Not exactly a new book, but All Quiet on the Western Front was a fantastic read. It's a grotesquely frank depiction of the unfortunate "Have Not"s fighting a meaningless war for the "Have"s in society, set in the german trenches of WW1.
this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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Asklemmy
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From the same author, Erich Maria Remarque, "A night in Lisbon" is also very good.
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We are legion we are Bob
Recently my favourite genre have been "2019 lesbian sci-fi debut novels about an empire, starting a series".
A Memory Called Empire is absolutely amazing. A very close second is Gideon the Ninth and its sequels.
thats such a specific genre haha. Have read the Traitor Baru Cormorant? Very slightly outside of your criteria but I'd recommend it
It isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
I'll throw your suggestion on The Pile. Looks promising.
There's also Ancillary Justice which just barely misses the exact genre. Unfortunately I didn't really enjoy the way it is written, though the story and universe is super interesting.
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I mean Iβm a communist so YMMV, but Iβm re-reading the Vietnamese textbook on Dialectical Materialism that Luna Oi translated. Iβm re-reading it because I also have the second textbook she translated (on Historical Materialism) and I wanted to brush up before diving in to that one.
Luna Oi is a great comrade! She is doing so much for the cause!
Noice. I hope to get this sometime.
Iβve found it to be the most concise and straightforward (and yet thorough) primer on dialectical materialism that Iβve come across so far. In particular I liked how the book split dialectical materialism (the philosophy) from materialist dialectics (the tools of analysis).
I'm currently on book 5 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, I started book one In January.
The audiobooks are amazing, super-talented narrator who does a while host of voices.
It's all so good
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Dungeon Crawler Carl. The premise is that aliens take over the world and immediately kill 99% of the population. The remaining 1% are forced to compete on an intergalactic reality TV show called Dungeon Crawler World.
The series is a scathing critique of modern capitalism, dressed up like a fart joke. If you liked The Good Place, youβll likely enjoy DCC.
He Who Fights With Monsters is a fun fantasy isekai series. The world-building in this one is absolutely top notch, to the point that I have considered ripping entire cities out of it for my tabletop games. The main character is pretty divisive, and enjoying the series is dependent on liking him. So the people who enjoy the series really enjoy it, and the ones who dislike Jason simply canβt like it.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was a nice sci-fi series. Itβs still ongoing, but book 6βs release date is TBA. Nerdy computer programmer gets Futuramaβd and frozen. But instead of waking up in a distant future like he expected, he wakes up as an AI in charge of a self-replicating space probe.
I'm on book three of the Bobiverse. I'm enjoying it. The nice thing is that they're not super dense.
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If you are into fantasy, then I need to recommend you the books of Brandon Sanderson, especially the Stormlight Archive series. It's so epic, nothing else comes close
The only thing I am reading rn is Capital but I don't think you came here for political theory so I will recommend The Hot Zone. It's the last book I read and it's about the discovery of Ebola, its investigations, and how it got to the US.
I recently read (listened to the audiobook actually) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
It's about the life of Thomas Cromwell. The narration style is not for everyone, but it's the best historical fiction story I've read.
The show is also excellent
New Scientist magazine, the paper version so that I can put it down, think about it, and come back a week later. Iβm not a scientist, and not highly educated, but Iβm curious about the world, and many of their articles are easy to read at my level.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Truly magnificent, just like the movie by Tarkovsky.
In parallel to that I went also down the rabbit hole about what cybernetics was and what happened to it.
Non-fiction:
- The Demon-Haunted World
- The Fourth Turning is Here
Fiction:
- There is No Antimemetics Division
Demon Haunted World is very timely
Always has been :(
I had put off reading it because I assumed it would be mostly preaching to the choir, but there are some challenging chapters to think about.
Ex. the idea that all the people who believe in aliens, and reject vaccines, and wear tinfoil hats, they're all doing the first step of science: which is to doubt. The problem is that people are generally untrained on what to do next.
The question is whether this modern era of science is an anomaly, or if there's something about the scientific method that gives it an advantage. If we fell completely into a dark age, is it inevitable that we find our way back? Or was this time period just a fluke?
