james scott books

Two Cheers for Anarchism

• James C. Scott

50% off with code FIFTY

Before you purchase audiobooks and ebooks

Please note that audiobooks and ebooks purchased from this site must be accessed on the Princeton University Press app. After you make your purchase, you will receive an email with instructions on how to download the app. Learn more about audio and ebooks .

Support your local independent bookstore.

• United States
• United Kingdom

Political Science

Professor Who Learns From Peasants

• Share full article

By Jennifer Schuessler

• Dec. 4, 2012

DURHAM, Conn. — The Yale political scientist James C. Scott may share his 46-acre farm in this picturesque hamlet with a flock of laying hens, a pair of Highland cattle and an active honeybee colony. But don’t mistake him for your typical Connecticut country squire.

For Mr. Scott, the farm, about 20 miles northeast of New Haven, is both a place to blow off steam and an embodiment of the kind of hands-on, ground-up, local knowledge that he has championed during a career spanning five decades and a string of highly influential and idiosyncratic books.

“I’m as proud of knowing how to shear a sheep as I am of anything,” Mr. Scott, who turned 76 on Sunday, said during a recent interview in the living room of his rustic 1826 farmhouse, seated across from a pair of rocking chairs draped with skins of home-butchered Montadales. “I’ve been a better scholar partly because I’ve had this other activity.”

Mr. Scott’s professional accomplishments are certainly considerable, even if the biographical note in his new book, “Two Cheers for Anarchism,” cites his status as a “mediocre” beekeeper alongside his membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the official founder of Yale’s agrarian studies program, as well as an unofficial founder of the field of “resistance studies,” in which his book “Weapons of the Weak” (1985), a study of peasant resistance based on fieldwork in a Malaysian village, is a kind of Bible.

And his influence stretches far beyond the academic left, thanks to “Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed” (1998), a magisterial critique of top-down social planning that has been cited, and debated, by the free-market libertarians of the Cato Institute (which recently dedicated an issue of its online journal to the book), development economists and partisans of Occupy Wall Street alike.

“He’s one of the people who has really demonstrated all the unintended bad consequences of people who think they can plan a city or economy or whole society, but he’s not ideological about it,” the conservative political theorist Francis Fukuyama said.

He’s also the kind of big thinker (and stylish writer), colleagues say, who has all but disappeared in his field: the last of a breed of wide-angled 20th-century social theorists, going back to Max Weber, to marry the insights of social science to the broad sweep of history, even as he cautions against putting too much faith in theory.

“He marches to his own drum completely,” said Ian Shapiro, a longtime colleague of Mr. Scott’s in the Yale political science department. While most social scientists pick apart problems in previous research, “Jim always starts with problems in the real world,” Mr. Shapiro said. “That’s why his work launches ships.”

“Two Cheers,” published by Princeton University Press, is a skiff of a book by Mr. Scott’s usual dreadnought standards, weighing in at a mere 149 pages, footnotes included. It is both a departure and a summing up, reprising the themes of his earlier books in a series of 29 playful, often highly personal “fragments,” making a case for what he calls “the anarchist squint.”

To most Americans the term anarchism probably invokes bomb-throwing radicals. But seen through Mr. Scott’s squint, anarchist principles are in action all around us, whether in jaywalking, the anti-SAT movement or assembly-line slowdowns — all examples, he contends, of everyday resistance to the rule of technocratic elites.

“Unlike the anarchists, I don’t believe the state will ever be abolished,” he said in the interview. “It’s a matter of taming it” — through the kind of lawbreaking and disruption, he argues, that have always been crucial to democratic political change.

The guarantees of equality in the Declaration of the Rights of Man or the Civil Rights Act, he continued, are “achievements of the state, but they are the achievements of the state with a pistol at its temple.”

Mr. Scott’s book arrives at a moment when the Occupy movement has brought anarchist thought closer to the American political mainstream than it has been in decades (and, some on the left have argued, has come undone because of its fetishization of utopian principle at the expense of real-world politics). He says he admires the movement’s “spontaneity,” but not everyone in its ranks is returning the love.

The left-wing writer Malcolm Harris, in The Los Angeles Review of Books , blasted Mr. Scott as a closet liberal in “anarchish” clothing, espousing a vision that’s “one part Bush Administration ‘ownership society,’ one part Apple ‘think different.’ ” Fortune.com, on the other hand, praised him for offering lessons in power and subversion useful to “leaders or managers” bent on “creative destruction.”

