Narayanan
- Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan
- The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Fiction
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
- Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
- Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
- Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse
- The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
- Far Sector by N. K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell
- The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
- The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
- How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin
2021
Nonfiction
- Calling Bullshit by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West
- Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
- Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne
- How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Specifications Grading by Linda B. Nilson
- Linear Algebra and Optimization for Machine Learning by Charu C. Aggarwal
- These Truths by Jill Lepore
Fiction
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
- Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
- Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
- Paradise by Toni Morrison
- The Dreamblood Duology by N. K. Jemisin (reread)
- The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (reread)
- The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (reread)
- Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
- Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
- The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
2020
Nonfiction
- Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble
- Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks
- Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
- Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
- So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijoema Oluo
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (reread)
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Fiction
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (reread)
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver