Fiction: In the Name of the People by Zhou Meisen. It’s a really fun political thriller detailing the case of a corrupt cadre in a Chinese city. It was made into a TV/streaming series in the last two years and was apparently very popular in China.

Non-fiction: American Exception by Aaron Good. It’s surprisingly readable for what is essentially a PhD thesis, and very interesting both in terms of history and what it means for the present and future.

I don’t have any books that I’m necessarily hesitant to start, I just have such a long reading list it’s hard to prioritize.