I am interested in social justice issues, and the books in my list deal with these issues. My background is in finance, but I’ve tried to use this knowledge to help others. I serve on the board of two not-for-profit organizations, one a dance company that works with at-risk teens in various countries, and the other is an animal sanctuary that takes in farm animals that have been abused. I consider myself very fortunate and privileged, and it's important to remember not everyone has had the opportunities I have had. I feel it’s crucial to connect with others, understand where they’re coming from, and help if you can.
I like books that are about something. Frank Herbert created a sweeping world that uses religion, politics and personal relationships to build his story.
I love the diversity of the characters and the unusual places he creates. But ultimately, the book is about building a society and personal redemption. I like the way he weaves the social issues into a compelling narrative that makes us re-examine our worldview.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
I like the psychological nature of this book. It pits human beings against an idea–a computer model of society. Having a degree in economics the concept particularly intrigued me.
It showed no matter how big and important we think we are there are forces outside of our control. This was one of the most innovative books I have read.
The first novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series
THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION, NOW STREAMING • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I liked this book because it examines the role loyalty and social customs play in our lives. As soldiers are transported from location to location, the laws of relativity step in to move the characters decades into the future.
In that time, social customs have changed, and things that we thought were important no longer are. It shows how vulnerable we are to custom and tradition. In the end, it is the personal that is important, not the bigger cause.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi
The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time…
I liked this book because of the innovative characters and world building. It was recognizable, but different in a way that was disconcerting. It kept me on guessing as to what was going to happen.
There was also a heavy moral aspect to the book, which I thought lifted it from just being a story to being more meaningful to me.
“Rowdy” Randy Cox, a woman staring down the barrel of retirement, is a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years and is trying to date again.
At the end of a long, exhausting shift, Randy finds her supervisor, Bryant, pinned and near death at the warehouse…
This was one of the most innovative books I’ve read in a long time. The premise of the book is fascinating–you can go back in time, but you can’t change anything, and you have to stay in your seat at the coffee shop until the coffee gets cold.
You’d think that would be so limiting that nothing would change–but you’d be wrong. It’s a bittersweet novel about personal relationships and how much just small gestures can impact us. I liked that it focused on small, interpersonal relationships rather than large, sweeping stories.
If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most…
The book is about the big issues we face in society. More specifically, the book is about two lands, Bracat and Ognita. Bracat has changed since the time when there was a collective joining of minds. This opened up new possibilities for peace. But this new feeling of unity is tentative, and the future is never certain.
A young gem cutter, Theb, discovers an ordinary stone that he knows is something extraordinary—a crystal that exists in two realms at once, but only Theb can see how unique it is. A woman far away calls him to help save her people from an encroaching fog that swallows up everything in its path, and only the quasi-crystal can break through the fog.
In an underground coal mine in Northern Germany, over forty scribes who are fluent in different languages have been spared the camps to answer letters to the dead—letters that people were forced to answer before being gassed, assuring relatives that conditions in the camps were good.
Secrets, lies, and second chances are served up beneath the stars in this moving novel by the bestselling author of This Is Not How It Ends. Think White Lotus meets Virgin River set at a picturesque mountain inn.
Seven days in summer. Eight lives forever changed. The stage is…
