Most academics have a collection of favorite articles and books on their websites. Here are mine. I don't agree with all the opinions that these pieces express, but the ideas are worth grappling with.

Math + CompSci Essays

Item What is it?
Paul Lockhart's Lament A cleary-eyed broadside against bad mathematics curricula in lower, middle, and high school.
Rich Sutton's Bitter Lesson To hell with human intuition - by Sutton, structured search and compute will dominate the world.
Sarah Hooker's Hardware Lottery What research ideas win and which don't? Hooker's got a convincing explanation for the structure of modern deep learning algorithms.
James Somers ponders ChatGPT An ode to programming and its changing role in the LLM age.
Akshay Venkatesh considers the AI Mathematician Mathematics is an art, and we humans decide what art is valuable. Venkatesh wonders how AI writing proofs will change that.
Underwood Dudley on Mathematical Cranks How do you deal with a someone claming to solve an impossible problem? Dudley has some practical (and very funny) ideas.

 

Technical Books

Book Author
Introduction to the Theory of Computation Michael Sipser
ENIAC in Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer Crispin Rope, Mark Priestley, and Thomas Haigh

 

Articles, nonfiction

Item Sad, Thoughtful, Funny?
The Aquarium 😢
Who is the Bad Art Friend? 🤔
Inside the Meltdown at CNN 🤣
Living with a Visionary 😢
J-School Confidential 🤔

 

Short fiction

Item Sad, Thoughtful, Funny?
Omakase 🤔
Cat Person 😢
The Pool 🤔
Children's Holiday Letters to Satan 🤣

 

Books, fiction

Item Sad, Thoughtful, Funny?
Dear Committee Members 🤣
The Uncollected Stories of Allan Garganus 🤔

 

Books, nonfiction

Item Sad, Thoughtful, Funny?
Abundance 🤔
Paying for the Party 🤔
The University: An Owner's Manual 🤔
And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students 🤔