These are some of the books I’ve read throughout my life and found insightful, one way or another. Perhaps you, dear reader, find something meaningful in them too, that will help you on your journey.
Before you buy a new book though, ask yourself if you really need it, and if so, if you can buy it second-hand or at a discount. Perhaps you can also borrow it from someone or somewhere, like a library. Easier on your wallet and the environment, and you might just make some friends on the way.
Speaking of which, if you and I are friends, you can also ask if you can borrow it from me. Books (mostly) exist to be read, otherwise they just gather too much dust on my bookshelves.
๐ฎ Play, Games & Game Development
- Ask Iwata, edited by Hobonichi
- ๐ A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004), by Raph Koster
- The Art of Game Design, by Jesse Schell
- โ Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Human Culture (1938), by Johan Huizinga
- ๐ง The Gamer’s Brain (2017), by Celia Hodent
- Streitpunkt Games (2024), by Harald Koberg
- ๐ฎ Reality is Broken (2011), by Jane McGonigal
- Spelunky (2016), by Derek Yu
- A Game Design Vocabulary (2014), by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
- ๐ฒ Board Games in 100 Moves (2019), by Ian Livingstone and James Wallis
- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels (2017), by Jason Schreier
- Press Reset (2021), by Jason Schreier
- ๐ช Play Nice (2024), by Jason Schreier
๐บ Art, Design & Media
- Design for the Real World (1971), by Victor J. Papanek
- Understanding Comics (1993), by Scott McCloud
- Design is Storytelling (2017), by Ellen Lupton
- โฟ The Politics of Design (2016), by Ruben Pater
- ๐ The Medium is the Massage (1967), by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
- ๐ฏ The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (2013, orig. 1988), by Donald A. Norman
- ๐ค Emotional Design (2003), by Donald A. Norman
- ๐ The Green Imperative (1995), by Victor J. Papanek
- ๐ฐ CAPS LOCK (2021), by Ruben Pater
- ๐ธ Design Justice (2020), by Sasha Costanza-Chock
- Weltentwerfen (2016), by Friedrich von Borries
- ๐จ How to Think when you Draw, series by Lorenzo Etherington
- ๐ Creativity, Inc. (2014), by Edwin E. Catmull and Amy Wallace
- ๐ Ways of Seeing (1972), by John Berger
- The Beauty of Everyday Things, by Yanagi Sลetsu
- User Friendly (2019), by Cliff Kuang with Robert Fabricant
- ๐ญ Design as Art (1966), by Bruno Munari
- Making Comics (2006), by Scott McCloud
- ๐ Design for a Better World (2023), by Donald A. Norman
- ๐งฌ The Creative Gene, by Hideo Kojima
- ๐ฅ The Net Delusion (2011), by Evgeny Morozov
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (2013), by Nir Eyal
- ๐จ Art Matters (2018), by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
- ๐ Nachhaltiges Grafik Design, by Pia Weiรenfeld
- ๐ A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein
- Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
๐บ Feminism โ
- ๐บ Invisible Women (2019), by Caroline Criado Perez
- We Should All be Feminists (2014), by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Die Letzten Tage des Patriarchats (2018), by Margarete Stokowski
- Untenrum Frei (2016), by Margarete Stokowski
- all about love (1999), by bell hooks
๐ฌ Science
- ๐ค Why We Sleep (2017), by Matthew Walker
- ๐ธ The Sixth Extinction (2014), by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Die kleinste gemeinsame Wirklichkeit (March 2021), by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
- ๐ฉโ๐ฌ Komisch, alles chemisch! (2019), by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
- ๐ฆ The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
๐ฐ History & Anthropology
- ๐ The LGBTQ+ History Book (2023), published by Dorling Kindersley
- ๐ฃ The World War II Book (2022), published by Dorling Kindersley
- ๐ฅ The Dawn of Everything (2021), by David Graeber and David Wengrow
- ๐ฟ Humankind: A Hopeful History (2019), by Rutger Bregman
- ๐ฝ The History Book (2016), published by Dorling Kindersley
- ๐ฏ Fake History: 101 things that never happened (2023), by Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, aka. The Fake History Hunter
- ๐ซ The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015), by Peter Frankopan
- ๐ The New Silk Roads (2018), by Peter Frankopan
- ๐ฆ SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2015), by Mary Beard
- ๐ The Library: A Fragile History (2021), by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur de Weduwen
- ๐ข The Year 1000 (2020), by Valerie Hansen
- ๐ฟ The Darkening Age (2017), by Catherine Nixey
- ๐ Sapiens (2011), by Yuval Noah Harari
- ๐ซ Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), by Jared Diamond
- ๐ฟ Collapse (2004), by Jared Diamond
