Favorite Reads
Literary recommendations from the last few years
12/30/2023
Reading has long been a favorite pasttime of mine. But even more enjoyable than consuming books – sharing them. Here are some of my favorites from the last few years.
I typically update this list each winter. Last Updated: December 2023
2023
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (DNF)
Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.
I didn’t finish this book. If you've read it, you probably didn’t finish either. But I didn’t want to wait until completing it to recommend G.E.B. because that might be a while.
I bought my copy of this book at a small bookstore in Shanghai, and then proceeded to read bits of it at a snail's pace. Not only is this not a beach read, it's nearly impossible to describe this book in a single sentence. My best attempt? It's about 'formal systems' and the interconnectedness of math (number theory!), logic, cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, and music – ultimately attempting to explain "how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter".
G.E.B. does this through puzzles, wordplay, dialogues, and even custom programming languages. It's brilliant. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's something everyone should read, but I’d love to eventually see it through. If you haven’t heard of it or picked it up before (and you like the work of Godel, Escher, or Bach), you should definitely give G.E.B. a chance.
Tress of the Emerald Sea
Do you know how many grand romances would have avoided tragedy if the hero had thought, "You know, maybe I should ask her if she likes me first"?
Tress was a super fun standalone read, a whimsical adventure in the style of “The Princess Bride” - but if the protagonist was actually the princess Buttercup, instead of basically anyone else.
What differentiates Tress from other similar fantasy fare is the choice of perspective; the entire novel is narrated by a character named Hoid, an ancient and integral member of Sanderson’s universe who imbues the story with wit. Through him, Sanderson muses in thought-provoking philosophical tangents about memories, bravery, opportunity, and empathy.
Funnily enough, this relates to r/showerthoughts?
According to the Washington Post, “research has shown that what is known as the ‘shower effect’ also can occur outside the shower, and many of our best thoughts don’t happen at work or school — but occur while going about our days with ideas incubating in the background… that 20 percent of the most meaningful ideas come while doing something else — such as washing dishes or taking a shower.”
Popular culture perpetuates this notion - when does Tony Stark have his necessary Eureka “aha moment” for a time travel device in Avengers: Endgame? While washing plates.
And two such passages in Tress explore a similar idea - that work that requires manual labor enables people to spend a larger percentage of their time in the state that others might only find in the shower:
You might think this an unfair moral problem to force upon a simple window washer, but there’s a certain arrogance in that kind of reasoning. A window washer can think, same as anyone else, and their lives are no less complex. And as I’ve warned you, “simple” labor often leaves plenty of time for thought.
Yes, intellectuals and scholars are paid to think deep thoughts—but those thoughts are often owned by others. It is a great irony that society tends to look down on those who sell their bodies, but not on those who lease out their minds.
and
That is one of the great mistakes people make: assuming that someone who does menial work does not like thinking. Physical labor is great for the mind, as it leaves all kinds of time to consider the world. Other work, like accounting or scribing, demands little of the body—but siphons energy from the mind.
If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind. Give me ten hours a day scrubbing a deck, and oh the stories I could imagine. Give me ten hours adding sums, and all you’ll have me imagining at the end is a warm bed and a thought-free evening.
Many of our best ideas can come when our minds are wandering. When washing, walking, working, relieving, and running.
It’s a great tragedy then, that so many of us spend our spare moments staring at mobile devices. We rid ourselves of boredom, and therefore strip out our spontaneity.
I’m certainly guilty of this myself. In the future, I hope to be more thoughtful about how I spend my time, and allot more of it for thinking.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time.
Any book that I read in a single day has a high chance of making on to this list, and that is exactly what happened with this novel on a train ride back from D.C. in August. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - after the famous Shakespeare line - centers on a platonic relationship between two friends across decades of their lives as they build games together and the challenges they confront.
I considered several of the themes and ideas in this novel for weeks afterwards, such as one of the early games a character creates, Solution. In this "game", you solve Tetris-like puzzles to earn points until you realize you’re actually building weapons for the Third Reich - solution is the “final solution”, and you’re complicit. Premises like these are imaginative and thought-provoking, and gave me more to think about regarding thorny topics such as cultural appropriation. These elements of the book make up for the fact that I found two of the three primary characters strongly unlikable (although the third is too likable, if that is possible).
