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.
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.
Games & Play
- Ask Iwata
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design, by Raph Koster
- The Art of Game Design, by Jesse Schell
- Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga
- The Gamer’s Brain, by Celia Hodent
- Reality is Broken, by Jane McGonigal
- Spelunky, by Derek Yu
Design & Media
- The Medium is the Massage, by Marshall McLuhan
- Design for the Real World, by Victor Papanek
- The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman
- Design Justice, by Sasha Costanza-Chock
- Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
- The Green Imperative, by Victor Papanek
- The Politics of Design, by Ruben Pater
- CAPS LOCK, by Ruben Pater
- Design is Storytelling, by Ellen Lupton
- Ways of Seeing, by John Berger
- User Friendly, by Cliff Kuang with Robert Fabricant
- Design as Art, by Bruno Munari
- The Net Delusion, by Evgeny Morozov
Feminism
- Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez
- We Should All be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Die Letzten Tage des Patriarchats, by Margarete Stokowski
- Untenrum Frei, by Margarete Stokowski
- all about love, by bell hooks
Science
- Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker
- The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert
Mythology & Folklore
- Mythos, by Stephen Fry
- Heroes, by Stephen Fry
- Troy, by Stephen Fry
- Norse Gods, by Johan Egerkrans
- Vaesen, by Johan Egerkrans
- Beneath the Moon, by Yoshitani
History
- The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
- The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan
- SPQR, by Mary Beard
- The Library: A Fragile History, by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur de Weduwen
Philosophy
- Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, by R. Buckminster Fuller
- The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer
- Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
- The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Psychology
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention, by Simon Baron-Cohen
Memoirs & Biographies
- Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
- Educated, by Tara Westover
- Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
- A Life on Planet Earth, by David Attenborough
- Uncomfortable Labels, by Laura Kate Dale
- Untypical, by Pete Wharmby
Others
- The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R Tolkien
- The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
- 1984, by George Orwell
- Animal Farm, by George Orwell
- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
- What If?, by Randall Munroe
- Novacene, by James Lovelock
- The Climate Book, by Greta Thunberg et al.
- Maus, by Art Spiegelman
- Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
- The Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Im Westen nichts Neues, by Erich Maria Remarque
- Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
- The Invincible, by Stanislav Lem
- Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
- How to Loose the Time-War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- Humankind, by Rutger Bregman
- Sum, by David Eagleman
- Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino