Here are 100 books that The Humans fans have personally recommended if you like
The Humans.
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I love humans. My clients and colleagues tell me that my profound love for humans is my superpower—that I make people feel safe and seen. I also understand that loving humans isn’t effortless. I wasn’t always in the loving-humans camp. While I was doing a doctorate at Harvard, I studied with the marvelous Robert Kegan, whose theory and methodology helped me see the fullness of the diverse people I got to interview. Ever since, I have been totally enthralled by what makes us unique—and also connected. If you are a human or have to deal with humans, your life will be much improved if you love them more!
This is the most informative look at behavioral economics that also made me laugh out loud—often embarrassing myself on airplanes because I was reading a non-fiction book that made me actually snort with laughter.
Ariely is a profoundly accomplished researcher himself, and he’s interested in all the quirks of humanity—not to explain them away or make us look more rational than we are—but to really expose us to ourselves. I saw myself more clearly and also with more compassion by the time I finished this book and I loved my fellow humans more.
Why do smart people make irrational decisions every day? The answers will surprise you. Predictably Irrational is an intriguing, witty and utterly original look at why we all make illogical decisions.
Why can a 50p aspirin do what a 5p aspirin can't? If an item is "free" it must be a bargain, right? Why is everything relative, even when it shouldn't be? How do our expectations influence our actual opinions and decisions?
In this astounding book, behavioural economist Dan Ariely cuts to the heart of our strange behaviour, demonstrating how irrationality often supplants rational thought and that the reason for…
I am a bit of a contradiction in that I am a Christian pastor but also a horror aficionado. I love all things sci-fi and horror. My fascination with these genres stems from childhood, when I stumbled upon Star Wars, the old Addams Family cartoons, and even Scooby Doo. As I matured, my love of reading grew, and I soon consumed literature like a Dyson, especially sci-fi and horror. I often joke about how the odd combo of my two biggest writing influences, Stephen King (I’ve read his entire bibliography) and C.S. Lewis, perfectly sums up my character, and I think that’s what makes me perfect for this recommendation.
“A manual on how to damn someone to hell, written by a demon” is certainly not what you would expect from a renowned Christian author. I love this book because its premise is so insane and sounds deeply demonic.
Instead, as a Christian, what I got was what felt like a peek into my enemy’s playbook and an, at times, scathing insight into how I was failing and playing right into demonic hands. This book made me scared, made me laugh, and, at times, even made me want to cry.
On its first appearance, The Screwtape Letters was immediately recognized as a milestone in the history of popular theology. Now, in it's 70th Anniversary Year, and having sold over half a million copies, it is an iconic classic on spiritual warfare and the power of the devil.
This profound and striking narrative takes the form of a series of letters from Screwtape, a devil high in the Infernal Civil Service, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior colleague engaged in his first mission on earth trying to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. Although…
I love humans. My clients and colleagues tell me that my profound love for humans is my superpower—that I make people feel safe and seen. I also understand that loving humans isn’t effortless. I wasn’t always in the loving-humans camp. While I was doing a doctorate at Harvard, I studied with the marvelous Robert Kegan, whose theory and methodology helped me see the fullness of the diverse people I got to interview. Ever since, I have been totally enthralled by what makes us unique—and also connected. If you are a human or have to deal with humans, your life will be much improved if you love them more!
I love a good memoir, and this one was a perfect example of the form. Thoughtful, funny, incredibly well-written, and structured, I cared deeply about Lori and her patients. As she weaves together stories from her training as a therapist, her patients, and her work with her own therapist, we see how incredibly damaging life and love are for us—and how those scars themselves make us more beautiful, more worthy of love, more capable of opening our hearts to others.
This does not make the human experience look easy or painless, but it does help me remember what the work is for and how beautiful the pathway can be when we have good company on the way. This book was excellent company for me.
