Books

The Dark Enlightenment Nick Land Democracy as a failure mode, and exit in place of voice. The founding text of neoreaction, cited constantly and read rarely, listed here because Cowen read it. 1 recommender The Dark Talent Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz infiltrates the Highbrary itself, in the book where the series stops joking and the unreliable narrator finally costs him something. The Day of the Locust Nathanael West Hollywood's failures and hangers-on, circling a film industry that has no use for them. 1 recommender The Dearly Beloved Cara Wall Two ministers, two wives, one congregation, and faith treated as a real intellectual problem. 1 recommender The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories Horacio Quiroga Tales of horror and the Latin American jungle from the writer often called the Poe of South America. 1 recommender The Deep End of the Ocean Jacquelyn Mitchard A family is upended when a three-year-old vanishes from a hotel lobby, in the debut novel that became the first Oprah’s Book Club pick. 1 recommender The Deer Park Norman Mailer A war hero in a desert resort town, deciding what his own life story is worth on the open market. 1 recommender The Deficit Myth Stephanie Kelton An economist's case for rethinking government debt through modern monetary theory. 1 recommender The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Carl Sagan Sagan finished it while dying: alien abduction, faith healing, witch trials, and the Baloney Detection Kit that has outlived almost everything else on the subject. 1 recommender The Descent of Man Charles Darwin Darwin turns evolution on his own species, and is at his least guarded when the subject reaches imagination, music and beauty. 1 recommender The Devil Finds Work James Baldwin Baldwin on the movies he grew up on, and what they were quietly teaching him about himself. 1 recommender The Devils of Loudun Aldous Huxley Huxley's study of a 17th-century French possession scandal, and how hysteria and power destroy individual autonomy. 1 recommender The Devotion of Suspect X Keigo Higashino A murder, and a brilliant neighbour who helps cover it up. Less a whodunit than a duel of intellects. 1 recommender The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 4 Anaïs Nin The years Nin hand-printed her own books because publishers refused them, recorded in the diary she treated as her real work. 1 recommender The Dichotomy of Leadership Jocko Willink Every leadership virtue has an opposite that is also true. The skill is knowing which one today calls for. The Dictionary of Lost Words Pip Williams A girl raised beneath the making of the Oxford English Dictionary collects the words its editors threw away. 1 recommender The Dip Seth Godin Quitting the wrong things fast is a skill, not a failure: winners quit constantly, just not in the dip before the payoff The Discovery of Insulin Michael Bliss Diabetes was a death sentence until a Toronto laboratory changed that in the 1920s, and then everyone involved began fighting over the credit. 1 recommender The Divine Reality Hamza Andreas Tzortzis An Islamic case for God against atheist arguments. 2 recommenders The Double Standard Jody McIntyre, Mohammed Hijab McIntyre and Hijab argue that Western media applies unequal standards to coverage of Israel and Palestine. The Downstairs Girl Stacey Lee A Chinese American maid in 1890 Atlanta secretly writes the city's most talked-about advice column from a hidden basement. 1 recommender The Dream Hotel Laila Lalami Detained for a crime an algorithm predicts from her dreams, in a system that keeps moving the release conditions. 1 recommender The Driver’s Seat Muriel Spark Lise flies south on holiday looking for a particular kind of man, and Spark tells you early how it ends. 1 recommender The Drowned World J. G. Ballard Solar radiation has melted the ice caps and drowned the cities, and the survivors find their minds regressing along with the landscape. 1 recommender The Dutch House Ann Patchett Two siblings put out of the family house, and fifty years of parking outside to look at it. 1 recommender