Books like A Burglar's Guide to the City — picked by fans

I loved the way Nexus looks at human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us and our world.

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. Will we lose that power to AI? I believe Harari adds an important historical perspective to complement Kurzweil’s view of the future.

I found Harari’s account about the role of Facebook’s AI in the persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar to be fascinating. 

Is it American History? Counterculture? Something else? To be sure what it is is a very engaging, detailed chronicle of the California Institute at Big Sur and its residents and visitors.

The book provides coverage of a profound and influential interlude of American culture in which drugs, folk-rock, psychology, transhumanism, and other philosophies intermixed with one another.

As a psychologist, I was interested in hearing about Aldous Huxley and Abraham Maslow’s visits; more generally, who knew that Joan Baez and Hunter S. Thompson both lived on the property before the institute was established! 

My gosh, this was an interesting book.

It provides a historical perspective on our rapidly evolving technological world by looking at how technology influenced humanity’s era of evolutionary adaptation. Among the accounts are how fire promoted brain growth (by permitting humans to extract more calories from their food), and the almost certain early development of baby slings, that made it possible for human communities to migrate long distances.

Such reflections seem particularly useful today as we face working with AI—and as we wonder how it will affect us.

Looking for a literary alternative to some of my doctoral work in psychology, I signed up for a specialty exam with Professor Robert Plank.

As part of the experience, I read his work, “The emotional significance of imaginary beings,” which was accessible and delightful. A beautifully written and somewhat dreamy review of imaginary beings from Shakespeare’s characters in The Tempest to alien abduction stories circulating in the 1950s and 60s, and including analyses of various science fiction movies, it built a vivid and poetic sense of why we seek such creatures. 

Shortly after its publication, the work was panned by psychoanalysts, who may have been disappointed in the work's focus on people’s everyday hopes, fears, and dreams; the reviewers might have preferred more in-depth analyses following then-current psychoanalytic theory. But the book is an insightful and accessible tour through many literary and film masterpieces (Forbidden Planet among them), as… show more.

I love listening to Evanovich’s hilarious tales of Stephanie Plum’s misadventures as a wannabe bail/bondsman. These books are my wife’s and my favorite distraction on long road trips. While her mysteries may be thin, her characters are so real and her stories so crazy, I didn’t miss the whodunit. I included her in this August list because she captures the seedy side of Trenton, New Jersey, with amazing clarity, even while laughing at the place.

I picture myself riding in one of her cars—which she destroys regularly—along with her friend, the former ho, LuLu, hair flowing in the stinky wind blowing off deserted warehouses, sleezy girl joints and questionable car repair shops. This is the first in a series that is now at 31.

This book made me first want to write for 7 to 11-year-olds! It is really easy to get into and the characters are fun, believable, and have heart. Baddiel’s books are all set in the real world of school and normal life but with a fantastical twist. In this story, the naughtiest boy in school accidentally swaps bodies with the very strict headteacher, and they both learn a lot about themselves while having chaotic, madcap adventures along the way.

I love this essay for the same reason I love so much of DFW’s nonfiction. His voice is completely unique; unashamedly neurotic and over-analytical, to the extent that the stated objective of the trip (the piece is about his week on a cruise ship, which advertises guaranteed total relaxation, pampering, and convenience) is completely – and often comically – undermined.

It resonates with me because I’ve always had trouble with the whole “Just live in the moment!” shtick, so it was very inspiring/validating to discover someone who had made their being an outsider/misfit a strength. To see someone just be unashamedly themselves. So that’s what I took away.

Don’t keep your neuroticism and self-consciousness and eccentricity to yourself to try and seem “normal,” but actually lean into those things. Question things that nobody else seems to be questioning.

Gideon Sterer is my co-author and it is a pleasure to work with him! He is a fellow upstate New York native, and has been an active member of the community with his lovely children’s books.

This book provides children with a fun, aesthetically pleasing story about sharing. Great for children who love animals! 

This is not a novel, but a collection of Lardner's newspapers columns and short stories, many of which revolve around a bush league pitcher named Jack Keefe who tells stories to his friend.

I love baseball and am fascinated by the early days of the game, and Lardner's Jack makes me feel as if I am experiencing life in baseball's “bushes” back in the 1920s. Oh, yea, that's the other draw of this book for me a view, from his columns and other stories, of the daily grind of American life in an era that was much more than flappers and bathtub gin. (Although there is a bit of both therein). 

This marvelous little book was first published in 1939 – and it is still bang up to date in its critique of conventional education. (As a society we seem to have learned far too little in the ensuing 80 years). Peddiwell tells the story of the first pre-historic educators who taught young people useful life skills like how to grab fish, or how to use fire to scare away saber-tooth tigers. Over the years the climate changed, but the elders refused to allow the curriculum to change with it. The saber-tooth tigers died out, but scaring them still had to be taught in schools because that knowledge had become a ‘cultural treasure’ even though it was now useless. It is very funny, and bang on the money, in showing just how stupid supposedly clever people can be. (Peddiwell and his story were both made up by a real professor called… show more.