Ever wonder what your therapist is thinking? Now you can find out, as therapist and New York Times bestselling author Lori Gottlieb takes us behind the scenes of her practice - where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).
When a personal crisis causes her world to come crashing down, Lori Gottlieb - an experienced therapist with a thriving practice in Los Angeles - is suddenly adrift. Enter Wendell, himself a veteran therapist with an unconventional style, whose sessions with Gottlieb will prove transformative for her.
Americans love their Constitution. In seventeen-year-old Liberty Bell’s era it has become a myth. Centuries after the Great Blackout obliterates the world's digitized information, America's history is forgotten. Only confused legends remain, written in "The Americana," a book depicting a golden age where famous Americans from different eras existed together.…
Sci-fi and fantasy give us permission to go places we might not go in this world. I am a big daydreamer and always have been. One of the most magical things about being a writer is that you get to design a world that lives only in your mind, and then share it with the reader. Like George R. R. Martin wrote, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
The story of people living in an underground Silo who don’t know why they're there, and only that the outside world is toxic and they must survive.
The characters in this story are heroic and relatable. I just wanted this book to keep going, and luckily there are two more in the series – Shift and Dust. The TV series is also a great addition and keeps a similar tone to the book.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR APPLE TV SERIES __________________________ 'Thrilling, thought-provoking and memorable ... one of dystopian fiction's masterpieces alongside the likes of 1984 and Brave New World.' DAILY EXPRESS
In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.
Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.
To live, you must follow the rules. But some don't. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others…
I’ve been drawn to LGBT+ characters and themes long before I knew that was a thing that a person could be—and longer still before I realized that it was something that might apply to me. Science fiction and fantasy helped me to explore identities and ways of existing within the world that were fundamentally different from my own and that instilled a love of the genre that I’ll always treasure.
Maybe it’s the millennial in me, but I can’t begin to tell you how much I relate to Murderbot. All it wants to do is get through its workday so it can take a break and watch its shows—and yes, maybe my job is slightly less stressful than acting as security for a science expedition that’s pissed off a bloodthirsty super-corporation, but we all have our struggles. Like socializing with our coworkers. Or capitalism. Or man-eating space worms.
Probably my favorite thing about Murderbot is the deadpan humor with which it tells its story, which really comes to life in the audiobook thanks to Kevin R. Free’s narration.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or lain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. In a corporate dominated s pa cef a ring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by…
Ever since reading Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), I’ve been fascinated by science fiction stories with amazing characters and intriguing concepts. I love finding a new story, especially one that isn’t being talked about, and falling into that world. I still get lost in the worlds of the Deathgate Cycle and Rose of the Prophets because they introduced me to concepts and places I’d never imagined or thought to imagine before reading them. I crafted a world and characters both familiar and alien because of these influences and I’m still drawn to them when I start a new book no one is talking about, like those on this list.
From the moment I first began listening to the audiobook, I fell in love with this story. I was all in the moment Ryland Grace stumbled through answering the question “What is 2 plus 2?” The layering of the story, the threat to Earth concept, the educational presentation of very high-level scientific concepts to an audience of all ages, and the way Andy Weir made this reader feel so many emotions over a rock just keep drawing me back to it.
I literally just finished another listen less than a month ago and already want to go back to a story. I still don’t see many people talking about it. And the ending? Every story has its own perfect dismount landing, and this one nailed it.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.…
I’ve always loved novels that reinvent and refresh history and legends. They take these building blocks of culture and make them personal and emotional. These novels breathe new life into ancient tales and historical events, so they resonate with relevance. They reveal hidden depths and connections within familiar stories, transforming them into vibrant tales. This genre makes legend and history feel personal by taking me on one character’s unique journey, transforming the exploration of the past into a deeply engaging experience.
I’ve read countless stories about the JFK assassination, but this novel completely refreshed and reframed this part of history for me. By blending the omniscient knowledge of time travel with the perspective of an ordinary person thrown into one of the greatest moments in American history, this novel created a deeply personal journey.
