Books

Sid Meier’s Memoir! Sid Meier A working designer's account of four decades, candid about the failures and the features players hated. Sidereus Nuncius Galileo Galilei 1 recommender Signs of the Last Day in the Modern Age Imran N. Hosein The traditional signs of the Last Day set against the events of the modern world. Silent Spring Rachel Carson The 1962 book on pesticides that began the modern environmental movement. 2 recommenders 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. Singing for Mrs Pettigrew Michael Morpurgo Stories and essays on where the author's fiction comes from, including the woman who lived in a railway carriage. Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1 recommender Sister Outsider Audre Lorde Lorde's essential essays on race, class, sexuality and the uses of anger, including the master's tools. 1 recommender Sitopia Carolyn Steel An architect's case for putting food at the centre of how we live and plan our world. 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. 2 recommenders 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 Snapshot Brandon Sanderson Two detectives work inside a perfect recreation of a single day, hunting a killer among people who will cease to exist at midnight. Snowblind Ragnar Jónasson Ragnar Jónasson's Icelandic crime novel that starts the Dark Iceland series, from Minotaur in 2017. So Late in the Day Claire Keegan Small refusals and narrowing lives, in stories where what is withheld carries the weight. 1 recommender So You Want to Own Greenland? Elizabeth Buchanan Everyone who has tried to buy, claim or annex Greenland, set out dispassionately, including the Norwegian claim to the eastern coast that went to the Hague. 1 recommender So, Anyway… John Cleese John Cleese's memoir of his early life, from a sleepy English town and Cambridge to the founding of Monty Python. Society of Lies Lauren Ling Brown A woman returns to Princeton for her sister's graduation and ends up investigating her death instead. 1 recommender Solito, Solita Steven Mayers, Jonathan Freedman Young Central Americans tell, in their own words, how and why they made the journey north alone. 1 recommender Some Bright Nowhere Ann Packer Ann Packer's novel, a 2025 Oprah's Book Club selection. A fuller description will be added once verified against the finished book. 1 recommender Someday Is Today Matthew Dicks An urgent case against someday, from a novelist who wrote his books in the margins of a full-time job. 1 recommender Someone Alice McDermott An ordinary Irish-American life in Brooklyn, told with no dramatic events and no wasted sentences. 1 recommender Something for Nothing Brian Tracy Tracy's odd one out: a broadside against the wish for unearned reward, and the least self-help-shaped book he wrote. Something in the Water Catherine Steadman A honeymoon dive turns up something that should have been left alone, and a couple discovers what they are willing to do. 1 recommender