Mr. Scott, who calls himself a “crude Marxist” but defends family business and other “small property” as important buffers against state power, laughed heartily at the notion of hitting the management-guru circuit. A doctor’s son educated at Quaker schools outside Philadelphia, he said he began scholarly life as a fairly standard “left-wing professor.”

As a newly minted Ph.D. teaching at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1970s, he was active in the antiwar movement but soon realized — “if I do say so, more quickly than some of my friends,” he notes — that wars of national liberation often led to much more oppressive governments. “I began to think that if revolution doesn’t work for peasants, maybe there’s not that much to say for it,” he said.

In the late 1970s Mr. Scott took his family to a Malaysian village for two years of fieldwork, despite colleagues’ warnings that it would be a “career-killing” move for a political scientist. The result was “Weapons of the Weak,” which (along with a follow-up, “Domination and the Arts of Resistance”) explored the ways peasants and other powerless people used evasion and subterfuge, rather than direct confrontation, to thwart efforts at centralized state control.

“Seeing Like a State,” published a decade later, looked at the limitations of state power from the other end, examining — through examples as diverse as 18th-century German scientific forestry and “villagization” in 1970s Tanzania — the way that “high modernist” social engineering doomed itself by ignoring local custom and practical knowledge, which Mr. Scott, borrowing the classical Greek word for wisdom, calls “metis.”

Mr. Scott has also been a longstanding critic of what he sees as the overconfident hyper-rationalism of political science itself, which has sacrificed its own kind of metis in favor of statistical analysis and abstract, immutable laws of political behavior. These days he’s flattered to be so often misidentified as an anthropologist.

“An anthropologist goes in and tries to have as few prejudices as possible and be as open as possible to where the world leads you,” he said, “whereas a political scientist would go in with a questionnaire.”

Mr. Scott has no idea what his academic colleagues will make of his quirky new book. But he said he’d always been less concerned with “defending turf,” as he puts it, than with moving on to wherever curiosity leads him. For now, that includes learning Burmese, teaching a seminar on the politics and ecology of rivers, and researching a new book on the “deep history” of plant and animal domestication.

“I just love raising animals,” he said before inviting a departing visitor to pluck a dozen freshly laid eggs from his ramshackle chicken coop. “It’s good to have something that requires your body and leaves your mind alone.”

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

As book bans have surged in Florida, the novelist Lauren Groff has opened a bookstore called The Lynx, a hub for author readings, book club gatherings and workshops , where banned titles are prominently displayed.

Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners. Here’s a full list of the winners .

Montreal is a city as appealing for its beauty as for its shadows. Here, t he novelist Mona Awad recommends books  that are “both dreamy and uncompromising.”

The complicated, generous life  of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

• NEWS AND REVIEWS
• WHERE TO BUY
• PUBLIC SPEAKER
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAMES M. SCOTT

About the Author

A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, James M. Scott is the author of Rampage , which was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the editors at Amazon, Kirkus , and Military Times and was chosen as a finalist for the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History by the New York Historical Society. His other works include Target Tokyo , a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, The War Below , and The Attack on the Liberty , which won the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award. Scott lives with his wife and two children in Mt. Pleasant, SC.

Contact: [email protected]

Media Inquiries:

Contact Kyle Radler: (212) 790-4295 or [email protected]

James Scott Bell Books In Order

Publication order of force of habit books, publication order of irish jimmy gallagher books, publication order of mallory caine, zombie-at-law books, publication order of mike romeo books, publication order of shannon saga books, publication order of the trials of kit shannon books, publication order of ty buchanan books, publication order of standalone novels, publication order of short stories/novellas, publication order of non-fiction books, publication order of short story collections, publication order of anthologies.

About James Scott Bell

Creating much loved thriller novels, American author James Scott Bell has been a mainstay of the literary industry for a long time now, almost becoming an institute in his own right. Writing a vast number of titles, both fiction and non-fiction, he’s managed to establish a strong name for himself both nationally and internationally. Seen as a true master of his craft, he has amassed a keen audience worldwide, with both the critics and the general public alike singing his many praises.

Early and Personal Life

Born on the 10th of August in 1954, James Scott Bell would grow up with a strong and keen passion for both reading and writing. Growing up in America he would hold a fascination for the written word, allowing it to build throughout the years, as he would continue to nurture and develop it. He would also manage to create a unique style and tone all of his own, one which would become his trademark within time.

