100 books like Borne

I’ve always been interested in physics, but I have no talent for maths, and like lots of creative types, I find science tough. But not with the engaging voice of Italian physicist Rovelli. This blew my mind and blew the lid off of the universe.

Rovelli explains the fundamentals of physical laws beautifully but then introduces the quantum realm, where time and space are not at all what you thought they were. This isn’t unsettling to me, but it is profoundly beautiful. Time may not be linear at all, we simply have no other way of perceiving it, which means moments in time I felt were lost, are not at all if you look at them another way.

But it also reinforces the idea we must exist in the moment and savor it, as, in a sense, that’s all we have.

This is an amazing nonfiction book about how octopuses have evolved in parallel with humans but along a very different evolutionary path. I’m so interested in the idea of ‘otherness.’ The notion is that there could be alien life forms that are hugely intelligent. Still, their bodies and their perceptual organs are so different that we can’t fully communicate with them and appreciate that intelligence.

The most fascinating aliens are right here on Earth, in the oceans, and can teach us profound lessons about consciousness. Octopus arms can sense and perceive independently, like multiple brains. Octopuses can’t perceive color but can change color to both camouflage and communicate. A book like this de-centers the human, and I love being knocked off my axis.

Another alien novel, but one of the strangest and most profound I’ve read. Isserly drives around in her van in the wilds of Scotland, picking up hitchhikers. But she is no ordinary woman; in fact, she isn’t human at all, but a modified alien tasked with finding humans to be turned into fast food for an alien world.

It is a darkly ironic, strange, and disturbing novel that asks questions about how we treat animals, cleverly reversing its language to refer to humans as aliens and aliens as humans. It felt to me that this book was able to touch on many of the evils of capitalism, not just mass farming but also the treatment of women and women’s bodies. But it doesn’t do this in an obvious way.

It’s an alien novel that’s low on overt science fiction; it’s gritty and real, emotional and lonely. I wasn’t the same… show more.

After I first visited the extraordinary coastal landscape of Dungeness, I sought out this book. This is a nature journal. Artist and director Derek Jarman lived in Dungeness on the Kent coast (UK) in an old fisherman’s cottage painted black with striking yellow windows.

In the late 1980s, he wrote a journal in the salt breezes and shadows of two nuclear power stations. This journal charted his cultivation of the cottage’s salvaged garden, his battle with AIDS, and his reflections on the culture at the time.

What drew me into this book is its beautifully engaging voice and its sensitivity to the changing seasons. The garden itself, which I have visited several times, has no fences or boundaries, and this blends into the landscape. This lack of distinction and separation typifies Jarman’s generous artistic spirit.

This is another work I got a preview of, and just loved it. Like the creating of the films, the creation of the props and costumes that make the aliens, well, so alien is absolutely fascinating. For Trekkies, you’ll recognize everything from Star Trek (2009) forward to Discovery and Picard.

Perhaps the most attractive part of this book? The concept sketches and early ideas for each creature are illustrated. The reader gets a glimpse inside the mind of the artist and sees where the initial ideas came from. It’s another must-have for the shelf of any dedicated Trekkie. 

If you are going to think about superheroes, and you really should be you know, then you truly have to know about the absolute godfather of the genre—the spectacular Stan Lee.

The stories behind how Stan Lee came to be and the early origins so many iconic characters are staples of comic book mythology. And what a book Danny Fingeroth has in store for you on this front. Endlessly entertaining, eminently readable. I adored the writing, the stories, and the approach while I devoured this book!

“Why should I read this book you ask?”, well it won the Nebula award for best novella in 1979, and the Hugo award in 1980, it was made into a movie in the mid-eighties, at the time I didn’t read much, so I’d seen a pretty good Hollywood movie about a human space fighter pilot, fighting a race call the Drac. Later I read a book of the same name, not realising until a few chapters in that I’d seen the movie years before!

The interesting part was, that because they only fought via space fighter craft, neither race had seen the other. Two pilots crash land on an inhospitable planet during a space battle, one Human the other Drac.

Initially the pair have nothing but hatred for one another, pre-programmed by their respective governments, yet must rely on one another for survival.

While stranded they learn of one another’s… show more.

Worldshifter is a fabulous science fiction story full of wonderful characters. You will laugh out loud at times, and your heart will race as the action careers across the galaxy.

On a very degraded and hostile planet, the lowest remnants of humanity slave away for the powerful alien races. I loved every page of this adventure with sweet, simple, giant-hearted Klom who hasn’t got a nasty bone in his oversized body. His compassion for the strange, doglike alien – who he calls Tugger -- contrasts brilliantly with the harshness of the world where Klom lives. Klom and his companions chase across planets and star systems to rescue Tugger, and on the way, they find the answer to life's greatest mystery.
Long live Tugger, who’s not strictly a dog (because he’s an alien), but certainly embodies all that canine perfection of character. I do hope there are more stories from this… show more.

I don’t think I like Ghost World, but it belongs on this list. When I think of Clowes’ work I think of caricature, but the environments in Ghost World pull most of the storytelling weight. You can hear the hum of the fluorescents in the grocery store and the wind between buildings on an empty street.