Whether you understand the references to Ghibli and video games or not, this is a quick read worth checking out.
The Overstory
This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.
The Overstory is an eco-fiction novel about trees – and the lives of dozens of people who become intertwined in a journey of environmental science and activism bigger than themselves. It begins with eight short stories about characters ranging from the daughter of a Chinese immigrant to an intellectual property attorney. An artist. A programmer. A Vietnam veteran. The only universal thread among their stories – the presence of nature.
At times, I struggled to make it through sections of The Overstory – it's dense, and ocassionally dull. I typically don’t recommend any book that I don’t LOVE every part of. But Powers’ Overstory isn’t any book. It’s one of the few novels I’ve read that, since finishing, I am constantly thinking about. Each month I am reminded of this brilliant work of writing. Staring at a massive tree trunk in the Muesum of Natural History. Walking over a gargantuan stump in Rotorua. Re-reading the final epigraphs on a beach. Making jokes about a large oak on Hillhouse avenue.
The prose is beautiful and the message poignant, with descriptions so vivid you are transported into the forest. You can almost see the light breaking through the leaves, smell the pine needles and the damp moss. I have never felt more connected to nature than after reading this novel, and if you check it out, you may feel that way too.
The Anthropocene Reviewed
Our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English.
I haven’t loved all of John Green’s most famous novels, such as Looking for Alaska or The Fault in Our Stars. But I LOVED The Anthropocene Reviewed.
"The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity." This incredibly heart-felt collection of short essays is a moving deep-dive into Green’s mind regarding everything from Monopoly to Air Conditioning to Dr. Pepper to Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Velociraptors, Sunsets, QWERTY keyboards, The Penguins of Madagascar.
Random? Perhaps. And yet so incredibly, almost surprisingly meaningful. I learned a bunch of random Wikipedia facts, but I was also pushed to consider our world in new and refreshingly optimistic ways.
To embrace the irony of reviewing a book about reviews, I rate The Anthropocene Reviewed 4 1/2 stars!
The Story of Your Life
It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important: what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.
Arrival (along with basically any film directed by Denis Villeneuve) is one of my all-time favorite films. But it took me until this year to finally read the short story that inspired it, and I definitely waited too long.
The story of a linguist and a physicist trying to interpret the language of seemingly-peaceful aliens is just as gripping as in the film, but in written form, the focus is less on the geopolitical conflict and more on the characters. Whether or not you know when something is happening, the emotional moments hit hard. And perhaps that's the point.
The premise of a novel not told linearly has never been done this well. Chiang weaves a story of love and loss through a science fiction filter that gives us so much to think about, from the existence of free will to the nature of our human perception of time. You can read this story in less than an hour, and if you have a spare hour, you should.
The Pillars of the Earth
The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.
If you had told me last year that the book I would consider my favorite read of 2023 would be a 1000 page epic about the building of a 12th-century English cathedral, I would have found that unlikely. Yet, when I was about to embark on a full-day flight, my mom recommended Pillars as one of her favorite novels from when she was in college. So I downloaded it to my Kindle. And I couldn't put it down.
Pillars is the quintissential historical fiction novel. While it is obstensibly about the building of a church, the book is really about the people who build it. This process takes multiple generations and so the characters of this world take center stage, and the challenges they face are incredibly compelling. I also enjoyed learning more about the ways in which the church and government were interlinked in this time, particuarly the role of a Prior and his monks in local governance.
Follett plotted Pillars well; despite its length, the tome moves at a fast pace and events early in the novel are not forgotten, often having implications dozens of chapters later. On multiple occasions I was happily suprised to realize that some character that was introduced earlier in some other context had returned to the story in a new context.
While there is true evil in this story, what I find scary about the incredibly hateable villians in Pillars is that they are not Voldemort or White Walkers. Civil war is the end of justice, and people act in horrifying ways that are historically accurate to their time. Like Game of Thrones, there is a significant amount of graphic violence. Also like Game of Thrones, these moments are often used to great effect – you feel uncomfortable, upset, even angry. And it makes any moments of triumph all the more worthwhile.
If the length and violence aren't turn-offs for you, and you're interested in medieval history, Pillars won't disappoint. And while each story is completely self-contained and takes place centuries apart, the sequels A World Without End and A Column of Fire are also incredible.