Later attending the University of California in Santa Barbara, the writer to be Scott Bell would study alongside Raymond Carver. He would also go on to graduate from the University of Southern California based law school and, following this, would go on to write over 300 articles focused on the legal profession. Working as a trial lawyer for a period of time, this would go on to shape much of his work to follow, as he continues to write from his home in Los Angeles to this very day.

Writing Career

It would be in 1988 that James Scott Bell would write his first debut novel ‘The Night Carl Sagan Stepped on My Cat’, marking his arrival as a bright new talent. Prior to this he had written a non-fiction work titled ‘Successful Closing Argument Techniques’ in 1987, which would be one of many of his factual non-fiction works produced over the years. Writing extensively on not only his craft as a writer, imparting his skill-set to others, he would also go on to produce a number of legal books, along with a large quantity of articles on the subject too.

This would all serve to define him as one of the leading figures within his field, with many looking to him as a peer. Advocating his craft both online as well as off, he has also managed to be a huge spokesperson for what he does as well, speaking on numerous occasion. With a lot more to come yet, he doesn’t seem to be finishing any time soon either, as his career grows from strength-to-strength.

Presumed Guilty

Published through the Zondervan publishing label, this would originally come out in 2006 on the 15th of March to much acclaim. Not being a part of any series, this is an entirely self-contained thriller novel, with a tension fuelled self-contained narrative. It would also show a clear sense of development for Bell as a writer, providing more of what his readers have now come to expect from him as an author.

Clearly a subject that James Scott Bell holds close to his heart, this has a number of themes and ideas that are obviously personal to him as an author. Developing characters that are fully grounded and real, it really manages to get to the heart of each of them, allowing them to leap off of the page in the process. The sense of scope that novel has is also noteworthy, bringing in a variety of different locations, whilst simultaneously giving it an almost intimate feel.

Facing an impending media frenzy that threatens to engulf her family, Dallas Hamilton is dealing with a tragedy that’s set to tear her family apart. Her husband, the handsome and successful Pastor Ron Hamilton, was a rising star with over 8,000 members in his stronghold of a church. With charm and charisma it seems that nothing can stop him, along with his crusade against pornography, that is until a female porn star is found dead in a motel room. Seen as the chief suspect in the case, Ron Hamilton is all set to face a scandal, whilst Dallas must look deep inside of herself to find the uncomfortable truths that she’d rather not look at. Who is guilty for the death of the woman? Why is this happening to them, and what is the truth behind the web of lies? Is her husband now presumed guilty?

Romeo’s Hammer

Released in 2017 on the 25th of April, this would be the third novel in the much loved ‘Mike Romeo’ collection of novels. Following the various cases and investigations of one Mike Romeo, the series sees him starting out as an ex-cage fighter living off the grid. Over time the franchise as the franchise progresses, he starts to get involved in a number of different mysteries, as he’s privately hired by certain individuals.

The series itself follows in the footsteps of many a hard-boiled novel, having fun with the format, whilst also becoming something all of its very own. Evolving over the course of the series, Mike Romeo develops as a full three-dimensional character who quickly comes to life for the reader. Finding a large number of fans from all over the world, this series definitely manages to deliver on its fun and entertaining premise.

After finding a woman staggering round apparently drunk on the fog filled beach late one night, it soon transpires that she’s actually been poisoned. Quickly taking her to a nearby hospital, he leaves her there believing it to be dealt with, only to discover that she’s gone missing after her father contacts Mike. He then asks Mike to locate her, which then leads the former cage fighter on a trail leading him through the darkened seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. Running into a variety of characters, he comes across a Hollywood actor looking to make his big comeback, along with a fight promoter working in the underworld, as well as a strange cult predicting angels will return to Earth, and hired heavy just looking to get into a fight at all costs. Will he find the girl before it’s all too late? How are all these disparate characters connected with one another? What will become of Romeo’s hammer?

2 Responses to “James Scott Bell”

Just finished the first Mike Romeo book and it was exceptional. The story and characters were superb. I am a very avid reader and I have a multiple amount of favorite authors and characters. I liken Mike to some of my very favorite characters be it Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar, Robert Crais Elvis Cole and of course Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Keep up the great work Mr. Bell. A faithful reader, Jon Shaw

Your career story is fascinating, and now I am going to read some of your books. I assume this will be a pleasure.

