science fiction

  1. blindsight by peter watts
  2. echopraxia by peter watts
  3. spin by robert charles wilson
  4. the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin
  5. alien clay by adrian tchaikovsky

dystopian

  1. the memory police by yoko ogawa
  2. never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

fantasy

  1. the tainted cup by robert jackson bennett

magical realism

  1. kafka on the shore by haruki murakami

history

  1. the coming of the third reich by richard j. evans
  2. stalin, volume I by stephen kotkin
  3. battle cry of freedom by james m. mcpherson

politics

  1. achieving our country by richard rorty

on writing

  1. on writing and worldbuilding volume I by timothy hickson

on art

  1. the dynamic bible by peter han
  2. space drawing by dong ho kim
  3. figure drawing: design and invention by michael hampton
  4. framed perspective volume 1 by marcos mateu-mestre

graphic novels

  1. it’s lonely at the centre of the earth by zoe thorogood