📚 2017 Book Recommendations

Goodreads made this list from my reading, but here are my direct recommendations:

Non-fiction:

• Changing Lenses: a life-altering introduction to Restorative Justice.
• Weapons of Math Destruction: this book about big data misuse was a great resource for my talk on big data security (Security Thinking for Big Data).
• Conflict is not Abuse: A nuanced, challenging, imperfect, and incredibly important book about how we respond to conflict, and how trauma- and supremacy-based anxieties affect those responses.
• How to Win Friends and Influence People: classic advice, though some of the examples haven’t aged well.
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: introduces them well with a story, ends with a good reference to the ideas.
• Reviving Old Scratch: Richard Beck of Experimental Theology addresses the tendency towards secular humanism within progressive theology.
• The No Asshole Rule: good advice for how to prevent (or deal with) bad workplaces.
• Getting to “Yes”: classic negotiation advice.
• Utopia of Rules: a philosophical exploration of our relationship with bureaucracy.
• Irresistible Revolution: an autohagiography of radical christian experiments. For a heroic everyday method for Christian living, see: Stranger God.

Fiction:

• The Dispossessed: This is a wonderful take on sci-fi that explores work, societies, and beliefs. Our means are our ends.
  
• The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear: beautiful bardic fantasy. (These were re-reads)
• The Seventh Princess: I’m amazed this fantasy book for children isn’t still in publication.
• Fight Club: strange writing style, but better than the movie. Really good, assuming you read both the problems and “solutions” as satire.
• Warbreaker: this is my favorite Cosmere/Sanderson book. (This was a re-read)
• Slaughterhouse Five: so it goes, but it doesn’t have to.
• The Handmaid’s Tale: maybe this time a dystopian work will warn us off?
• The Rise and Fall of DODO: almost as good as Anathem.
• The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive take a long time to get going, but end up being worth it. If you’re reading Stormlight Archive and missed the novella, get lifted up by this bit of awesome: Edgedancer.
• The Butcher of Anderson Station: read this novella after the first Expanse book.
• Dragonsong: this was my first Pern experience, and it was really good.

What are _your_ recommendations?