It notes that throughout history, the dominant nation has always been the one who wields science most effectively. And the US wouldn't be the first to fall because it failed to.
I wish Carl were still around. He had a knack for cutting through bullshit we could really use right now
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Liberalism: A Counter History, by Domenico Losurdo. Mostly so far looking at how all the liberal revolutions and theorists ended up being at least lukewarm to slavery.
I'm reading a famous superhero web novel called "Worm" part of the Parahumans universe.
It's pretty good. I heard it's got 30 or so arcs with 1.4 million total words.
I am at arc 10 currently, and I got here super fast because the story is pretty good.
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Non fiction I'd recommend atomic habits (self help), nuclear war: a scenario (existential horror),~~ and Outliers (thought provoking)~~. Yes Man (interesting)
Fiction I'd recommend There is no Antimemetics division (regular horror), Exhalation (thought provoking short stories), and A Memory Called Empire (very good commentary on cultural assimilation).
Depending on what you're looking to get from reading i have other recs
Take anything written by Gladwell with a large helping of salt.
Malcolm "who is this Epstein guy and how did I get on his plane? π€ͺ" Gladwell (not paraphrasing)
For non fiction I'm reading The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle, and can highly recommend. Short, thought provocative, and engaging. For fiction, Children of Strife is great, latest instalment in Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series which I really enjoyed overall.
Children of Time is great. I also thought Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky was interesting. Although I'm a little skeptical about how aliens work in that one.
I was gonna say, it was a neat concept, but he didn't really spend the time to make it convincing or explain the mechanism for how life would evolve to be like that. It's like he just had this idea that life could be more modular, but didn't bother fleshing it out past that. I actually enjoyed Shroud a lot more, I feel like he put more work into making it plausible. Can recommend if you missed it.
I haven't read Shroud. I will put it on the list, thanks.
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Recently read Piranesi. Wonderful book in a unique setting. A page turner which can be finished in a day.
The blade itself is what Iβm current reading (when not frantically trying to catchup on one piece)
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Poject Hail Mary, The Martian
Both by Andy Weir.
Also M.O.N.A. and S.I.N.O.N. by Dan T. Sehlberg
The books by Andy Weir are hard sci-fi books. Very grounded in physical/realistic expectations but with a sprinkle of "the future".
The books by Dan Sehlberg are IT thriller-like novels.
Basically something like current 'Neuralink'.
The first books plot is about a scientist developing a brain-computer interface enabling the user to visit cyberspace in a sort of advanced VR like world but full on inside instead of just goggles you put on.
His wife trials it, visits her job sites web page during a cyber attack on the jobs IT-infrastructure, get's in contact with the malware there and brings the digital virus inside her to the real world.
Now the digital malware/virus has become a biological one. The scientist now wants to find the cure for the illness.
Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman
I'm reading The Light of all that falls by James Islington (3rd book in The Licanius trilogy)
Licanius was so good, I like Hierarchy but so far it hasn't captivated me like that first trilogy did
Currently reading about all the horrors of the CIA - finished The Jakarta Method and Washington Bullets, currently reading through Killing Hope, and next on my list is Operation Gladio.
Pick any of the Asimov's books if you're into science fiction.
The Fifth Season. I'm currently on the second book The Obelisk Gate so can't attest for the quality of the whole thing but it's geological fantasy and I find it quite fascinating. The scale of the world and conflict keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's very dark but also really draws you in as things ramp up. Themes of the paradox of tolerance, and the challenge of preparing for future crises. The magic system she came up with also feels very fresh to me
Hunter x Hunter manga, currently in the chimera ant arc
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Technically still reading the Dune series but I need to get back to it.
"Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman was good. The writing style reminded me of Weir a bit.
"The Reformatory" by Tananarive Due was also pretty good.
Very different books from each other. Neither are completely without flaw, but both books were a solid B+.
Ive never read a bad Agatha Christie book.
My favorite book is "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, and his novella "Neon Bible" was also very good.
"The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller was good.
"Godshot" by Chelsea Bieker was very good.
I recently started The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
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