As much as I love the escapism of fiction, here is a collection of non-fiction and essays to pull me back into the real world
created by sian.is.reading
last updated July, 2026
Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia
Mike Pepi
We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning
Julian Brave NoiseCat
Down the Drain
Julia Fox
The Wild Iris
Louise Glück
Gift from the Sea
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner
I’m Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy
Hijab Butch Blues
Lamya H.
Typhoid Mary
Anthony Bourdain
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out
Jeremy Atherton Lin
The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Karen Hao
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
Baek Se-hee
Want
Gillian Anderson
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
Larry Mitchell
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
Stephanie Foo
A Spell in the Wild: A Year (and Six Centuries) of Magic
Alice Tarbuck
Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature
Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
bell hooks
On Forgiveness: How Can We Forgive the Unforgivable?
Richard Holloway
Sustenance of the Soul
Abu Zayd al-Balkhi
Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You
Meg Josephson
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad
All About Love: New Visions
love this idea for a list!! thanks for compiling and sharing 💕
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