Books like The Diamond Age

01

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson · Science fiction

Hiro Protagonist — yes, that's his name — is a freelance hacker and part-time pizza deliveryman in a near-future America that has fractured into private corporate enclaves.

A kindred science read.

02

Cryptonomicon

Neal Stephenson · Science fiction

Cryptonomicon weaves together two storylines separated by half a century: World War II codebreakers and intelligence operatives running secret missions across the Pacific, and their grandchildren in the 1990s building a data haven in a fictional Southeast Asian country.

A kindred science read.

03

Neuromancer

William Gibson · Science fiction

Case is a washed-up computer hacker living in the sprawl of near-future Chiba City, Japan.

A kindred science read.

04

Permutation City

Greg Egan · Science fiction

Permutation City opens in the mid-21st century, when wealthy individuals can run copies of themselves as digital simulations — Copies — in real time or at slower clock speeds depending on the computing budget they can afford.

A kindred science read.

05

Foundation

Isaac Asimov · Science fiction

Foundation opens at the peak of a twelve-thousand-year empire that mathematician Hari Seldon knows is about to collapse.

A kindred science read.

06

Make It Stick

Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger and Mark A. McDaniel · Science

Make It Stick is a book about how memory actually works, and why the study techniques most people rely on — re-reading, highlighting, massed practice — are among the least effective ways to learn.

Both dig into education.

07

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Richard P. Feynman · Science

Richard Feynman died in 1988, but he gave talks, interviews, and lectures throughout his career that were preserved in recordings and transcripts.

Both dig into education.

08

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Yuval Noah Harari · Philosophy

Where Sapiens traced humanity's past and Homo Deus speculated about its future, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century plants itself in the present.

Both dig into technology and society.

09

Educated: A Memoir

Tara Westover · Memoir

Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.

Both dig into education.

10

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J. D. Vance · Memoir

Hillbilly Elegy is J.

Both dig into class.

11

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · Memoir

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.

Both dig into class.

12

I Am Malala

Malala Yousafzai · Memoir

I Am Malala is the memoir of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who was shot by the Taliban on her school bus in October 2012 at age fifteen, and who survived to become the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Both dig into education.