Thank you all for your responses!

Setting up the poll was educational. In the future, I’ll have to remember to include my “currently reading” books on the list. I’ll also need to make it clear that people can vote for more than one option. I could instead set up the poll to accept one choice only, but I kind of like letting people make multiple recommendations.

On to the results!

5 Votes: Lord of Light - Zelazny, Roger

3 Votes: Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving - Mahajan, Sanjoy

2 Votes: Backup (The Dresden Files, #10.2) - Butcher, Jim
2 Votes: Mean Streets (Includes: The Dresden Files, #10.3) - Butcher, Jim
2 Votes: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy, #1) - Jemisin, N.K.
2 Votes: Tales of the City (Tales of the City, # 1) - Maupin, Armistead
2 Votes: The War of the Worlds - Wells, H.G.

1 Vote: The House of the Stag - Baker, Kage
1 Vote: Zoo City - Beukes, Lauren
1 Vote: A Princess of Mars (Barsoom, #1) - Burroughs, Edgar Rice
1 Vote: The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, #1) - Donaldson, Stephen R.
1 Vote: Punished by Rewards: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’S, Praise, and Other Bribes - Kohn, Alfie
1 Vote: Harpist in the Wind (Riddle-Master, #3) - McKillip, Patricia A.
1 Vote: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century - Mortimer, Ian
1 Vote: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, #1) - Smith, Alexander McCall
1 Vote: Accelerando - Stross, Charles

As well as three write-ins: The Omnivore’s Dilemma (already read it; excellent), The Anubis Gates (might have read it already; not sure), and The Lies of Locke Lamora (which should have been on this list in the first place, so thanks for the reminder).

I also received not one, but two “anti-recommendations” for Erewhon, by Samuel Butler. Man, people do not like this book! I have read the first half of it, and I actually rather liked it. True, it can be rather exhausting to read; you have to be in the right mindset to read a book published in 1872. All-in-all, though, I enjoyed Butler’s philosophical arguments as his narrator “discovered” facts about Erewhonian society. I also enjoyed the clever little digs here and there that Butler directed towards his contemporaries.

So, next on the reading list: Lord of Light, followed by Street-Fighting Mathematics, followed by another poll. We need some tie-breakers!

Thanks again!

-ô