Walter Isaacson has a pretty great biography of Leonard Da Vinci, I think it focuses more on his life and art work than his scientific works, but I learned a lot.

I mix fiction and non fiction, but I mostly read fiction.

The reason I read non-fiction is that I'll think about something and realize I don't ACTUALLY know much about it, so I'll buy a book about it. This year I've read a lot about ancient Rome, but also tamerlane and Richard graves' autobiography, and other books about subjects that I find interesting. It helps make me (hopefully) a well rounded person.

I love an old saying I might have made up; good non fiction tell the truth, good fiction tells universal truth.

In short, I read fiction about subjects I like to understand the world around me more better.

{{Tau zero}} by Poul Anderson is great hard scifi. Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is great too but a big time investment.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was enormously popular and had a lot of real world impact in how people thought about slavery. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is similar and had a real impact on food safety (even though that wasn't the intention).

I haven't seen the BBC series yet, I need to get around to that.

Reading is meant to be enjoyable, if you're not enjoying it then put it down.

I finish every book I read because I get anxiety if I don't, but that's me . I'm living my best life, you should live your best life, and if that includes putting books down, more power to you.

I'm just happy to see I, Claudius talked about. One of the best books ever written in the English language.

I thought Claudius, the God was okay but didn't live up to I, Claudius.

Darkness at Noon, also based on true events but some of how things are explained make terrible actions almost seem reasonable.

I just bought that book, good tip!

Probably Catch-22, it's funny but often very poignant. Most things by Kurt Vonnegut, but Cat's Cradle in particular.