Here are the ones I&#x27;d be willing to recommend, in reverse chronological order of when I read them.  I read 59 total.  Listen to books on tape while working out has maybe doubled my reading rate.<p><i>Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy</i> - Great book on how the Mongol Empire came to be, who Genghis was, and it put the whole thing in perspective for me in a useful way.<p><i>The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch</i> - What it says on the tin.  Actually a good overview how some important technologies interrelate.<p><i>Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction</i> - How to be wrong less often.  Based on the Good Judgement Project results.<p><i>The Three-Body Problem</i> - Decent enough science fiction but extra interesting because it&#x27;s science fiction from a different culture.<p><i>Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants</i> - A history of things that go boom.  Engaging writing and I learned things about chemistry.<p><i>The Traitor Baru Cormorant</i> - I&#x27;m nominating this for a Hugo.  It tells you it&#x27;s going to stab you in the gut but when it does you don&#x27;t see it coming.  Plus high quality scheming and speculation on economics, society, and empire.<p><i>The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps</i> - Excellent use of voice and an overall good book.<p><i>Bloom</i> - Made my skin crawl in places and also was good at making you feel a radical change in perspective.<p><i>Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed</i> - An interesting perspective on certain aspects of government.  A bit too negative for the topic, the factors outlined are also why commercial economies were able to develop more centralized economies than agrarian ones in the early modern era.<p><i>Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy</i> - Quite good book on bureaucracy though not as excellent as the previous book on the origins of states.<p><i>Last First Snow</i> - It&#x27;s always great to read books about the struggles between people with sympathetic motivations.<p><i>The Unwelcome Warlock</i> - The latest in a series of fantasy books where people use magic in creative and sensible ways.<p><i>Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy</i> -Mostly about all the different sorts of asteroids.<p><i>Seveneves</i> - Neal Stephenson&#x27;s latest.  If you like his books read it but maybe skip the last 1&#x2F;3 after the timeskip.<p><i>Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future</i> - Wow he did a lot of cool stuff.<p><i>Stories of Your Life and Others</i> - Brilliant and poetic short stories.<p><i>Darwin&#x27;s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life</i> - Some interesting perspective on materialism.<p><i>Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life</i> - Best science book I&#x27;ve read in a while!  Shows why mitochondria matter, the fundamental limits of prochariotic life, and several important ways mitochondria influence again and evolution.<p><i>Blue Remembered Earth</i> - Awesome near futureish book that does well at imagining a future that isn&#x27;t just a linear extrapolation but is still believable.<p><i>A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark</i> - Not enough pacifist badass grandmothers in urban fantasy.<p><i>Quantum Computing since Democritus</i> - I understand QM much better now.