Things I keep around the edges of the main story.

Read it, but bring tissues. It is one of those books that quietly reminds you life is short and pretending otherwise is not a strategy.

One of the few negotiation books that feels like someone quietly removing the romanticism and leaving the leverage on the table.

Useful because the future in it is not sleek at all. It is political, infrastructural, compromised, and still full of very recognizable humans.

I have watched it more than a hundred times. Leeloo learned how to kick ass in space, the Diva song will live rent free in my head forever, and somehow the whole thing still works.

Four wildly different personalities, one sewer, and somehow a functioning team. Also, if Raphael is your favorite, we will probably get along.

I first read it in 2010. Still worth rereading because the original idea is calmer, smaller, and more disciplined than most of the noise built on top of it.

Worth reading as a founding document. I love the ambition and deeply distrust the confidence.

One of the cleaner explanations of why technically correct systems still lose if the real world is not ready to meet them halfway.