100 Books Like Tangle's Game

Reading this book reminded me that understanding another person is a continuous struggle, and that we lose the most when we mistake appearances for truth. Even for someone like Genly, an emissary whose role is to bridge cultures, truly understanding Estraven proves painfully difficult.

What stayed with me was the tragedy of that gap: how insight often arrives too late.

Estraven’s sacrifice, made so that Genly could reach safety, and Genly’s decision to visit Estraven’s family afterward, left me with a lingering sense that remembrance itself carries moral weight. Sometimes understanding cannot undo loss, but memory—how the living choose to carry it—can still salvage a trace of good from tragedy.

Le Guin’s novel taught me that empathy is not a destination, but an act that must be fought for, again and again.

This brilliant collection of interlinked urban fantasy short stories makes use of a variety of magical devices to change the lives of the featured characters. Each story is from a different character viewpoint, each character connected with the others in some way, and each story moves the narrative forwards to its heartfelt and dramatic conclusion.

Turner brings together a group of young, and young-at-heart, individuals all attempting to find themselves, and struggling with the circumstances they are in. Gradually, as the narrative progresses, they discover each other and help each other towards a powerful and profound intervention that showcases the best of human kindness, community, and acceptance.

This book moved me. After going through the different character stories building towards the end, the finale with an assemble moment of courage between many of the characters is such an empowering and cathartic moment. When I read it, I was listening in… show more.

Included in this collection of the best science fiction from 2013, edited by the late Garner Dozois, is the novella, "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" This is a story from the Mistress of Cyberpunk, Pat Cadigan, which is also available for free from Clarkesworld Magazine. Pat Cadigan has been writing thought-provoking science fiction for decades. Girl-Thing depicts a futuristic society where colonisation of our solar system means the transformation of our physiology. The parallel between this and current times is palpable. Cyberpunk has always concerned itself with asking the question, what makes us human? This question is usually explored through the interaction and integration of machines and technology into the organic form. However, in Girl-Thing, there is something else going on. The necessity of form to survive in different environments is combined with an exploration of identity and acceptance.

I was hooked from the first pages and couldn’t put the book down. The story is set in a cyberpunk world, where advanced technology permeates every aspect of human life, making life easier at the cost of privacy and independence. 

I loved the world-building and the protagonist, raged at the injustices with him, and hated the antagonist. The mystery kept me invested and intrigued, and I reached for the book whenever I had a moment. I didn't expect the ending and was a bit heartbroken. I also loved the way it was written—it was so clear and easy to read that I was completely immersed in the narrative with nothing to pull my attention away.

This is book 2 of the Planetfall series, but it’s perfect as a standalone. I started the series with it.

What I admire the most about this book is how it clearly explains the power of social media and social justice without the kind of paternalistic finger-wagging of bad actors.

Hill and Brewster focus on the impact, intention, and impressions of some of the most important activist movements of our time and how alike and different they are from the past.

This book strikes an incredible balance of admiring the days before Twitter, while respecting the current progress made now that we have such digital platforms at our fingertips.

This book was published ten years ago, and it’s as fresh and relevant as ever. I’ve chosen to highlight it here because, honestly, it’s the classic book that catalyzed many researchers into properly listening to young people and really respecting their views.

I learned a lot from danah boyd’s fieldwork about how to put effort into gaining teens’ trust, avoiding adult assumptions, and properly listening to what teens had to say. The teens in this book are often troubled, struggling with mental health problems and difficult life circumstances – but it's not their fault, they are facing so many real-world problems – poverty, family breakdown, racism, etc.

As a result, teens turn to technology for support, privacy, intimacy, and belonging. But in key ways, technology can also make things worse. I found this book truly thought-provoking.

Have you ever found that you unintentionally offended someone with an innocuous message? Or perhaps no one responds to your emails, even when you think they should.

We lose so much meaning and context when we interact online rather than in person. In a world of virtual and hybrid work, it’s not enough to write well. We must also master the non-verbal signals that accompany our words. This book is an essential guide to mastering the subtle ins and outs of writing emails, messages, texts, social media posts, and more.

The book offers a stark choice: (a) Learn how computers work and the language we use to tell them what to do, or (b) Become digital roadkill.

It's a sentiment that I agree with wholeheartedly, but would never assert so aggressively. The book was written during the early days of the rise social media and the author presciently was aware that society was being overtaken, programmed, by this development. Again, I think he was totally right and our relationship with computers has degraded significantly in the years that followed. We need a revolution!

This might well be the least-read book on my list, but I hope that will change soon. Lanham is a Professor of Rhetoric who argues that Andy Warhol was the best economist of attention of the twentieth century, and an exemplar for the economy of the twenty-first, in which value is created through knowledge and attention. Lanham’s inspired distinction between stuff and fluff convincingly demonstrates that the modern economy is more about the experience, style, and packaging of the stuff, rather than the other way around. And that is a good thing. In one of the many digressions in the book he presents Friedrich Hayek as the Dadaist among the economists. This book is a wild ride, with insights on every page. 

This book made a big impact on me because it shifts the study of culture in working-class China from familiar genres such as poetry to the vast domain of the digital.

Qiu argues that a working-class network society has taken firm shape in 21st-century China, made up of migrants, laid-off workers, retired people, young people, and small-scale entrepreneurs. In one sense, these people are the “information have-less” because they belong to the social classes typically on the wrong side of the digital divide.

But Qiu’s book shows that cheap internet access and extensive cell phone penetration in China have enabled the “have-less” to create class identity through their use of information technology. From community-building to memory-making, the book really nuanced my understanding of digital networks as a transformatively cultural force.