100 Books Like Retrotopia

I’m a lifelong typewriter lover. That passion has taken me down some deep and wonderful rabbit holes, including critiques of digital tech. I’m just as hooked on tech as the average person today, and of course, it has real benefits, but I’m painfully aware of how my addiction damages my attention, privacy, and self-reliance. The books I’ve picked help me articulate the problems, imagine just how bad things can get, and see alternatives. In my day job as a philosophy professor, I think about topics like memory, time, and technology, and specialize in controversial thinker Martin Heidegger (I own his typewriter!). 

I’m a lifelong typewriter lover. That passion has taken me down some deep and wonderful rabbit holes, including critiques of digital tech. I’m just as hooked on tech as the average person today, and of course, it has real benefits, but I’m painfully aware of how my addiction damages my attention, privacy, and self-reliance. The books I’ve picked help me articulate the problems, imagine just how bad things can get, and see alternatives. In my day job as a philosophy professor, I think about topics like memory, time, and technology, and specialize in controversial thinker Martin Heidegger (I own his typewriter!). 

I’m a lifelong typewriter lover. That passion has taken me down some deep and wonderful rabbit holes, including critiques of digital tech. I’m just as hooked on tech as the average person today, and of course, it has real benefits, but I’m painfully aware of how my addiction damages my attention, privacy, and self-reliance. The books I’ve picked help me articulate the problems, imagine just how bad things can get, and see alternatives. In my day job as a philosophy professor, I think about topics like memory, time, and technology, and specialize in controversial thinker Martin Heidegger (I own his typewriter!). 

I’m a lifelong typewriter lover. That passion has taken me down some deep and wonderful rabbit holes, including critiques of digital tech. I’m just as hooked on tech as the average person today, and of course, it has real benefits, but I’m painfully aware of how my addiction damages my attention, privacy, and self-reliance. The books I’ve picked help me articulate the problems, imagine just how bad things can get, and see alternatives. In my day job as a philosophy professor, I think about topics like memory, time, and technology, and specialize in controversial thinker Martin Heidegger (I own his typewriter!). 

I have always loved fictional works that explore deep truths of humanity and existence. As a teen struggling to understand my purpose and beliefs, I grew fond of dystopian books with subtle, hope-filled messages pointing to God as our salvation amid chaos. I loved the genre so much that I began writing a Christian dystopian novel of my own and self-published it at 19, weaving pieces of my testimony throughout the main character's inner journey. For me, a book is only as good as its characters, no matter how gripping the plot is. So, the books on this list contain some of the genre's most authentic, intricately written souls.

I've been writing for 20 years, and the more I learn about the craft, the less interested I am in big, bombastic thrillers about the end of the world. Now I'm more impressed by books that do a lot with a little. Some talented writers can spin a gripping story out of nothing more than two people in a room (Stephen King's Misery is one of my all-time faves). The domestic noir genre lends itself to this kind of minimalism. Sure, serial killers are scary, but not as scary as the thought that your spouse might not be who they seem.

I’ve been a sci-fi/fantasy fan ever since my dad introduced me to the original Star Trek (in reruns) and The Lord of the Rings in my youth. I’ve always loved thinking about possibilities—large and small—so my work tends to think big when I write. I also write poetry, which allows me to talk about more than just the everyday or at least to find the excitement within the mundane in life. These works talk about those same “possibilities”—for better or worse, and in reading, I walk in awareness of what could be.

I’ve always been a bit of a daydreamer and drawn to books that look through a window into the "other world." These novels, often dubbed dystopian, are reflections or exaggerations of our own world, and this always appealed to me. Like the question, "What if?”. The premise of “What if we lived in a world where you had to pay for words?” inspired my first novel, The Qwerty Man. Although I love fiction, I’m more of a nonfiction reader these days and interested in Buddhism (as an education, not religion), geography, and history. I’ve also written travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet and a children’s travel poetry book called Rhyme Travels.

I have always loved fictional works that explore deep truths of humanity and existence. As a teen struggling to understand my purpose and beliefs, I grew fond of dystopian books with subtle, hope-filled messages pointing to God as our salvation amid chaos. I loved the genre so much that I began writing a Christian dystopian novel of my own and self-published it at 19, weaving pieces of my testimony throughout the main character's inner journey. For me, a book is only as good as its characters, no matter how gripping the plot is. So, the books on this list contain some of the genre's most authentic, intricately written souls.

I currently reside in my home state of Connecticut with my darling wife and a duo of sweet cuddly dogs. I am a renaissance man having dabbled in Acting for Film and Theater, Fencing and Mixed Martial Arts, Professional Dorkary, and a bevy of other passions before coming to land on writing. Having stepped into numerous fantasy worlds over the years I have had the chance to sample many different flavors of imagination and developed a refined taste for all things dark, mystical, and tragic.