inspirations

a non-comprehensive list of some of my favorite music, writing, movies, etc.

books

fiction

A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
All the Birds in the Sky (Charlie Jane Anders)
Berserk (Kentaro Miura)
Candide (Voltaire)
Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
Circe (Madeline Miller)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Eliezer Yudkowsky)
Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
The Dark Forest (Cixin Liu)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin)

non-fiction

A Pattern Language (Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein, and Sara Ishikawa)
All the Wrong Moves: A Memori About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything (Sasha Chapin)
Difficult Conversations (Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone, and Sheila Heen)
From Zero to One (Peter Thiel)
Human Learning and Memory (David Lieberman)
The Anthropocene Reviewed (John Green)
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering (Richard Hamming)
When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)

other writing

writing that i've found impactful and would not consider to be a "book"

A Guide to Options at the End of the World (Jasmine Wang)
Becoming a Magician (Autotranslucence)
Better Living Through Algoroithms (Naomi Kritzer)
Cities and Ambition (Paul Graham)
Finding the Right People (Nix)
How Powerlifting Saved My Life (Alyssa Keiko)
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter (Isabel Fall)
Lashing Out Hurts You the Most (Ask Polly)
MIT 2022 Special Ceremony Speech (Kealoha Wong)
Life is Not Short (DKB Show)
Looking for Alice (Henrik Karlsson)
Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
Port Huron Statement (Students for a Democratic Society)
Relationships are Challenging + a Lot of Work (Visakanv)
Replacing Guilt (Nate Soares)
Staring Into the Abyss as a Core Life Skill (Ben Kuhn)
This is Water (David Foster Wallace)
When Your Child Strays From God (Sam J. Miller)

music

classical

my favorite composition from each of the following composers

Albinoni: Adagio
Bach: Sarabande, Cello Suite No. 6
Barber: Violin Concerto, Mvt II
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
Beethoven: Heiliger Dankgesang
Borodin: String Quartet No. 2
Brahms: Symphony No. 4, Mvt II
Canning: Fantasy on a Hymn Tune by Justin Morgan
Chopin: Fantasie in F
Debussy: String Quartet
Dvorak: Piano Quartet No. 2
Elgar: Serenade for Strings, Mvt 2
Fauré: Apres un Reve
Franck: Violin Sonata
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Glass: Pruit Igoe and Prophecies
Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis
Khachaturian: Adagio from Spartacus
Liszt: Piano Sonata
Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 1
Kilar: Orawa
Klengel: Hymnus for 12 Cellos
Mahler: What Love Tells Me
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time, Mvt V
Mozart: Symphony No. 40, Mvt I
Mozetich: Postcards from the Sky, Mvt I
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration)
Pärt: Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
Puccini: Preludio Sinfonico
Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata
Ravel: String Quartet
Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Saint-Saëns: Le Cygne
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht
Schubert: Death and the Maiden, Mvt II
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Mvt III
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2, Mvt IV
Smetana: My Vlast, Mvt IV
Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Suk: Serenade for Strings
Tchaikovsky: Hymn of the Cherubim
Vivaldi: Double Cello Concerto
Wagner: Tannhäuser Overture
Webern: Langsamer Satz

my favorite non-classical artist is Bon Iver. other favorites include Billie Eilish, Glass Animals, Lorde, Mitski, Pink Floyd, Florence + The Machine, Kodaline, Kanye.
i also enjoy musical theater; my favorites are Hadestown, Les Mis, Hamilton, Wicked, Into the Woods.

movies

500 Days of Summer (2009)
A POET (2026)
Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
East of Eden (1955)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Five Centimeters per Second (2007)
Gattaca (1997)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Harvey (1950)
Interstellar (2014)
Look Back (2024)
Past Lives (2023)
Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Soul (2021)
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
The Room (2003)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Three Idiots (2009)
Weathering With You (2020)
Your Name (2016)

shows

Alice in Borderland (2020-2022)
Attack on Titan (2013-2023)
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)
Bojack Horseman (2014-2020)
Carole and Tuesday (2019)
Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999)
Death Note (2006-2007)
Death Parade (2015)
Looking for Alaska (2019)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996)
Mob Psycho 100 (2016-2022)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
Rick and Morty (2013-)
Steins;Gate (2011)
The Tatami Time Machine Blues (2022)

games

my favorite game is Celeste. other favorites include: Omori, Undertale, Pokemon, Bloons Monkey City, Splendor, Bananagrams