Read: "Blindsight," by Peter Watts, 2006 (manybooks.net)
Why: On manybooks, was free and modern, looked freaky
Takeaway: Very freaky, lots of fun, kind of a head-breaker. This was the kind of book where the author carefully describes the shapes of things, and the relationships between people, and in general does a lot of setup work, then starts getting into the very nature of perception of those very things -- are things that we see really what they look like? who really likes who? what is perception? is your theory of it better than my theory of it? and all the time, you're floating in space, separated from the heart of things, from real life. What is real, though? I mean this to be a giant compliment when I say that reading this book helped me understand exactly what it would be like to be a grad student in Toronto.