What-If XKCD Randall Munroe

Telling Tales Many authors, edited by Nadine Gordimer

Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
Forty Stories Donald Barthelme
The Master of Petersburg J M Coetzee
The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Intelligent Investor Benjamin Graham
In a Free State V S Naipaul

Forty Stories was an eye-opener for me as Barthelme went against all standing principles of form in
writing to create his own take on it, and this has influenced me to not rely on the normal route in
everything I do and instead try to form my own path where no path currently lies.