3 book recommendations for March, 2021
I wrote my first novel because I realized there was a story that I wanted to read but couldn’t find, and it resonated with people who happened to share my taste.
Nine novels later, I’m sometimes tempted to write for “the market” and need to remind myself who I really write for: you, my true fans and closest readers.
And now, books I love that you might too:
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin is a profound, humane coming-of-age adventure through an archipelago where knowing a thing’s true name gives one power over it, though “danger must surround power as shadow does light.” This is a story of magic and wonder that doesn’t flinch from pain, a story that itself wields a special kind of magic: it will lodge in your heart.
The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher is a rigorously researched history of the eleventh-century warrior-knight Rodrigo Diaz popularly known as El Cid. With extraordinary precision and concision, Fletcher illuminates the complex cultural, economic, technological, and political dynamics at work in Diaz’s homeland and peels back layer after layer of legend to reveal the man beneath.
Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers is a generous, wise, and hilarious collection of true stories from the author’s life that will inspire you to get out of your own way and do the creative work you’re forever putting off. Sivers will remind you of truths you already know, but conveniently forget: that you have something to offer, that art is anything made with care, and that it’s better to seek to contribute than to succeed. I found this book so useful that I’m including it as a resource in my advice for authors.
Bonus recommendation: Cities of Light is a collection of science-fiction stories, art, and essays exploring how the transition to solar energy will transform human civilization. The collection is free-to-download and was produced by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.
In other news:
Veil just hit 100 Amazon reviews! Reader reviews make a tremendous difference, and you are the best readers a writer could hope for (if you haven’t posted a review yet, now’s the time!). Books thrive on word of mouth. We usually find our next favorite novel through recommendations from people we trust. Culture is a collective project in which all of us have a stake and a voice.
Stories are Trojan Horses for ideas, a metaphor that proves its own point: “Composed thousands of years ago, Odysseus’s gambit still reverberates through our culture, evolving as it leaps from mind to mind, seeding generation after generation with images, archetypes, and ways of making sense of the world.”
As algorithms sift the infinite web into ever more personalized feeds, we stare through beveled shards of glass at our own mind’s reflection rendered in digital collage, seeking our evolving selves resolving beneath the churning surface—each and every one of us a 21st century Narcissus. Share on Twitter.
I’m a sucker for infrastructure metaphors: “‘The Dutch build parallel dikes for redundancy,’ she said. ‘There are three kinds: watcher, sleeper, and dreamer. The watcher dike is right up against the water. If it fails, the sleeper is ready. If the sleeper fails, the dreamer is the last defense against disaster.’”
From my conversation with Omar El Akkad about writing American War: "Despite all the mythology around American exceptionalism, the recipe for avoiding ruin in this country is no different than in any other country. It contains only two ingredients: ensure that your systems of power reflect the diversity of your population as a whole, and acknowledge the entirety of your history, no matter how painful."
I woke up from a dream I couldn’t remember that left a single remnant image in my mind. I rolled over and made a note of it in the dark before it could fade. Reading that note now, I’m realizing that it’s the opening line of a new novel.
The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies, and even more relevant today than when it came out in 1998. A while back, I wrote an essay for Tor.com exploring what it can teach us about the future of the internet.
The best answer is a better question. Share on Twitter.
How I “organize” my bookshelves: “The bookshelves become an engine for curiosity and creativity. Whenever I enter the room and my gaze falls across them, they conjure a mandala of stories, ideas, and feelings within me—everything juxtaposed and interpolated in strange and incongruous relation.”
Shout-out to Veil's European readers. The novel has received wonderful reviews in Austria's Der Standard, Germany's IE9, and Newsweek Belgium, all of which came as a complete surprise to me. I finished writing the rough draft while walking the Camino de Santiago, and the story owes a lot to friends across the Atlantic.
A useful measure of success is how much time you get to spend with people you respect, admire, and enjoy. Corollary: A useful measure of success for a piece of creative work is how deeply it resonates with people whose creative work you respect, admire, and enjoy. Share on Twitter.
If you enjoy this newsletter and want to support it, become a paid subscriber and tell your friends. Every month, I recommend books, both fiction and nonfiction, that crackle and fizz with big ideas, keep us turning pages deep into the night, challenge our assumptions, help us find meaning in a changing world, and make us think, feel, and grow. In an age of digital abundance, quality is the new scarcity. The right book at the right time can change your life.
When I'm not reading books, I'm writing them. If you savor the promise and peril of new worlds opening up, if you prefer hard questions to easy answers, if you seek adventures that will transport you and leave you changed, then you're the kind of person I write for. You can find my novels right here. Bon voyage, fellow traveler.
Cheers, Eliot
Eliot Peper is the author of Veil, Breach, Borderless, Bandwidth, Neon Fever Dream, Cumulus, Exit Strategy, Power Play, and Version 1.0. He publishes a blog, tweets more than he probably should, and lives in Oakland, CA.
“A globe-trotting, near-future thriller brimming with intrigue and big ideas.”
-David Brin, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Campbell Award–winning author, on Breach
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