Books
"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." — Kafka
Seeing Like a State
James C. Scott
Centralized planning fails when it ignores local, practical knowledge.
A Pattern Language
goodChristopher Alexander · 2025
Good design at every scale follows identifiable patterns that connect human needs to physical form.
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
essentialRichard Hamming · 2025
You must work on important problems, and you must actively prepare your mind to recognize them.
The Mushroom at the End of the World
goodAnna Lowenhaupt Tsing · 2025
Value and meaning can emerge from the ruins of capitalist systems, not despite them but through them.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
essentialMartin Kleppmann · 2024
Understand the trade-offs behind every database and distributed system before choosing one.
The Dispossessed
goodUrsula K. Le Guin · 2024
No society is a utopia from the inside -- even anarchist communes develop their own forms of coercion.
The Dream Machine
essentialM. Mitchell Waldrop · 2024
The personal computer was not inevitable -- it took a specific vision of human-computer symbiosis to make it happen.
The Master and Margarita
droppedMikhail Bulgakov · 2026
The Devil visits Soviet Moscow to expose the absurdity and cowardice of its literary establishment.