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Tag: 2020s

  • The Midnight Library

    Nora Seed is thirty-five, living in Bedford, England, and convinced she has failed at everything. She quit a promising swimming career, walked out of a band that might have made it, cancelled her wedding and has just lost her job and her cat. One night, overwhelmed by despair, she decides she does not want to go on.

    She finds herself in a vast library that exists between life and death, watched over by Mrs Elm, the kindly librarian from her old school. Every book on the shelves holds a version of her life that might have happened had she made a different choice. Nora can step into any of them: Olympic swimmer, rock star, glaciologist in the Arctic, wife and mother, and test whether those lives would have made her happy.

    Haig, who has written openly about his own depression, uses a high-concept premise to explore regret, mental health and the value of an ordinary life. The tone is gentle and accessible, with short chapters and a philosophical bent touching on quantum ideas of many worlds. It became a major bestseller and won the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction in 2020.

    Book details

    AuthorMatt Haig
    First published2020
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)288
    SettingBedford, England, and a library between life and death
    AwardsGoodreads Choice Award for Fiction 2020

    Themes

    • Regret
    • Depression
    • Choice
    • Parallel lives
    • Hope

    Who should read it

    Readers who like uplifting, idea-driven fiction about second chances and mental health.

    If you liked this, try

    • Life After Life
    • The Alchemist
    • Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

  • Klara and the Sun

    Klara is an Artificial Friend, a humanoid robot companion sold to keep children company, and she narrates from her place in a city store. Unusually observant, she studies passers-by and the movements of the Sun, which she regards as a benevolent force that nourishes her and perhaps everyone else. She waits to be chosen.

    Eventually she is bought for Josie, a lively but chronically ill girl living with her anxious mother in a remote house. Josie's illness is linked to a procedure many families undergo to give their children advantages, and her neighbour and close friend Rick has not had it. Klara devotes herself to Josie's welfare and forms her own logic about how she might help.

    Ishiguro's first novel after his Nobel Prize returns to the territory of Never Let Me Go: a narrator with a limited view of a disquieting world. Through Klara's literal, generous perspective he raises questions about love, loneliness, artificial intelligence and whether a person can be replicated. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021.

    Book details

    AuthorKazuo Ishiguro
    First published2021
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreScience fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)303
    SettingAn unnamed American city and a rural house, in the near future

    Themes

    • Artificial intelligence
    • Love and devotion
    • Loneliness
    • Faith
    • What makes a person unique

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a gentle, thoughtful novel about AI and human attachment.

    If you liked this, try

    • Never Let Me Go
    • Machines Like Me
    • The Remains of the Day

  • Project Hail Mary

    A man wakes up on a spacecraft with two dead crewmates and no idea who he is or how he got there. As fragments of memory return, he learns his name is Ryland Grace, a former molecular biologist turned middle-school science teacher, and that the Sun is being dimmed by a microorganism called Astrophage, threatening life on Earth within decades.

    Grace has been sent to Tau Ceti, a nearby star that seems unaffected, to find out why. Flashbacks reveal the frantic international effort that built his ship and how he came to be aboard. In the Tau Ceti system he makes an extraordinary discovery that turns a lonely survival mission into something much stranger, and the story becomes as much about friendship as about science.

    Like The Martian, the book is full of hands-on experiments and calculations explained in a breezy, humorous voice, but its emotional core is warmer. Weir plays with memory to keep revealing information about Grace's past. It became a major bestseller and was adapted into a feature film starring Ryan Gosling.

    Book details

    AuthorAndy Weir
    First published2021
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreScience fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)476
    SettingThe spacecraft Hail Mary in the Tau Ceti system, with flashbacks to Earth, near future

    Themes

    • Friendship
    • Sacrifice
    • Scientific problem-solving
    • Memory
    • Courage

    Who should read it

    Fans of The Martian and anyone who enjoys optimistic, science-packed adventure.

    If you liked this, try

    • The Martian
    • The Three-Body Problem
    • Contact

  • Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson followed Elon Musk for roughly two years, sitting in on meetings, walking factory floors and interviewing family members, colleagues and adversaries. The result is a chronological biography in short chapters that tries to explain how one man came to lead electric cars, private spaceflight, satellite internet, brain implants and a major social network at the same time.

    The book returns repeatedly to Musk's childhood in Pretoria, marked by bullying and a volatile relationship with his father, as a key to his appetite for risk and drama. It covers Zip2 and PayPal, the near-collapse of Tesla and SpaceX in 2008, the production hell of the Model 3, the development of Starship and Starlink, and the 2022 acquisition of Twitter, later renamed X.

    Isaacson describes Musk's demon mode, his algorithm for questioning every requirement and deleting parts, and his habit of setting impossible deadlines. Reviewers were divided over whether the portrait is too sympathetic, but it offers a detailed look inside companies that rarely allow outsiders in.

    Book details

    AuthorWalter Isaacson
    First published2023
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBiography
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)688
    SettingSouth Africa and the United States

    Themes

    • Risk-taking
    • Engineering
    • Ambition
    • Leadership
    • Family trauma

    Who should read it

    Readers who want an inside view of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter and of the restless figure who runs them.

    If you liked this, try

    • Steve Jobs
    • Liftoff
    • Shoe Dog

  • The Psychology of Money

    Morgan Housel, a former columnist for The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal, argues that doing well with money has less to do with knowledge and more to do with how people behave. Each of the book's nineteen short chapters takes one idea, often opening with a historical story, and shows how emotion, upbringing and personal experience shape financial decisions.

    Among his recurring points: no one is crazy, because each person's money views are formed by the economy they lived through; luck and risk are siblings and both deserve humility; compounding rewards patience far more than brilliance; and the hardest financial skill is knowing when you have enough. He distinguishes being rich, a visible income, from being wealthy, the invisible savings that buy freedom and time.

    The writing is brisk and largely free of jargon or formulas, which helped the book become an international bestseller translated into dozens of languages. It offers few specific investment tips; instead it encourages readers to build a margin of safety, avoid ruin, and design a financial plan they can actually stick with.

    Book details

    AuthorMorgan Housel
    First published2020
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBusiness
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)256

    Themes

    • Behavioural finance
    • Compounding
    • Luck and risk
    • Saving
    • Contentment

    Who should read it

    Anyone who wants a calm, story-driven perspective on saving and investing without spreadsheets or stock tips.

    If you liked this, try

    • Rich Dad Poor Dad
    • Thinking, Fast and Slow
    • The Little Book of Common Sense Investing