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, edited by Hobonichi
- 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
📺 Art, Design & Media
- Design for the Real World, by Victor Papanek
- The Medium is the Massage, by Marshall McLuhan
- The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman
- Emotional Design, by Donald A. Norman
- Design Justice, by Sasha Costanza-Chock
- Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
- Design is Storytelling, by Ellen Lupton
- 💚 The Green Imperative, by Victor Papanek
- ♿ The Politics of Design, by Ruben Pater
- CAPS LOCK, by Ruben Pater
- Weltentwerfen, by Friedrich von Borries
- Creativity, Inc., by Edwin E. Catmull and Amy Wallace
- Ways of Seeing, by John Berger
- User Friendly, by Cliff Kuang with Robert Fabricant
- Design as Art, by Bruno Munari
- Design for a Better World, by Donald A. Norman
- The Beauty of Everyday Things, by Soetsu Yanagi
- 🎨 How to Think when you Draw, by Lorenzo Etherington
- The Net Delusion, by Evgeny Morozov
- 💚 Nachhaltiges Grafik Design, by Pia Weißenfeld
- A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein
🚺 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
- Die kleinste gemeinsame Wirklichkeit, by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
- The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
🐲 Mythology & Folklore
- Mythos, by Stephen Fry
- Heroes, by Stephen Fry
- Troy, by Stephen Fry
- Norse Gods, by Johan Egerkrans
- Vaesen, by Johan Egerkrans
- The Undead, by Johan Egerkrans
- Dragons, by Johan Egerkrans
- Beneath the Moon, by Yoshitani
- Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
🏰 History & Anthropology
- The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
- Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman
- 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
- Tao Te Ching, by Laozi
🧠 Psychology
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention, by Simon Baron-Cohen
- Think Again, by Adam Grant
🤼 Sociology
- The McDonaldization of Society, by George Ritzer
🗣 Politics
- 🌍 Prisoners of Geography, by Tim Marshall
📝 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
- Factfulness, by Hans, Ola & Anna Rosling Rönnlund
- Sum, by David Eagleman
- Einstein’s Dreams, by Alan Lightman
- Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
- Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott
- The Ethical Slut, by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy
- Polysecure, by Jessica Fern
- Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, collected by Gillian Anderson
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
- Big Ideas Simply Explained, series published by Dorling Kindersley
- How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci, by Michael J. Gelb