- ๐น Historische Waffen und Rรผstungen: Ritter und Landsknechte vom 8. bis 16. Jahrhundert (2018), by Liliane and Fred Funcken
๐ฒ Mythology & Folklore
- Mythos (2017), by Stephen Fry
- Heroes (2019), by Stephen Fry
- ๐ Troy (2020), by Stephen Fry
- ๐จ Norse Mythology (2017), by Neil Gaiman
- ๐ฑ Norse Gods (2019), by Johan Egerkrans
- ๐ช Vaesen (2017), by Johan Egerkrans
- ๐บ The Undead (2019), by Johan Egerkrans
- ๐ฒ Drachen (2022), by Johan Egerkrans
- ๐ Beneath the Moon: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Divine Stories from Around the World (2020), by Yoshi Yoshitani
- ๐ Myth Atlas (2018), by Thiago de Moraes
- The Atlas of Monsters (2017), by Stuart Hill & Sandra Lawrence
- The Atlas of Heroes (2018), by Sandra Lawrence & Stuart Hill
- Die Nibelungen, illustrated by Burkhard Neie
- ๐โโ๏ธ Women Who Run with the Wolves (1989), by Clarissa Pinkola Estรฉs
- ๐ Breverton’s Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends, (2011), by Terry Breverton
๐ฆ Dinosaurs & Paleontology
- ๐ฆ Dinosaurier und andere Wesen der Urzeit (2020), by Johan Egerkrans
- ๐ฑโ๐ Herrscher der Urzeit: Die Geschichte der Tyrannosaurier und Ceratopsier (2021), by Johan Egerkrans
๐ญ Philosophy
- ๐ญ The Philosophy Book (2011), published by Dorling Kindersley
- ๐ Other Minds (2016), by Peter Godfrey-Smith
- ๐ Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), by R. Buckminster Fuller
- The True Believer (1951), by Eric Hoffer
- ๐ต Du musst nicht von allen gemocht werden: Vom Mut, sich nicht zu verbiegen (2018), written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, translated by Renate Graรtat
- ๐ Du bist genug: Vom Mut, glรผcklich zu sein (2019), written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, translated by Renate Graรtat
- ๐ญ Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
- โฏ Tao Te Ching, by Laozi
- โ The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
๐ง Psychology
- The Psychology Book (2011), published by Dorling Kindersley
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention (2020), by Simon Baron-Cohen
- ๐ก Think Again (2021), by Adam Grant
- ๐จ Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (2012), by Susan Cain
- unmasked (2023), by Ellie Middleton
- ๐ The Ethical Slut, by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy
- Polysecure, by Jessica Fern
- Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, collected by Gillian Anderson
๐คผ Sociology
- ๐ The McDonaldization of Society, by George Ritzer
- The Sociology Book, published by Dorling Kindersley
๐ฃ Politics & Economics ๐
- ๐ Prisoners of Geography (2015), by Tim Marshall
- Radikalisierter Konservatismus (2021), by Natascha Strobl
- Why Nations Fail (2012), by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
๐ Memoirs & Biographies
- Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
- ๐ Educated (2018), by Tara Westover
- Born a Crime (2016), by Trevor Noah
- ๐ A Life on Our Planet (2020), by David Attenborough
- Uncomfortable Labels (2019), by Laura Kate Dale
- Untypical (2023), by Pete Wharmby
- ๐ On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), by Stephen King
๐ Others
- The Hobbit (1937), by J.R.R. Tolkien (gifted to me by my mother, when I was very young)
- The Lord of the Rings (1937-1949), by J.R.R Tolkien (gifted to me by my brother, when I was a teenager)
- The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), by Margaret Atwood
- 1984, by George Orwell
- Animal Farm (1945), by George Orwell
- Brave New World (1932), by Aldous Huxley
- What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (2014), by Randall Munroe
- Novacene (2019), by James Lovelock and Bryan Appleyard
- The Climate Book (2022), by Greta Thunberg et al.
- ๐ญ Maus, by Art Spiegelman
- Watchmen (1986-1987), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
- ๐ค Sunstone, series by Stjepan ล ejiฤ
- The Wizard of Earthsea (1985), by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Im Westen nichts Neues (1928), by Erich Maria Remarque
- Heart of Darkness (1899), by Joseph Conrad
- The Invincible (1964), by Stanislav Lem
- Cat’s Cradle (1963), by Kurt Vonnegut
- ๐ฆ This Is How You Lose the Time War (2019), by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- ๐ Factfulness (2018), by Hans, Ola & Anna Rosling Rรถnnlund
- Sum, by David Eagleman
- Einstein’s Dreams, by Alan Lightman
- Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
- Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott
- ๐ค Es geht auch anders (2023), by Elke Kahr and Silvia Jelincic
- The Anthropocene Reviewed (2021), by John Green
- How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci (1998), by Michael J. Gelb (gifted to me by my friend and colleague, Johanna Pirker)
- Big Ideas Simply Explained, series published by Dorling Kindersley