This intimate journey made the time period, the politics, and the culture resonate with life. The vivid portrayal of the late 1950s and early 1960s immersed me in this era, and the novel’s intricate plot, combined with the emotional depth of the main character’s journey, kept me hooked from start to finish. This novel brilliantly refreshes history, offering a thought-provoking exploration of how the past shapes the future.
Now a major TV series from JJ Abrams and Stephen King, starring James Franco (Hulu US, Fox UK and Europe, Stan Australia, SKY New Zealand).
WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . .
King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of…
I’ve always found the art of storytelling to be important. It’s taken me to places I’ve dreamed of as well as places others have created. Drawing has always been my passion, and the desire to entertain audiences of all ages has matured with time. When I realized I could make my own stories and illustrate them, it was clear that it was something I wanted to do. I always appreciated books that spoke up to me rather than down or too simply. The books on this list do just that.
I hadn’t read this as a child, but upon reading it the first time, it made me feel like a child. The deep introspection, written with the imagination and voice of a young child, was calming, and I felt as if he knew how I thought as a child and adult.
I was living in France at the time, and the story had a foreign mood but was familiar. The book reached into personal childhood daydreams and fantasies. The prince’s way of thinking and expressing himself was definitely not from the modern day and it inspired me to write “up” to younger audiences. The immediacy and freshness of the illustrations motivated me to think less and feel more when creating.
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as 'The Little Prince'. Richard Howard's new translation of the beloved classic-published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's birth-beautifully reflects Saint-Exupery's unique and gifted style. Howard, an acclaimed poet and one of the preeminent translators of our time, has excelled in bringing the English text as close as possible to the French, in language, style, and most important, spirit. The artwork in this new edition has been restored to match in detail and in colour Saint-Exupery's original artwork. By combining the new…
Growing up in Indiana and Illinois meant that Chicago has always been, for me, the city—the place where people went to make a name for themselves and took the world by storm. From my local Carnegie Library, I read voraciously across genres—history, science, literature. They transported me out of my small town—across the universe sometimes. I learned that setting in fiction was for me a major feature of my enjoyment, and Chicago was where I set my own mystery series. These books, when I read them, explored that grand metropolis—and brought Chicago to life on and off the page. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.
When I closed this book, I set it down and said, “Wow.” I really enjoy reading science books—the ones written for non-scientific folks like me…books by Michio Kaku and Brian Greene—and this one combines my love of thrillers and science in a fantastic way. Jason Dessen is kidnapped and begins a long journey to return home, but to do so, he visits many alternate versions of Chicago.
As every chapter ended, I wanted to continue reading to find out what happened to Jason and his family, to see some new version of Chicago, and to see how or if Jason succeeded. The novel kept surprising me, and Crouch played with the implications of some wild physics concepts.
'Brilliant. . . I think Blake Crouch just invented something new' - Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series.
From Blake Crouch, the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human - a relentlessly surprising thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of, perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Ready Player One.
'Are you happy in your life?' Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find…
I have always been drawn to the weird, fantastic, supernatural, and unexplained. Whether it’s film or TV (The Twilight Zone, the X-files, Ingmar Bergman) or gothic and speculative literature, I become mesmerized by the mysteries involved. I have written 10 books (poetry and fiction). Of the fiction, most is either speculative, as in magical realism, or somewhat gothic in nature. My newest novel, due out in 2025, is pure gothic and takes place in a haunted abbey inhabited by ghosts and the devil himself. And yet, behind it all is an exploration of human faith and frailty and a search for answers about our beliefs.
Franz Kafka is best known for this book, though he has written many others, including The Trial. The novel explores social and political topics through the use of the fantastic, in this case, a man who wakes up one morning and finds he has turned into a gigantic cockroach.
I am drawn to books that explore things in ways that have not been explored before and books that make one think. I read this one in college; it has stuck with me and influenced me through my writing career.
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century…