2022
The Shadow of the Gods
Sometimes there are no choices. We are swept along in a current not of our own choosing… I will be the current. I will be the course.
Some novels seem like exactly the type you’d love. You’re super excited to read them, but then when you finally do, they’re a slog to get through.
Shadow of the Gods was that for me. I did enjoy it — it’s in this post for a reason. But it might have been much higher on this list had I not started college when I was around 90% done. Shadow sat on my shelf for much of the semester, and I read several other books before returning to finish it.
With that said, this is one of the best-written fantasy novels I’ve read in a while.
Gwynne conjures a Norse-inspired but decidedly unique world in which the “gods” of legend have all died off, and people live in the shadow of their giant remains.
It’s an almost post-Ragnorak tale, and it reads beautifully, with prose almost like poetry at points; the writing is some of the best I’ve seen since “The Name of the Wind”. Unlike Name of the Wind, this book also has a plot.
Shadow of the Gods follows a few Viking-esque characters - a slave trying to honor his sister’s dying wish, a shield-maiden searching for independence and meaning, and a warrior chasing after her kidnapped son - as they deal with the dangers of their perilous, spartan world.
It's an epic tale that mixes together some Beowulf and Tolkien. If you're a fan of historical fantasy or Norse mythology, this should definitely be on your TBR.
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories
If you love something, let it go. If you don't love something, definitely let it go. Basically, just drop everything, who cares.”
I am generally not a huge fan of short story collections. I enjoy them, but to recommend a book of this format (not titled “The Illustrated Man”), the number of amazing narratives has to heavily outweigh the number of forgettable ones.
That isn’t really the case here - there are even a few I actively disliked. BUT - the ones I did enjoy, I really appreciated.
There’s “The Rematch” between the Tortoise and the Hare, where the Hare actually tries.
There’s “Julie and the Warlord," where a woman goes on a date with an African warlord and debates ethics with him.
And there’s "The Something by John Grisham,” where John Grisham sends his new editor an untitled manuscript that gets published as 'The Something', and next thing he knows it’s #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.
One More Thing is immensely quotable, with lots of witty humor. Novak also makes several interesting observations; for example:
It is an inside joke of history that all its most exciting adventures inevitably end their careers as homework. Beheadings, rebellions, thousand-year wars, incest on the royal throne, electricity, art, opera, dogs in outer space. B+
And of course:
“Why does carrot cake have the best icing?” MOTHER: “Because it needs the best icing.”
I found some of the short stories thought-provoking, including one about the financial situation of public educators. Others felt half-baked.
Others still were weird and absurdist, such as one where Johnny Depp drives a motorcycle off a mountain. Novak, of course, provides helpful after-story discussion questions:
Do you think Johnny Depp should have driven his motorcycle off the mountain highway to his death? Why or why not?
The stories can be long, or incredibly short. For example, one titled “The Walk to School on the Day After Labor Day” goes something like:
I was sad that summer was over. But I was happy that it was over for my enemies, too.
I think that your enjoyment of this collection will depend heavily on how much you enjoy “The Office”-style humor, and your willingness to sit through some duds to read a few gems. If that’s you, or you’re a fan of short, quick reads, then you’ll get a lot out of One More Thing.
I’ll leave you with Novak’s ultimate discussion question:
Do you think why not is ultimately a better question than why? Why or why not?
Give and Take
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
A lot of “business” or “lifestyle” type books claim to change the way you’ll think about the world. Few do. For me, “Give and Take” has.
Here are some of my key takeways:
- If someone asks you for a favor and it will take less than 5 minutes, you should always do it.
- We have bias for responsibility - we overestimate our own contributions because we can see them, and we underestimate those of others.
- Most people are happy to help you (Pronoia VS Paranoia), especially if you’re asking for advice.
- Consider thoughts in addition to feelings when putting yourself in other people’s shoes.
- Treat everyone as talented when collaborating - it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Give people agency over whatever it is they're working on.
Above all, I think the most compelling is this:
Success doesn’t measure a human being, effort does.
How we measure success is literally what I wrote my Common App essay on. From past experience, you can put hundreds of hours into a project that intends to do good but doesn’t go anywhere for one reason or another. You can’t control for anything in life other than yourself. If you put forward your best effort, that's enough.
If you found any of those topics interesting, feel free to read the book - but be warned, it is a classic business book in the sense that the first few chapters establish a thesis and then it beats you over the head afterwards with dozens of case studies.
Warbreaker
“I swear, my dear. Sometimes our conversations remind me of a broken sword — Sharp as hell," Lightsong said, "but lacking a point.”
Warbreaker is an incredibly colorful book. Literally. Set in a world where people's abilities and life spans are determined by the colors of their souls, the story follows two young women as they navigate a dangerous political landscape and embark on a journey of sacrifice and self-discovery.
Unlike much of Sanderson’s other work - such as the fantastic Mistborn - Warbreaker is a short (for adult fantasy standards), standalone (the horror!) read. Yet that doesn’t detract at all from its stand-out element; the world-building. Nalthis is fully realized and richly detailed, with cults and religions, history, talking swords, and its very-own Greek-esque pantheon of gods.
The main characters, Siri and Vivenna, are both strong and complex, and their contrasting personalities - Siri spirited and impulsive, Vivenna reserved and practical - provide dual perspectives for the novel. Each of them also grow significantly throughout, with Siri’s plot a twisted romance, and Vivenna’s journey heavily inspired by Les Miserables’s Fantine (thankfully, her dream ends slightly more positively).
Lightsong, the third protagonist and one of the afore-mentioned members of the pantheon, is another example of fascinating characterization as a god who doesn’t believe in his own godhood. Through him, Warbreaker explores themes of faith, religion, and redemption.
The pacing of the book is a bit slow at the beginning, but ramps up significantly towards the end for an avalanche of plot twists and payoff. If you’re a fan of fantasy and have been thinking about getting into Sanderson’s work, Warbreaker is a great place to start.
Anything You Want
Don't be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.
Earlier in this post I discussed Give and Take, and how unhelpful most books are that try to "educate readers to feel empowered to follow their own dreams.”
Anything You Want is not one of those books. From a page-to-impact perspective, it may be one of the most meaningful books I’ve read since Range. And clocking in around 100 pages, it can be read in less than an hour.
Anything You Want is the story behind starting a small company called “CD Baby” and the lessons that Derek Sivers learned from that experience, distilled into a short read.
He offers a lot of great business advice, but also various meaningful insights on work and life. Here are some of my favorites:
- Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people.
- Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.
- Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.
- You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.
- The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.
Anything You Want also contains some spicy takes and opinions Sivers has that may never be relevant to what you’re doing. But he has a clear focus on what’s important:
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?
As Sivers, says - “ultimately, life is about what you want to be, not what you want to have.”
The Nix
Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime.
The Nix opens with the parable of the blind men and the elephant, in which some blind men touch the leg, snout, or tusk of an elephant and assert that an elephant is therefore sharp, long, or smooth. A king laughs at them for making incorrect observations — but as Nathan Hill points out, the blind men are technically right about the individual parts they experienced; they’re just not able to see the greater whole.
This reminded me of a conversation I had recently where a friend described human perception as three concentric circles — one for the stuff we know, one for the stuff we know we don’t know, and one for the stuff we don’t know we don’t know.
Much of The Nix is about what takes place in that third circle; the things people don’t know about themselves, a person’s struggle to reconcile with their inheritance of generational trauma, the socio-political conflicts that shape our world. It’s a captivating and thought-provoking novel that explores these complexities of familial relationships and identity.
Sometimes we’re so wrapped up in our own story that we don’t see how we’re supporting characters in someone else’s.
The story follows Samuel Andresen-Anderson (not a typo), a failed writer who tries to reconnect with his estranged mother Faye. As he delves deeper into his mother's past, he uncovers pain and shame, the secrets and sorrows that have shaped his own life in ways he hadn’t seen.
Hill has a standout ability to craft dynamic and fully fleshed-out characters. Both Samuel and Faye are flawed, and their relationship is messy and complicated. There are also dozens of additional supporting characters with point-of-view chapters.
The Nix excels at weaving together multiple storylines and time periods to create a rich narrative — telling the tale of dozens of other characters, many of whom have chapters from their perspective, and jumps across decades.
It’s no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it’s sanctimony.
The Nix is also incredibly timely, with many observations on American life, culture, and society. There’s a far-right presidential candidate who makes the most of a scandal (the “Packer Attacker!”), a student who commits every logical fallacy attempting to justify why she plagiarized her essay, commentary on the superficiality of social media, and discussion on the psychology of advertising.
For example, among my favorite quotes in the book (there are too many) describes how extremism can shape narratives within our media:
Imagine a single drop of water: that’s the protest. Now put that drop of water into a bucket: that’s the protest movement. Now drop that bucket into Lake Michigan: that’s Reality. But the danger of television is that people begin seeing the entire world through that single drop of water. How that one drop refracts the light becomes the whole picture.
Hill's prose is sharp and evocative. While there are slow segments — the book takes a complete narrative tangent for an entire part — it is also incredibly creative (with a choose-your-own-adventure subsection), and overall a beautifully written novel that will leave you thinking long after you've finished reading it.
2021
"The Emperor's Soul"
Brandon Sanderson
“A person was like a dense forest thicket, overgrown with a twisting mess of vines, weeds, shrubs, saplings, and flowers. No person was one single emotion; no person had only one desire. They had many, and usually those desires conflicted with one another like two rosebushes fighting for the same patch of ground.”
I felt I couldn't include "The Emperor's Soul" as a full entry on this list because it is incredibly short, clocking in at under 200 pages. However, Sanderson's Hugo-Award winning novella is one of the greatest short stories I've read in my life.
The story follows an "art forger" sentenced to death for theft as she attempts to earn her freedom by performing the ultimate forgery; to replicate a human soul. This tale deals with ethical questions about what it means to be human, as well as considering the nature of identity and autonomy. I enjoyed how Sanderson neatly wove an intricate magic system into the creative process, and then used that to fully explore his themes and conflicts. Thought-provoking and original, my only complaint with "The Emperor's Soul" is that it wasn't longer.
"The Poppy War"
R.F. Kuang
“War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
It's potentially cheating to include an entire trilogy of books as one entry. But I wanted to at least mention "The Poppy War," because it's one of the more unique series I read in the last year.
"The Poppy War" is a fantasy novel with a heavy dose of Asian history. In the opening chapters I thought it would play out similarly to Harry Potter - suffice to say, it most definitely did not. It's fundamentally a war story "drawing on the Second Sino-Japanese war - one of the darkest and bloodiest moments in Chinese history." From recreating events like the "Rape of Nanjing" to the use of drugs like Opium as a way to control rural populations, this grimdark book explores the horrors of war and its implications.
One of the reasons I found this book interesting is because I strongly disliked the "protagonist." While originally I was rooting for her, she makes some seriously morally questionable decisions that caused me to feel mixed about her as a person. But somehow, I liked that direction, and I devoured the rest of the series because I was curious about where Kuang would take the story. For the most part, I was not disappointed.
"Dune"
Frank Herbert
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
The Dune movie had a lot of hype going into it, so I decided to finally read the book. The Timothy Chalamet adaptation was faithful and surprisingly good, meeting my expectations. The book is also great - like Star Wars, it's more of a fantasy space opera with a futuristic desert setting than a true technology-based story, but as I enjoy fantasy that did not bother me. The world of "Dune" is incredibly thought-out. From a multitude of factions to deep mythology, Herbert clearly spent a lot of time forming his world. The political machinations are many, with the plot of "Dune" focusing around obtaining control over the production of spice.
The themes of "Dune" are rich and remain relevant - from the value of religion, to ecological and environmental issues, to the consequences of colonialism - these ideas are woven into the fabric of the story and act as many of the character's motivations. Dune is an old novel, and at times shows its age with word choices and Herbert's sometimes over-detailed writing style. But if you're into science fiction and looking for a book with both an all female political society and a talking prophetic baby, "Dune" is for you. Plus, sandwurms!
"All the Light We Cannot See"
Anthony Doerr
“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
I can see why this won the Pulitzer prize. In "All the Light We Cannot See," the lives of a blind French girl and a German engineer from the Hitler Youth intersect during the Holocaust of World War II. War pushes them in different directions as they come of age, and the book plays with time and space to thoroughly explore its endearing characters and evoke feelings within the reader.
"All the Light We Cannot See" has among the most beautiful prose I've read, rivaling "The Name of the Wind" for how closely it resembles poetry at times. That amazingly detailed prose is a double-edged sword, as it was also the reason it took me a bit to get into this dense book. But I am truly glad I read it. The vivid depictions of the world and the light within it contrasts with a main character's lack of vision.
It's a deeply melancholic and introspective book that sometimes relies on the reader to form their own interpretation. Bittersweet and heartwarming, and with chapters averaging less than 2 pages, "All the Light We Cannot See" goes by quickly once you're sucked in.
"11/22/63"
Stephen King
“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”
What would you do if you could travel back in time and save President Kennedy from assassination? What would be the ramifications of that? Those are the questions "11/22/63," an intriguing historical fiction novel with a bit of time-travel thrown in, is based on. King spent years researching the time period of the early 60's to write this book, and it shows. It is easy to get lost in the time period with characters that feel as grounded as our protagonist Jake Epping.
This book is not perfect - it's a bit slow and padded towards the middle, and it is just as much about the characters as it is about the overall plot which may or may not be your cup of tea. But if you're looking for an epic novel that spans several genres and offers compelling plotlines, "11/22/63" is worth a read.
"Project Hail Mary"
Andy Weir
“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe." "You poked it with a stick?" "No!" I said. "Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”
When I attended a panel for the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech, a prospective student raised their hand and asked a very important question: "What do you think of the book 'The Martian'?" The JPL scientist's answer: "Project Hail Mary was better."
It's certainly close for me. Weir struck gold with "The Martian," and "Project Hail Mary" retains much of the charm of his previous successes. There is noticeably more science in this novel. There's also more science-fiction - the stakes are sky-high (our sun is literally being eaten by special microbes), and without spoilers, it gets crazier from there (in a good way). This book embraces nerdiness and your inner scientist - because despite the fantastical elements, the science itself is surprisingly plausible and well thought-out.
The biggest difference for me between Weir's work and other popular science fiction is the tone. Even in the face of fear, potential death, and isolation, our humorous and endearing protagonist tries to stay positive. There's something to be said about a book that's simply fun to read.
"The Way of Kings" (Book 1, The Stormlight Archive)
Brandon Sanderson
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
Yes, there are two Sanderson books on this list if we include The Emperor's Soul - while I was introduced to his writing years ago with Mistborn (also one of my favorite books), this was the year I finally got around to reading the rest of his work. And I don't know what I was waiting for! The Stormlight Archive (particularly the first two books), are among (if not) my favorite fantasy novels I have ever read. That may sound like hyperbole - it's not. I've read "A Song of Ice and Fire" (the books on which Game of Thrones is based), "The Witcher" novels (fantastic game, mediocre show), and many other popular fantasy series. For me, The Stormlight Archive is on that level and possibly above. This feeling appears to be shared by many other people, given that Sanderson's recent kickstarter is now the most successful of all time (by more than double the previous top 2 combined).
"The Way of Kings" takes place in a fractured world ravaged by hurricanes, where war is constantly being waged to avenge a king that was assassinated. In the backdrop, there is a second war of prejudice similar to a societal caste system. The world of Roshar that Sanderson conjures is fascinating to no end. I am a huge fan of good world-building, and his is the best in the business, with incredibly deep lore and history and diverse cultures. There are even creative creatures like "Spren," which are manifestations of forces of nature and emotions. Although men maintain patriarchal responsibilities for marriage and battle, societal conventions allow only women to read, giving women control over communication, politics, and history. The story follows three characters: Kaladin, a surgeon turned soldier turned slave who works to overcome his depression and save his squad. Shallan, a thief masquerading as a scholar in search for answers to the secrets about the war and herself. And Dalinar, brother to the late king and a warlord who must determine the meaning of his visions and unite his country. Our characters and their internal and external conflicts all converge in a spectacular and satisfying finale. And that's just the first book - the second one is even better.
But, "The Way of Kings," and the rest of the Stormlight Archive is not for everyone. It's really long, with each book over 1000 pages. The author has said to think of each book as a trilogy of books together (it even has novellas in-between parts). It's unfinished, which may scare fans still scarred by authors like Patrick Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin. It starts a little slow (which makes sense given the length), with three "prologues". And it's set in a world very, very different from our own. If those things don't bother you, then I encourage you to give "The Way of Kings" a try.