Books

Several Short Sentences About Writing Verlyn Klinkenborg Most of what school taught you about writing is debris. A rebuild, working one sentence at a time. 1 recommender Sex and World Peace Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, Chad F. Emmett Data-driven argument that the security of women is the best predictor of whether a state is peaceful. 1 recommender Shadows of Self Brandon Sanderson A killer who can wear other people's faces is stoking unrest in Elendel, and the hunt drags Wax into the machinery of his own religion. Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania and the Mayhem of 1963 Ken McNab At the start of 1963 they expected to end up writing songs for other people. By the end they were the most famous band in Britain. McNab tracks the year. 1 recommender Shark Tales Barbara Corcoran, Bruce Littlefield Corcoran turns a $1,000 loan and her mother's kitchen-table wisdom into a real estate empire, telling the story as blunt, funny business lessons. Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia Sam Dalrymple Burma in 1937, the Gulf states, India and Pakistan, then Bangladesh: five partitions treated as one connected process that drew the map of modern Asia. 1 recommender She’s Come Undone Wally Lamb Wally Lamb's debut follows Dolores Price from a troubled childhood through years of pain and slow recovery, told in her sharp, wounded voice. 1 recommender Shelter from the Storm: How a COVID Mortgage Meltdown Was Averted Mark Calabria The American mortgage market nearly seized up in 2020, and this is the account from inside. 1 recommender Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara Judith Scheele Two decades of field work argue the desert is a connective region rather than an empty barrier, with a coherence that ignores every border drawn across it. 1 recommender Ship of Fools Tucker Carlson A conservative commentator's critique of the American ruling class. Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject Meryle Secrest Secrest wrote lives of Dali, Berenson, Wright and Sondheim, and here describes what it took to reach each one: the locked archives, and the widows guarding them. 1 recommender Shooting Stars LeBron James Four friends, one Akron high school team, and the loyalty that carried all of them out. Shot in the Heart Mikal Gilmore The brother of an executed murderer goes back through the family that produced them both. 1 recommender Shots Heard Round the World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War John Ferling Ferling puts the colonial campaign inside the wider European war it became, weighing French, Spanish and British strategy as heavily as anything at Saratoga. 1 recommender Show and Biz: The Market Economy in TV Series and Popular Culture (2000-2020) Maria Blanco What television series since 2000 have actually taught viewers about markets, trade and money. 1 recommender Show Your Work! Austin Kleon You don't have to be a genius to get discovered, you have to be findable. Ten principles for sharing your work. 1 recommender Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart A boy in 1980s Glasgow certain he can save his mother, in a novel that refuses to agree. 1 recommender Shutter Ramona Emerson A Navajo forensic photographer sees the dead in her crime-scene images, and they want something. 1 recommender Sid Meier’s Memoir! Sid Meier A working designer's account of four decades, candid about the failures and the features players hated. Silver Screen Fiend Patton Oswalt Oswalt on his four-year addiction to revival-cinema filmgoing, a love letter to movies and a caution about worshiping art instead of making your own. Sister Outsider Audre Lorde Lorde's essential essays on race, class, sexuality and the uses of anger, including the master's tools. 1 recommender Six of Crows Leigh Bardugo A fantasy heist: six dangerous outcasts recruited for an impossible break-in that could make them rich or get them killed. 1 recommender Skin in the Game Nassim Nicholas Taleb Decisions made by people who do not bear the downside, and exposure to consequences as the filter that fixes it. 1 recommender Skyward Brandon Sanderson Humanity is pinned to one planet under alien bombardment, and the daughter of a pilot branded a coward is determined to fly anyway. Skyward Flight: The Collection Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson Three Skyward novellas in one volume, handing the story to FM, Jorgen and Alanik while Spensa is away in the nowhere. Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut A prisoner of war survives the firebombing of Dresden and comes unstuck in time. 1 recommender Slave to Sensation Nalini Singh In a world where cold, emotionless Psy live alongside shape-shifting Changelings, one of each is drawn together hunting a killer. 1 recommender Slavery and Islam Jonathan A.C. Brown Why a tradition that regulated slavery never abolished it, without apologetics or easy condemnation. Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America Beth Linker A century of Americans being told to stand up straight, and the science that was never there. 1 recommender Slow Dance Rainbow Rowell The two friends everyone expected to end up together meet again at thirty-three, after the years took them elsewhere. 1 recommender Slow Productivity Cal Newport Three principles against the frantic, visible busyness of knowledge work: do fewer things, work at a natural pace, obsess over quality. 1 recommender Small Boat Vincent Delecroix A Channel drowning, and the operator who took the calls, told largely as her own defence. 1 recommender Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism Trevor Latimer Local government is not automatically better government, and the case for it mostly does not hold. 1 recommender Small Things Like These Claire Keegan Claire Keegan's slim, luminous novel follows an Irish coal merchant who confronts the cruelty of a convent laundry at Christmas. 2 recommenders Smart People Should Build Things Andrew Yang Yang's first book, on steering talented graduates away from finance and consulting and toward building companies, especially outside the coastal hubs. Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories Amitav Ghosh Opium built modern Asia and a good deal of Western wealth, and the receipts are still traceable. 1 recommender