Leave a Reply

The links beside each book title will take you to Amazon where you can read more about the book, check availability, or purchase it. As an Amazon Associate, I earn money from qualifying purchases. If you would like to link to us, Get the Code Here .

I often get asked by readers if they can donate to the site as a thank you for all the hard work. While I appreciate the offer – please support one of these great causes instead (list rotates monthly): Reading Is Fundamental Affirmations Community Center Streetwise Compassion International

Are you a fan of psychological thrillers? A big fan of authors such as Gillian Flynn? These are our most recommended authors in the thriller genre, which is my personal favourite genre:

• Freida McFadden
• Linwood Barclay
• Megan Goldin
• Peter Swanson
• Sarah Alderson
• Shari Lapena
• Jack Reacher
• Court Gentry / Gray Man

I just want to thank everyone for visiting the site. Any issues at all don’t hesitate to use the contact form. To read more about the site or if you want a graphic to link to us, see the about page for more details.

ATTENTION: Our order fulfillment center is temporarily shutdown and unable to take orders.

On The Site

• Veritas Paperbacks
• political science

Seeing Like a State

How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

by James C. Scott

Series: Veritas Paperbacks

• Request Print Exam/Desk Copy
• Request eBook Exam Copy

464 Pages , 5.00 x 7.75 in , 36 b-w illus.

• 9780300246759
• Published: Tuesday, 17 Mar 2020
• 9780300252989

Also Available At:

• Barnes & Noble
• Seminary Co-op
• Description

James C. Scott is Sterling Professor of Political Science and codirector of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University.

“A magisterial critique of top-down social planning that has been cited, and debated, by the free-market libertarians of the Cato Institute (which recently dedicated an issue of its online journal to the book), development economists, and partisans of Occupy Wall Street alike.”—Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times “Illuminating and beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”— New Yorker “Scott’s learning is formidable, but his prose is witty and down-to-earth. His approach is less that of an academic expert offering explanations from on high than of an explorer nimbly navigating a rugged patch of conceptual and historical ground.”—A. O. Scott, New York Times “One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades. . . . A fascinating interpretation of the growth of the modern state. . . . Scott presents a formidable argument against using the power of the state in an attempt to reshape the whole of society.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review “James C. Scott has written a powerful, and in many [ways] insightful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy—the Soviet disaster being the textbook case. . . . He has produced an important critique of visionary state planning.”—Robert Heilbroner, Lingua Franca “[An] important book. . . . The author’s choice of cases is fascinating and goes well beyond the familiar ones like Soviet collectivization.”—Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs “In a treatment that can only be termed brilliant, [Scott] has produced a major contribution to developmental literature. . . . This is a book of seminal importance for comparative politics and, indeed, for the social sciences. Highly recommended.”— Choice “Mr. Scott tells the story in witty, sparkling prose of these (Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, among others) relentless social engineers and how they tried to impose for all eternity a perfect social order or an urban blueprint, regardless of human cost and unremitting human refractoriness.”— Washington Times “An important and powerful work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in large-scale public planning. . . . Among the book’s virtues are its lucid style, deep learning, and wide range of fascinating cases.”—Gideon Rose, Washington Monthly “Where Seeing Like a State is original, and often startling so, is in its meticulous accumulation of empirical evidence that describes the failure of grandiose state projects to improve the human condition.”—Brian C. Anderson, Public Interest “ Seeing Like a State is a worldly, academic synthesis of the destructive hubris of large-scale rational planning. . . . What Scott does that is brilliant is talk about how states and large institutions acquire the knowledge that they ultimately use to govern.”—Michael Schrage, Across the Board “Its global focus, its attention to issues of environment and economic development too often ignored by non profits scholars, and its impressive grasp of how organizations work, recommend it to anyone seriously interested in the future of public life.”—Peter Dobkin Hall, ARNOVA News “Scott’s book is a paean to human liberty, a very complicated paean. . . . This book [owes] much of its value to the details of the particular case studies, and to Scott’s enthusiasm and ingenuity in seeing links among apparently different human projects. He has written a remarkably interesting book on social engineering.”—Cass R. Sunstein, New Republic "In Seeing Like a State James Scott has given us powerful new paradigms of state action and popular resistance. His work is sure to inspire new thinking and research in history and social sciences."—Fred Murphy, Reader’s Catalog "Brilliant . . . [Scott] has produced a major contribution to developmental literature . . . this is a book of seminal importance for comparative politics and indeed, for the social sciences."— Choice "Scott’s book . . . is an important and powerful work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in large-scale public planning. . . . Among the book’s virtues are its lucid style, deep learning, and wide range of fascinating cases."—Gideon Rose, Washington Monthly " Seeing Like a State has a great deal of merit. In exploring the sensorium of a Leviathan, Scott is standing on the shoulders of Foucault, but he has opened up an important issue to popular debate."—Gary Sturgess, Policy " Seeing Like a State remains a tremendous achievement, easily one of the most impressive and important books of recent years."—Jesse Walker, Reason "This is a book rich in ideas and arguments."—Ronald Grigor Suny, Slavic Review "This is a magisterial book. . . . Scott's conceptual contributions will have a profound impact on our own making sense of the world."—David D. Laitin, Journal of Interdisciplinary History "A lucid and richly illustrated study. . . . While the book itself is a tour de force, Scott's final destination in the conclusion is a personal and passionate argument for liberal democracy . . . as the only practical means of harmonizing local experience with the responsibilities of statecraft. Scholars and policy planners concerned with Africa have much to learn from Scott's methodology and his message."—James C. McCann, International Journal of African Historical Studies "James Scott's tantalizing treatise invites us to ponder carefully the tragedies of modern state interventions as we struggle to recognize the resources people have to qualify those efforts and pursue possibilities for improving the future."—R. Bin Wong, Political Science Quarterly "Scott's scholarship is formidable, his insights many, his rich detail usually stilling criticism. . . . This is a book of powerful case studies."—Michael Mann, American Journal of Sociology “This is an enjoyable read. . . . Scott has made a valuable contribution to comparative development literature by distilling bout some of the essential features of development plans to show how they cause failure. . . . Hopefully his insights will lead to changes in development planning to avoid the pitfalls he identifies.”—Sharon R. Murphy, Review of Politics "An engrossing book that formulates some big ideas with a sweeping and inventive register of examples, Seeing Like a State promises to join an ever-growing list of works by James Scott destined to achieve that most desirable of academic fates—longevity."—Akil Gupta, Journal of Asian Studies Winner of the 2000 Mattei Dogan Award 2015 Wildavsky Award for Enduring Contribution to Policy Studies, from the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association "James Scott is one of the most original and interesting social scientists whom I know. So it is no surprise that Seeing Like a State is a broad ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state. For anyone interested in learning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, high modernism, Seeing Like a State is a must read."—Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University and author of Hitler's Willing Executioners "A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state and its propensity to simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque. For anyone interested in learning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, this is a must-read."—Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners “The ‘perfection’ Scott so rightly and with such tremendous skill and erudition debunks in his book he himself has nearly reached, as far as positing and presenting the problem is concerned. The case of what the order-crazy mind is capable of doing and why we need to stop it from doing it has been established ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’ and with a force that cannot be strengthened.”—Zygmunt Bauman, emeritus professor, University of Leeds “Stunning insights, an original position, and a conceptual approach of global application. Scott’s book will at once take its place among the decade’s truly seminal contributions to comparative politics.”—M. Crawford Young, University of Wisconsin, Madison “A tour de force. . . . Reading the book delighted and inspired me. It’s not the first time Jim Scott has had that effect.”—Charles Tilly, Columbia University

Related Books

Sign up for updates on new releases and special offers

Newsletter signup, shipping location.

Our website offers shipping to the United States and Canada only. For customers in other countries:

Mexico and South America: Contact TriLiteral to place your order. All Others: Visit our Yale University Press London website to place your order.

Shipping Updated

Learn more about Schreiben lernen, 2nd Edition, available now. 

The Blood of Patriots and Traitors

Book two in the max geller series, now available in paperback.

A Russian Defector—A Worldwide Dragnet—A Looming Assassination—Max Geller is back in Moscow.

Former CIA Russia expert Max Geller is in Australia, enjoying his sudden wealth in the company of his girlfriend, Vanessa. But this beachy bliss is short-lived when Max is ambushed.

Max discovers that his former CIA boss, Rodney, is using Vanessa as a hostage to force him to return to Moscow. His mission? Smuggle out a defector with a secret Kremlin war plan. But is the defector real or bait to lure Max into the hands of his old enemy, FSB Colonel Zabluda. To save Vanessa, Max heads to Russia, with his reliable crew, Jill Rucker, Cherri Layton, and Tony-D covering his back.

Zabluda learns that Max is in Moscow and launches a manhunt, pursuing Max and the defector across Europe and the Atlantic. However, the defector has his own agenda and neither Max nor the Russians are sure what it is. When the Russians seem to know Max’s escape route, the CIA suspects there is a traitor in Max’s crew. Meanwhile, Max is in a race to avoid capture and deliver the defector’s secret to the CIA in time to prevent a war.

And what’s going on with those assassins in Mexico?

“Scott’s solid sequel to … The President’s Dossier …. Strong-armed by his former boss, [ex-CIA agent Max] Geller agrees to get a high-value defector out of Moscow. A high-octane pursuit across Russia and into Estonia ends in an exciting rapid-fire shoot-out scene, but … the defector raises questions about the ability of the United States to [thwart Russia’s war plan]. Daniel Silva fans should check out this timely political thriller.” — Publishers Weekly

“Overall, The Blood of Patriots and Traitors never sits still with a rollercoaster narrative that pushes its protagonist to his very limits and beyond, creating an action-packed adventure that readers everywhere won’t want to miss.” —Reader’s Favorite, 5 Stars

“Maxwell Geller has more lives than a cat. This spy v. spy thriller will leave you breathless as you chase Max across Russia and the world in a complex tale of government deception and double-crosses that would confound James Bond.” —Sheila Lowe , author of Dead Letters

The President’s Dossier

Book one in the max geller series.

The Iran Contradictions

A gritty alternative explanation for the Reagan era Iran-contra scandal, involving Vietnam War secrets worth millions and Hezbollah hostages. The mission: steal the money, kill a hostage, and frame the President. The action rages from Washington to the French Riviera as investigators attempt to save the President and outsmart assassins, Swiss bankers, crooked POW/MIA negotiators and Vietnamese Intelligence.

Best Book of the Year Fiction Finalist: USABookNews.com and Foreword Magazine

“A compelling page-turner.” —William Cohen , Former Senator, Secretary of Defense, and Iran-Contra Investigator

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Weekend Edition Sunday

• Latest Show

Sunday Puzzle

• Corrections

Listen to the lead story from this episode.

Politics chat: Biden and Trump pin their hopes on debate to give them an edge

by  Tamara Keith ,  Mara Liasson

Meet the woman who escaped two conflicts — as a Palestinian refugee, then in Ukraine

by  Tamara Keith ,  Eleana Tworek

Biden will address the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College. Protests are expected

by  Tamara Keith ,  Stephen Fowler

These teens were missing too much school. Here's what it took to get them back

by  Leigh Paterson ,  Elizabeth Miller

Plant-based restaurants are adding beef. Does the climate math add up?

by  Tamara Keith ,  Julia Simon

An iconic chocolate factory shuts shop in Chicago

by  Michael Puente

Sunday Puzzle NPR hide caption

Sunday Puzzle: Complete the compound with these animal connections!

by  Will Shortz

Tree seeds that flew around the moon are now being planted across the U.S.

by  William Joseph Hudson

Music Interviews

Sudanese musician sinkane on his new album 'we belong'.

by  Tamara Keith

The Supreme Court ruled to protect the CFPB. Here's why it matters for your money

Middle east, anger at netanyahu cuts through a somber tel aviv rally to bring home the hostages.

by  Hadeel Al-Shalchi

Trump addresses NRA's annual meeting, urges them to vote

by  Tamara Keith ,  Caroline Love

A London court will rule on Julian Assange's extradition to the U.S.

by  Tamara Keith ,  Willem Marx

Rock icon or a victim of exploitation? Examining Amy Winehouse's legacy

by  Tamara Keith ,  Stephen Thompson

Scientists at Berkeley develop a tool to help cities measure carbon emissions

by  Kevin Stark / KQED

Furiosa makes a splash at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Environment, on a trail in the adirondack mountains, runners appreciate the spring season.

by  Emily Russell, NCPR

Author Interviews

Hold on to your wishes — there's a 'spider in the well'.

by  Tamara Keith ,  Samantha Balaban ,  Melissa Gray

Searching for a song you heard between stories? We've retired music buttons on these pages. Learn more here.

5 great sci-fi books you should read if you liked 3 Body Problem

T he new sci-fi show 3 Body Problem dropped on Netflix this week, an epic tale about humanity's first contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. While there are some mixed reviews, most seem to be enjoying the latest outing from Game of Thrones creators Dan Weiss and David Benioff, who created the series alongside True Blood's Alexander Woo. For those who have already watched all eight episodes and are now hungering for more ambitious science fiction stories , we've got several recommendations for you to keep you busy for the foreseeable future.

The following round-up consists of five series/standalone books worth checking out if you loved 3 Body Problem .

The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Cixin Liu

Obviously the first choice has to be the books that 3 Body Problem was actually based on. Cixin's award-winning trilogy is a genuine literary feat and ambitious sci-fi at its finest. The series begins with The Three-Body Problem , continues with The Dark Forest and wraps in its epic conclusion Death's End . Far more sophisticated and complex than the television series, the trilogy is unlike anything else in the genre.

If you try to search for books just like this trilogy, you'll see that countless people have struggled to come up with the perfect comparison. With each novel between 400 and 600 pages, it'll take you a while to get through all three books, so I suggest diving in as soon as you finish watching the show , especially if you enjoyed the Netflix adaptation and are eager to find out what happens next.

Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu

After checking out the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you might consider reading some of Cixin Liu's other works, like his standalone book Ball Lightning . Far more fast-paced than Cixin's acclaimed trilogy, Ball Lightning is an immersive and compelling story about a man devoted to uncovering the mysteries of ball lightning after his parents are incinerated in a tragic incident. His obsession with the phenomena brings him into conflict with scientists who have their own motives and are dangerously obsessed with using ball lightning to produce high-powered weaponry.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. His novel Ender's Game was his breakout work. If you were intrigued by the virtual reality game in 3 Body Problem then this might be the right book for you! Set in the future, Ender's Game takes a unique approach to the alien invasion genre by being set after two different invasions.

With a third invasion potentially looming on the horizon, talented children from around the world are recruited into a Battle School where they learn how to play games and study subjects like politics, math, and physics. These children are studied with the hopes of honing a new generation of cutthroat commanders, elite soldiers, and tacticians that can finally defeat the alien threat for good.

Protagonist Andrew "Ender" Wiggin emerges as a genius that could save the human race. There is also a film adaptation of this one starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford.

The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey

Compared to 3 Body Problem , The Expanse is more of an epic space opera than hard science fiction, but its scope recalls Cixin's trilogy and universe. Beginning with the novel Leviathan Wakes , the book series takes place in a future where humans have colonized the Solar System and many are living in space stations and systems in orbit.

The books focus on a group of protagonists who find themselves at the center of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to upend the fragile peace established between factions like the Earthers, the Martians, and the Belters who live on the asteroid belt. The Expanse was also adapted into a television series, with six seasons available to watch on Prime Video. There are nine books total in the series.

The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

The Southern Reach trilogy, which consists of the novels Annihilation , Authority and Acceptance , is one of my personal favorite book series of all time. These books are much more cerebral and mind-bending than even 3 Body Problem and are certainly not for everyone. Despite being considered a popular sci-fi series, they're actually quite polarizing due to the book's mysterious nature. Some of the events are never explained and you just kind of have to be okay with that.

But if you're someone who enjoys truly unique stories, suspense, and open endings that leave you guessing, then I highly recommend giving these books a chance. The books center around the strange "Area X," a region of coastline where nature has reclaimed every aspect of human civilization. Several expeditions have ventured into Area X with each one perishing due to unexplainable circumstances.

Annihilation follows the twelfth expedition, a group of four women with a mission to map the area's terrain and record their observations—while trying to avoid contamination by the area itself. The film version of Annihilation from director Alex Garland (see above trailer) is also worth watching!

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow   our all-encompassing Facebook page  and sign up for   our exclusive newsletter .

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

This article was originally published on winteriscoming.com as 5 great sci-fi books you should read if you liked 3 Body Problem .

Follow to get new release updates, special offers (including promotional offers) and improved recommendations.

James M. Scott

About the author.

A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, James M. Scott is the author of Black Snow and Rampage, the latter of which was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the editors at Amazon, Kirkus and Military Times. His other works include Target Tokyo, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, The War Below and The Attack on the Liberty, which won the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award. Scott lives with his wife and two children in Charleston, SC., where he is the Scholar in Residence at The Citadel.

Most popular

Customers also bought items by

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices