3 book recommendations for November, 2021
Books make great gifts. They contain so many of humanity’s best stories and ideas—wisdom from the dead, insight from the fringe, and journeys born of imagination. When you give someone a book, you’re offering them a new world to bring to life in their mind and heart.
My novels are perfect for the people in your life who seek out adventure and are curious about how technology is shaping our lives and world. And if you want to browse all my reading recommendations, I collate them here.
And now, books I love that you might too:
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson is a thought-provoking technothriller that follows the queen of the Netherlands, a Sikh martial artist, a Comanche feral-swine exterminator, and a Texan billionaire on a whirlwind quest to establish a geoengineering program in a near-future beset by cascading climate disasters. The story is weird and unlikely enough to feel like how things actually happen, rather than fiction that’s striving to be plausible.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia is a practical, principled guide to building a business yourself from scratch. Through stories that educate, inspire, and entertain, Sahil shares what he’s learned building Gumroad and befriending many fellow founders. I will be recommending this book to anyone making things on the internet, and will include it as a resource in my advice for authors.
The End of Everything by Katie Mack is a hilarious, mind-expanding tour through the myriad ways in which cosmologists think the universe will die. By cataloging and explaining these existential catastrophes, Katie will lead you to a deeper understanding of what scientists have discovered about how the universe works.
Bonus recommendation: A fascinating natural history of watermelons.
In other news:
I interviewed Stewart Brand about the art of maintenance and writing The Maintenance Race: “Maintainers are scholars of causation. They routinely have to figure out why something stopped working, and it can be maddening. Each success is a compelling detective story. Once they understand the problem, they have to figure out what to do about it. Each of those successes is a caper story.”
It was great fun to join Kade Crockford, Malka Older, and Tim O'Reilly on Brian David Johnson's new Sci-Fi House podcast to discuss how AI is shaping the future.
Inspired by watching Raya and the Last Dragon, I wrote A Recipe for Adventure.
Shawn Butler, a subscriber to this humble newsletter, published his second novel—a biotech thriller.
Do hard things for their own sake. Be kind, especially when circumstances call for anger. Be patient, especially when circumstances call for haste. Be generous, especially when fate offers you advantage. When in doubt, pay attention. Leave the world better than you found it. Share on Twitter.
S.D. MicKinley published a lovely review of Borderless: “There wasn’t a single page I didn’t highlight.”
I'm currently writing my eleventh novel. I always think the next book is going to be easier, but somehow it never actually is. In the words of Gene Wolf: "You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."
From my work-in-progress: “He generated his own momentum until everyone got caught up in it, which was why the nuanced minor chords of melancholy sounded so odd coming from him, like hearing a freight train recite poetry.”
A fan of Veil sent me this article about how the Maldives is planning to build a floating city to escape rising sea levels.
I love it when readers discover the Easter eggs I use to weave my novels together.
Nothing beats seeing a friend earn well-deserved recognition for taking a big creative risk and working their butt off to make good on it. Share on Twitter.
ICYMI, Bryan Walsh interviewed me about Bandwidth: “Stories are the original virtual reality.”
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.
“I’m obsessed with Emily Kim. She’s this powerful, super-intelligent woman who has used her skills and her presence to grow a silent empire, only to have it all pulled out from under her. There’s always so much at stake in this near-future world.”
-Reviews & Robots on Breach
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