Want to read: Making sense, the glamorous story of English grammar - David Crystal

Want to read: Melissa Maker - Clean my space

A book on better cleaning methods.

Want to Read: Ed Yong - I contain multitudes: the microbes within us and a grander view of life

Want to read: Robert Moor - On trails: An exploration

Want to read: The hidden life of trees - Peter Wohlebben

Want to read: Siddartha Mukherjee - The emperor of all maladies / The gene

Books on cancer and genetics

Want to Read: Oliver Sacks - Gratitude

Essays, written mostly in the year leading up to his death.

Want to read: H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald

Memoir of a writer and her pet goshawk.

Want to read: Kate Atkinson - A God in Ruins

Sequel of sorts to "Life after Life"

Want to Read - Octavia Butler

Recommended by Freeman Dyson. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

Want to read. Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven.

Time-shifting post-apocalyptic novel with a  magnificent depth.

Want to read: Michael Faber - The book of strange new things

A man sent as missionary to a strange new world.

Anne Leckie - Ancillary Justice

Trilogy, Post-human space opera

Books recommended by Atul Gawande

Anatole Broyard - Intoxicated by my illness

Anne Fadiman - The spirit catches you and you fall down

David Allen - Getting things done

Want to read: Atul Gawande - Being mortal

Managing mortality with less cruelty

Want to read: Laurence Steinburg - Age of Opportunity, Lessons from the new science of adolescence

Want to read: Emily St John Mandel - Station Eleven

Post-apocalyptic. Jumps around in time. Sounds a bit like The Time Traveller's Wife perhaps.

Want to read: Jeff Vandermeer - Southern Reach trilogy

Fantasy. Good review in Globe & Mail.

Want to read: Andrew Sean Greer - The impossible lives of Greta Wells

Electroshock therapy causes Greta to change places with two other versions of herself, from different periods in time.

Read: Lev Grossman - The magicians; The magician king

Both of these books are a clever send-up of classic magical adventure stories. Too clever - the overall plot summary and occasional line of dialogue are amusing, but the lack of soul was dispiriting before long. And the books are long. There's something of a redemption at the end, but it only constitutes a fraction of a percent of the totality, and doesn't make it worthwhile.