If you’re looking for more to read or just curious about what I like, here are some more lists!
Recent compilations by other people:
- A Relatively Definitive List of Linguists-Based Science Fiction
- Ling in Lit by Mary Ann Walter
- George Saunders collects lots of reading recommendations on his Story Club blog
Readings from my Fall 2023 reading group (this group was focused less on linguistics and more on how & why we tell stories)
- ‘Amnesty’ by Octavia Butler [discussion]
- ‘Toward a Theory of Alternative Lifestyles’ by Theodore McCombs [discussion]
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- ‘The Semplica-Girl Diaries’ by George Saunders [discussion]
- Frankenstein (full novel) by Mary Shelley [discussion]
- ‘The Third Tower’ by Debra Eisenberg [discussion]
- ‘Office Hours’ by Ling Ma [discussion]
- ‘Paradises Lost’ by Ursula Le Guin [discussion]
- ‘Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom’ by Ted Chiang [discussion]
Some of my favorite sci-fi/spec-fic novels:
- Parable, Lilith’s Brood and Seed to Harvest series by Octavia Butler
- The Circle by Dave Eggers
- Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Memory Police by Ling Ma
- The City and the City by China Miéville
- Strange Bodies (my all-time favorite) and Far North by Marcel Theroux
- Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Other fiction authors & books I enjoy re-reading, various genres:
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck (stories)
- Jean M. Auel, The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses
- Jane Austen – everything, favorites are Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility
- Dave Eggers, Heroes of the Frontier and The Parade
- E.M. Forster, Howards End and A Room with a View
- Nick Hornby, About a Boy and All the Way Down
- Kazuo Ishiguro – pretty much everything
- Ha Jin, A Good Fall (stories)
- Tayari Jones, Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta
- Lisa Ko, The Leavers
- Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth (stories)
- Laila Lalami, The Other Americans and Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (stories)
- Penelope Lively, According to Mark
- Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil, The Razor’s Edge, other novels
- Terry McMillan, A Day Late and a Dollar Short and Waiting to Exhale
- Celeste Ng, Everything You Never Told Me
- Ann Patchett, The Magician’s Assistant and State of Wonder
- Tom Perrotta, Nine Inches (stories) and The Abstinence Teacher
- Barbara Pym – everything, Excellent Women is one of my all-time favorites
- George Saunders – pretty much everything
- Elizabeth Strout, Amy and Isabelle, Abide with Me, Olive Kitteridge
- Anne Tyler, A Patchwork Planet and Back When We Were Grown-Ups
New stories I’ve read recently (since late 2023) and liked:
- The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
- Ring Shout by P. Djèli Clark
- The Talk by Darrin Bell
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
- The Hole We’re In by Gabrielle Zevin
- ‘Brownies’ and ‘Drinking Coffee Elsewhere’ by ZZ Packer
- The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux
- The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers
- Eileen and ‘Bettering Myself’ by Ottessa Moshfegh
- Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Stories I’ve turned to when grieving a loved one:
- Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
- Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
- ‘The Aquarium’ by Aleksandar Hemon (essay)
- The Heart (Réparer les vivants) by Maylis de Kerangal
- ‘A Temporary Matter’ by Jhumpa Lahiri
- ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri
- February by Lisa Moore
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
- The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Stories I turn to when I fear for the world:
- The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
- Milkman by Anna Burns
- Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
- The Plague (La peste) by Albert Camus
- Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? by Dave Eggers
- An Enemy of the People (En folkefiende) by Henrik Ibsen
- Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco
- Braided Lives by Marge Piercy
- Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead