Socrates Johnson's Reading List

A Reader's Journey Through Philosophy and Fiction

Reading has always been the foundation of my writing. The books listed here represent a deliberate journey through the great works of literature and philosophy—the texts that have shaped my thinking and continue to inform The SuperUnknowN.

This is not a comprehensive list of everything I've read, but rather a record of the last few years of focused study. The Russian masters appear frequently because their work demonstrates what fiction can achieve when it takes ideas seriously. The philosophical texts are here because they ask the questions that matter most.

A Note on DNF (Did Not Finish)

Throughout these lists you'll see books marked DNF. The meaning varies depending on the type of book. For non-fiction—especially philosophy—a DNF usually means I read specific chapters for research rather than cover to cover. I often pick up philosophical texts to study particular concepts or arguments relevant to what I'm working on, then set them aside until the next question arises. That's how I use reference works.

For fiction, DNF typically means I couldn't get into the story at that time, or it didn't hold my attention enough to finish. But that doesn't mean the door is closed. Some books are extremely challenging and require the right mindset to appreciate. I've had multiple attempts at books before finally finishing them, and several of those difficult reads became favorites. The fact that something appears as DNF now doesn't mean it won't be completed later when the moment is right.

Reading List 2022

Fiction

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
1984 by George Orwell
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The State Counsellor by Boris Akunin
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (DNF)

Short Stories

The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol
The Bet by Anton Chekhov
The Woman with the Dog by Anton Chekhov
The Duel by Anton Chekhov
Death of a Government Clerk by Anton Chekhov
The Student by Anton Chekhov
Joy by Anton Chekhov
A Blunder by Anton Chekhov
The Lottery Ticket by Anton Chekhov

Non-Fiction

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson
The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell
The Dhammapada by Buddha
Tribe by Sebastian Junger

Reading List 2023

Fiction

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky (DNF)
The Iliad by Homer
Heart of the Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Animal Farm by George Orwell
In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (DNF)
In The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (DNF)
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (DNF)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Utopia by Thomas More (DNF)
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Short Stories

Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov

Non-Fiction

The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday
Select Letters by Seneca (DNF)
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Meditations by René Descartes (DNF)
Think by Simon Blackburn
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
The Book of Ichigo Ichie by Héctor García
Ikigai by Héctor García
The Five Dialogues by Plato
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
Kant in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern
Aristotle for Everyone by Mortimer J. Adler
The Republic by Plato
Discourses by Epictetus
Wabi Sabi by Nobel Suzuki (DNF)
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
Aristotle's Way by Edith Hall
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker (DNF)
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
A Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell (DNF)
The Histories by Herodotus (DNF)
St. Augustine by Robert O'Connell
Socrates by Prof. Thomas C. Brickhouse
Chinese Philosophy by Crispin Sartwell
Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell (DNF)
The White Pill by Michael Malice (DNF)
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The War on the West by Douglas Murray
Tribe by Sebastian Junger
The Hermeneutics of the Subject by Michel Foucault (DNF)

Reading List 2024

Fiction

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Odyssey by Homer
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Dune by Frank Herbert
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Plague by Albert Camus
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Short Stories, Plays and Poems

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Othello by William Shakespeare
The Bet by Anton Chekhov
Joy by Anton Chekhov
Death of a Government Clerk by Anton Chekhov
Fat and Skinny by Anton Chekhov

Non-Fiction

The Brief History of the Greek Myths by Stephen P. Kershaw
The God Equation by Michio Kaku
Existential Physics by Sabine Hossenfelder
Grain Brain by David Perlmutter
Intellectuals in Society by Thomas Sowell
The Simulation Hypothesis by Rizwan Virk
Simulacra and Simulation: Understanding Our World of Copies by A.S. Aurelius
Reality + by David Chalmers
The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton
Free Will by Mark Balaguer
Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
Quantum Physics for Beginners by John Stoddard
Troubled by Rob Henderson

Reading List 2025

Fiction

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
Dostoevsky in Love by Alex Christofi
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Apology by Xenophon
Memorabilia by Xenophon
The Republic by Plato
11/22/63 by Stephen King
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

Short Stories

Cinderella by the Brothers Grimm

Non-Fiction

Quantum Entanglement by Jed Brody
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi
Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
7 Rules of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Warriors and Worriers by Joyce F. Benenson
The Republic and the Laws by Cicero
The Gang of Three by Neil Burton
How Fiction Works by James Wood
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

Reading List 2026

Fiction

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Currently Reading & TBR

Currently Reading

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Gang of Three by Neil Burton

Planning to Finish

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
The Terminal List by Jack Carr

What's Next

The reading continues. Philosophy and fiction remain inseparable in my work, and the books that shape The SuperUnknowN are the same ones that challenge how I think about consciousness, identity, and what it means to be human.

If you're curious about what I'm reading now or what's coming next, check back here. This list will continue to grow.