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The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison was a favorite. Intelligent, conflicted characters and such a superb interplay of geological science fiction.

-The Broken Earth Trilogy: wow! Really fun to read and it packed an emotional sociopolitical message into an entertaining story with great characters.

-2312: interesting world, meh story.

-Artemis: fun, good read.

-Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy: Awesome science, mind blowing ending!

Outside of the recommendations that I see, all of which I agree are excellent, I would say "The Broken Earth Trilogy" by N.K. Jemesin.

Can second both Ann Leckie (her new book "The Raven Tower" is also a great page-turner) and N.K. Jemisin (who did totally blow my mind with her Broken Earth Trilogy).

Ursula K. Le Guin also appears down below; The Left Hand of Darkness was a profound read.

Recent reads that I recommend: N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth Trilogy. Alix Harrow's Ten Thousand Doors of January. Madeline Miller's Circe. Murakami's 1Q84.

Although with a little more thought, 1Q84 might be more upsetting now than it was last year.

It's worth noting that all three of her Broken Earth trilogy won Hugo awards.

It's not uncommon for series to win like that (getting a Hugo award for the first book means people will start the series, and since the awards are popular voting having people read your book is half the struggle).

I think the first two books (The Fifth Season and the Stone Sky) were great, but I didn't love the final book. I think Ann Leckie's Provenance should have won that year - it's in the (Hugo award winning!) Ancillary Justice universe, and deals with lots of issues around AI that I think many at HN would enjoy.

And as for the dead comments complaining that her winning is some kind of conspiracy because it's not hard SF: Fantasy has long won Hugo awards.

Also: (a) go read it - it's got a system of magic that is as hard as any magical faster than light technology in a space opera, and (b) Gaiman won with American Gods and The Graveyard Book. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won in 2008. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won.

I read the Broken Earth trilogy a few years ago-- didn't remember it had won the Hugo award for all 3 books, and don't really understand why it would have won, unless that was a particularly weak couple of year?

It is a moderately decent fantasy series, but the writing is kind of clunky.

Looking at the 2017 Hugo, I'd say Cixian Liu's "Death's End" was a much better novel than "The Obelisk Gate", and would have given it to that book.

For the 2016 Hugo I've read 3 of the finalist("Fifth Season", "Ancillary Mercy", "Seveneves"), but I don't think
any of them were all that great... guess just a weak year.

> If you want to see what it's like to read for fun, check out the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - this is probably the best pacing I have ever experienced in a fantasy series.

Another vote for Broken Earth trilogy here. Finished it last year (on Audible) and loved it.

She takes time to build a big world and yet connect you with the protagonist's very personal experience

It is a bit newer than many of these suggestions, but the Broken Earth trilogy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._K._Jemisin) is a really compelling fantasy and tells a really human story amidst an inspired though familiar world. If you’ve felt like you’re reading the same fantasy story over and over, I highly recommend giving this one a try.

If we’re recommending series in general, I recommend the Broken Earth Trilogy be NK Jemisin and The Poppy War series by RF Kuang. These series have a completely different approach to fantasy as a lens of society that I really adore.

I’m also a big fan of the Daevabod Series by SA Chakraborty. That is also hella.

I believe that the difference between sitting down and reading a book for an hour vs. browsing the internet is _exactly_ what makes books so valuable.

You're right, books are a lot of effort. However, they teach something that internet articles & videos don't, and that is delayed gratification.

In the digital age, everything is fighting for your attention and it is getting harder and harder to actually focus on anything. Clickbait titles is perhaps the most obvious manifestation, but you can see it in videos as well - many popular videos are edited in a specific way (no pauses between sentences, cut after cut after cut) that grabs your attention as often as possible.

Books let you practice tuning all that noise out and focusing on a single task for a long time, while still providing entertainment. For a knowledge worker, to be able to focus at this level is a very valuable ability!

Deep Work by Cal Newport is a non-fiction book that goes into more detail about some of these ideas concerning focus in the contemporary era.

Another great non-fiction book that really couldn't be presented in another medium is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind is not an easy read because the ideas presented are complex and wide-reaching. It takes a lot of time to go through and digest, but it is definitely worth it. The Righteous Mind has had perhaps the most impact upon my understanding of humanity and politics out of anything I've ever read.

If you want to see what it's like to read for fun, check out the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - this is probably the best pacing I have ever experienced in a fantasy series.

And if you think science fiction would be more your thing, try to to take a stab at reading Dune by Frank Herbert. This is a sci-fi classic that essentially codified the genre, and some of the ideas in the series are what made Star Wars the phenomenon it is today. I think you can't get better proof that books can stand the test of time than this!

A few of my faves.

Non-Fiction

By Adam Tooze: Crashed, and Wages of Destruction. Both excellent economic histories, the former covering the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, the latter on the Nazi economy. Tooze does an excellent job coming up with larger trends and global narratives, I'm often amazed at just how much he's able to keep in his head.

By Richard Rothstein: The Color of Law. A quick, informative, yet more than thorough enough on the factual, legal prevention that American employed over the majority of the 20th century to prevent black Americans form participating in the housing market, both personal home ownership and public housing (a major institutional driver of household wealth and success tarting in the early 20th century).

By Jeffrey Lockwood: Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier. I had no idea the American frontier was home to devastating largest-in-the-world locust plagues that suddenly disappeared near the end of the 19th century.

By Peter Brannen: The Ends of the World. A great primer on mass extinctions and their often geologic causes.

By Rick Perstein: Nixonland. Still working on this one, but a deep dive into that era of American politics feels quite relevant at the moment, except that everything today feels stupid in comparison.

Fiction

By N.K. Jemisin: The Broken Earth trilogy. A really great self-contained story, extremely evocative, and the author actually puts out great books at an amazingly fast pace.

Cooking

By Stella Parks: Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts. If you like baking, and the history of iconic American baked goods this is a must have/read. Never thought I'd spend so much time on a carrot cake.

Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars trilogy - half of the crew are russians, japanese etc. After colonisation even more diverse etnicities arrive.

James Corey - The Expanse - main characters include Indian, Polynesian, whole premise of the book is "nationality" conflict. Belters especially.

Jemisin - The Broken Earth trilogy - again, different looking people as main characters, racial conflicts and so on.

Ann Leckie - Ancillary series - ambiguous gender characters as main characters, racial conflicts etc.

I'd say that western sci-fi is rather progressive in character diversity.