@adam

@adam

Adam

1,246 Reads
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Hey hey! I'm Adam, Hardcover's founder. I love science fiction, fantasy, sciencey-nonfiction and anything that helps me learn a little bit more about the world, or help empathize with others.

Followers8,007

Following1,006

Joined 5 years ago

Salt Lake City, UT

Adam's Books by Status

976 Books

See all
PLAYDHD: Permission to Play.....a Prescription for Adults With ADHD
The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
The Last Murder at the End of the World
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
Slow Gods
Bitcoin Bros: Masculinity, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of Men
Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Adam's Reading Goals

Goal

1/24 books
4%

2026 Reading Goal - Physical Books

Read 24 books by . They're 7 books behind schedule.

Goal

16/52 books
30%

2026 Reading Goal

Read 52 books by . They're 2 books behind schedule.

Goal

1/100 books
1%

2026 Reading Goal - Graphic Novels

Read 100 books by . They're 34 books behind schedule.

Goal

18/100 books
18%

2026 Reading Goal

Read 100 books by . They're 17 books behind schedule.

Adam's Pinned Prompts

Featured Prompt

5,781 books

What are your favorite books of all time?

When you think back on every book you've ever read, what are some of your favorites? These can be from any time of your life – books that resonated with you as a kid, ones that shaped your personal...

hardcover
Hardcover
Team
Dune
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Children of Time
Ender's Game
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
A Court of Mist and Fury
Redwall
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
The Dark Forest
Head First Design Patterns
Badass

Featured Prompt

84 books

What fantasy romance books have left you spellbound?

Some readers differentiate between “fantasy romance” in which the fantastical elements of the storyline are more prominent, and “romantic fantasy” in which the romantic elements of the storyline ar...

hardcover
Hardcover
Team
A Court of Mist and Fury
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Stardust
The Princess Bride
Uprooted
Outlander

Featured Prompt

67 books

What are your favorite book recommendations for new readers?

New readers often struggle to find books that they connect with. It often takes exploring different genres and writing styles from a many points of views to understand your own tastes. If you've ma...

hardcover
Hardcover
Team
Redwall
Project Hail Mary
Wool
Circe
Uprooted
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Steelheart
We Are Legion
Off to Be the Wizard
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Ender's Game

Featured Prompt

63 books

Which books had characters you resonated with the most?

Memorable characters can leave an impression as long as the story or plot. What characters stand out to you the most? These could be characters who you were able to identify with, ones that inspire...

hardcover
Hardcover
Team
Circe
S.
Outlander
The Name of the Wind
Crazy Rich Asians
The Way of Kings
The Walking Dead Compendium One
Hyperion
The Martian
The Lord of the Rings
The Absolute Sandman, Volume One
Vicious

Featured Prompt

58 books

What is the most unique or thought-provoking time travel book you've ever read?

Time travel books are a great way to explore the possibilities and consequences of changing the past. They can also be a lot of fun, as you follow the adventures of characters who travel through time.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Doomsday Book
This Is How You Lose the Time War
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Hyperion
Outlander
11/22/63
Paper Girls, Book One
The Time Machine
Recursion
The Time Traveler’s Wife

Prompt

8 books

What are your favorite dark academia books?

Fantasy books set in school have a certain allure. That school experience is one we can all relate to. Couple that with learning about a new fantastical world and you get a recipe for a world that ...

adam
Adam
Team
The Will of the Many
Fourth Wing
The Magicians
Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
A Deadly Education

Featured Prompt

103 books

What are your favorite science fiction books of all time?

Science fiction as a genre includes a wide range of topics. From imaginative and futuristic concepts to space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life and more. What stan...

hardcover
Hardcover
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The Time Traveler’s Wife
Ender's Game
The Dark Forest
Wool
Red Rising
Recursion
Dark Matter
Project Hail Mary
The Martian
Hyperion

Prompt

7 books

What are the most fun science fiction series?

There are many great stand-alone fun science fiction books, but what about series? Connected stories that stay lighthearted while tackling serious situations. What’s the first book in that series p...

adam
Adam
Team
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
All Systems Red
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
We Are Legion

Featured Prompt

165 books

Which books made you think deeply about freedom, truth, and society?

Books have the power to challenge our perspectives, reveal hidden truths, and inspire us to think critically about the world around us. Stories—both real and imagined—can illustrate the importance ...

hardcover
Hardcover
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The Handmaid’s Tale
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
1984
Animal Farm

Featured Prompt

95 books

What book are you still thinking about?

What’s a book that left a lasting impression on you - one you found yourself thinking about long after you finished reading?

Simulacra and Simulation
I Who Have Never Known Men
Children of Time
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Death's End
Blindsight
Recursion

Adam's Pinned Lists

List

23 books

Books everyone should read

Here are some of the books that have most shaped my view of how I see the world. There’s a focus on empathy, understanding, personal growth and history. I’ve left out some popular ones often read in high school, and focused on books that I remember changing me in some way even though I wasn’t expecting it.

adam
Adam
Team
Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
The Complete Maus
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Lord of the Rings
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Dune

List

10 books

Favorite Programming books

Programming books that inspired and helped shape my mindset on how to be a developer.

adam
Adam
Team
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
Peopleware
Joel on Software
The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
Refactoring UI
Code Complete
Atomic Design

List

15 books

Favorite Reads of 2025

In an attempt to try to remember my favorites from each year, I'm going to start creating a best-of list to look back on. This will only include books I rated 5⭐ for the year, so to even make this list meant I thought it was very worthwhile book. Lowest number is my favorite of the year.

adam
Adam
Team
Dungeon Crawler Carl
A Drop of Corruption
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
Wind and Truth
Part of Your World
This Inevitable Ruin
The Way Forward
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

List

100 books

NPR Top 100 Science Fiction Fantasy

More than 60,000 ballots were cast in NPR's annual summer reader's survey. These are the top 100 winners - ordered by the number of votes they received.

adam
Adam
Team
The Lord of the Rings
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Ender's Game
Dune
A Game of Thrones
1984
Fahrenheit 451
Foundation Series

List

23 books

On Deck

Books I'm planning to read soon are added to this list to help keep track of what's high on my want to read list.

adam
Adam
Team
When the Moon Hits Your Eye
The Left Hand of Darkness
Black Sun
A Little Hatred
The Count of Monte Cristo
A Spindle Splintered
The Blade Itself
Stories of Your Life and Others

List

27 books

Recommendations

These are some of my favorite books of all time that I constantly recommend to anyone who will listen. 😂

adam
Adam
Team
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Ready Player One
Hyperion
The Way of Kings
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Speaker for the Dead
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Redshirts

Adam's Most Popular Reviews

Neeeeeeeew achievement! Read my first LitRPG!

Ok, I'll delete my Facebook account.

When I was in high school, they released a TV miniseries if The Stand that I watched. I always thought it was the best end of the world/virus take I’d seen. Not because it’s realistic or gritty, but because it frames the story with great characters battling good and evil.

When I read the book, I wondered how closely it would follow the miniseries. Turns out the show was a near scene for scene recording of the book (one of the bonuses of making it 6 hours).

What’s amazing to me about The Stand is that it follows so many characters storylines so well. It would be easy to get lost with that many characters, but somehow they fit together in a way that I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Add to that a story that had me on the edge of my seat and I see why this is considered one of the best sci fi books of all time.

Contains spoilers

Silo who has never known answers.