Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
FiltersScience & PhilosophyFantasy & RomantasyClear
Pick as many as you like: any of them matches within a group.
14 summaries
A Court of Thorns and Roses
A mortal huntress kills a wolf that was really a faerie and is taken across the wall to a masked lord's enchanted, cursed court.
Fallen
Sent to a grim Georgia reform school after a fire she cannot explain, seventeen-year-old Luce is drawn to a cold, beautiful boy she is certain she has met before.
Fourth Wing
A fragile would-be scribe is forced into a murderous war college for dragon riders, where her wits, two dragons and her family's sworn enemy become her only way to survive.
Glass Sword
On the run from the king who betrayed her, the Lightning Girl races to find others like herself, and fears what the fight is turning her into.
Iron Flame
Violet Sorrengail returns to her dragon-rider war college for a second year, carrying a secret the leadership would kill to keep.
Lying
Sam Harris argues that even kind white lies cost more than they save, and that simply telling the truth makes life simpler and relationships deeper.
My Big TOE
A NASA physicist's theory of everything: consciousness is the foundation of reality, the physical world is a virtual training ground, and the point of it all is to grow from fear toward love.
Onyx Storm
Violet Sorrengail leaves the war college behind for a dragon-back quest across unknown isles, racing to save her kingdom's defences and the man she loves from the darkness inside him.
Rise of Empire
Thief Royce and swordsman Hadrian are pulled into a war for the soul of Elan as a puppet empress, a church-run empire and a rebel army compete for power.
The Descent of Man
Darwin finally turns his theory on ourselves, arguing that humans share ancestry, mind and even morality with other animals, and that mate choice helped shape us.
The Hidden Life of Trees
German forester Peter Wohlleben argues that a forest is a cooperative community in which trees communicate, share food and raise their young, and that we should manage it that way.
The Tyranny of Merit
Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel argues that our faith in meritocracy has made winners arrogant, made everyone else feel humiliated, and fuelled the populist backlash, and that humility and respect for work are the way back.
Theft of Swords
Two mismatched rogues take a too-good-to-be-true job to steal a sword, get framed for a king's murder, and stumble into a conspiracy and an ancient war that could reshape their world.
What Is Life?
A quantum physicist asks how atoms can add up to a living thing, and his answers, an aperiodic crystal carrying a code-script and life feeding on negative entropy, help launch molecular biology.