FunnyLookinHat / David Overcash

Recommendations: Books, Sites, Podcasts, etc.

I’ve found a lot of great content over the years based on the recommendations of others. I figured I should pay that forward by sharing my own list.

Table of Contents

Discovering Sites

In the early days of the Internet, it was common to see lists of "favorite sites" or "friend links" shared between pages - creating a really fun way to discover new content by clicking into a list of sites and picking one at random.

I’ve heard a lot of people pine for the "Old Internet" - especially over the last decade as social media has become the primary form of content sharing and consumption. I’m not exactly sure what other people have in mind when they share this sentiment, but for me it’s tied to the uniqueness of unpolished sites where people shared about themselves. Contrast that with the sites where people share about something attention grabbing (as if they’re trying to influence you).

My favorite websites from the 90s / 2000s era were often obsessed with a person’s hobby - whether that be music, trading cards, games, movies, TV shows, etc. That’s how I discovered J-Pop Music, several of my favorite books, and even programming.

It’s almost impossible for sites like that to be discovered nowadays. Between search-engine-optimization and the frantic fight for attention and clicks on various ad-networks or affiliate links, a small website with a few pages of content won’t even bubble to the top. I’ve been trying to think of a protocol that would allow people to publish and share links, without the noise of social media, and use the information graph in a user-friendly way (e.g. for the benefit of the user, not the content) to surface recommendations to people.

Until I figure that out, I’ll just keep the tradition alive of sharing my favorite sites, podcasts, books, tv shows, and more.

Links

These are companies, people, blogs, etc. that I’ve found fun or worth following. I’m trying to avoid linking to ones that are likely well known (e.g. HackerNews, Lobsters, NPR, NY Times, etc.) and to focus only on those that you may be unaware of.

Podcasts

I find that I only have time for a few podcasts, or else I fall impossibly behind. To that end, I’ve separated the podcasts I would recommend into two groups.

Daily Listeners

These are podcasts that I keep up with on a daily (or weekly, whatever the cadence is) basis. I’ve ranked them in order of how much I prioritize getting to the most recent episode as soon as it has been uploaded.

  • Oxide and Friends

    • The hosts, Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, have been in tech since the days of Sun Microsystems.

    • The discussions are a fantastic mix of opinions on hard-tech, tech companies, and occasionally social commentary.

    • I think working with them at Oxide Computer Company would be a blast.

  • Make Me Smart

    • The hosts, Kai Ryssdal and Kimberly Adams, offer thoughtful opinions on current events with a focus on economics.

    • I appreciate their diversity of guests (and the diversity of the hosts and guest hosts).

    • I found that I listened to this almost religiously for about 2 months straight starting two years ago, and with that I decided to support it financially.

  • Marketplace

    • Also hosted by Kai Ryssdal.

    • A fantastic daily (M-F) podcast that focuses on US and World economic stories.

    • Marketplace has tons of other podcasts that are worth checking out! I don’t have time to keep up with all of them: Marketplace

Road Trip Favorites

I dive into this list when I need to stock up on a few extra hours of content for a long drive.

  • Freakonomics Radio

  • Radiolab

    • Although the original hosts have moved on, this is still a very fun podcast that explores surprising or unexplainable discoveries.

    • I believe you can subscribe to a service to get access to the full historical catalog of episodes.

    • Popular episodes can be found here if you don’t know where to start:

  • This American Life

    • A classic! You’ll always have a great conversation starter at the next family dinner if you listen to an episode or two.

    • To this day, my favorite episode is the one where a father confesses to pretending to be the police to get his toddler to go to sleep.

Books

This is a list of books (from most to least recent) that I’ve read and would recommend. I mostly read science fiction, but occasionally I will veer off into other genres. Some I would recommend more than others; I’ve tried to provide some context for some of these based on what you may be looking for.

This is a work in progress! I’ll randomly remember books I’ve read over the years and come back to this list and add them.

I’ve left off any books that I really wouldn’t recommend at all. That being said, the bar can be quite low for me as I’d prefer to have a book (any book!) ready to pick up and read. As an example - I’ve included the Destroyermen Series - which was honestly ridiculous but good enough to read the first 6 or 7 books while I was filling my "to read" list with others. Not to speak ill of Destroyermen (I really enjoyed it!), but I think some people might put the book down right about the time a World War 1 Destroyer was transported through time and discovered an epic war between talking cats and walking lizards.

Fiction

  • Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers

    • 3/4 books read, will read the fourth one soon.

    • I’ll likely jump to the

  • Locked Tomb Series - Tamsyn Muir

    • I still need to read book 3

  • "Vatta’s War" Series - Elizabeth Moon

  • Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

  • Recursion - Blake Crouch

  • The Rook - Daniel O’Malley

  • The Interdependency Series - John Scalzi

  • The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi

  • Redshirts - John Scalzi

  • Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

  • Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

  • The Carls Series - Hank Green

  • The Passage Series - Justin Cronin

  • The Legends of the First Empire Series - Michael J. Sullivan

  • Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson

  • Destroyermen Series - Taylor Anderson

  • Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

  • Old Man’s War Series - John Scalzi

  • Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson

  • Artemis - Andy Weir

  • The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland

  • The Martian - Andy Weir

  • The Divine Cities Series - Robert Jackson Bennett

  • Realm of the Elderlings Series (plural) - Robin Hobbs

    • I particularly enjoyed the following:

      • Farseer trilogy

      • Tawny Man trilogy

      • Fitz and the Fool trilogy

  • Ready Player One Series - Ernest Cline

  • Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

  • Hyperion - Dan Simmons

  • The Kingkiller Chronicle - Patrick Rothfuss

  • Reamde - Neal Stephenson

  • Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

  • Enders Game Series - Orson Scott Card

    • I’ve read a few of these, but not the entire series.

    • My two favorites were Enders Game and Speaker for the Dead

  • Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

  • 1984 - George Orwell

  • Fahrenheight 451 - Ray Bradbury

  • The Lord of the Rings Series - J. R. R. Tolkien

  • The Practice Effect - David Brin

  • The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Non-Fiction

There’s quite a bit more here than what I have listed. I’ve decided to be very selective with what I recommend in terms of Non-Fiction as my beliefs and worldview have changed significantly over the years. As an example, I wouldn’t recommend most books about religion that I’ve read nowadays - although a few may be added again at a later point in time.

  • Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho - Jon Katz

    • This was an extremely influential book for me at the time, and I still re-read it about every 5 years.

    • I resonated quite a bit with the (real life) story of the two main people in the book.

    • For those who were in school during Columbine (and were nerds, geeks, etc.), you may find the latter half of the book both frustrating (as in, digging up quite a bit) and rewarding (or even cathartic at the end).

  • Leaving Microsoft to Change the World - John Wood

    • A really fantastic read about someone deciding to make their life about something significant for others.

TV Shows / YouTube Channels / Video Content

Coming Soon