{
  "title": "The PointCast reading shelf",
  "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/books/",
  "description": "Nine book companions with original artwork, edition comparisons, sources and external purchase or borrowing routes.",
  "books": [
    {
      "id": "siddhartha",
      "title": "Siddhartha",
      "author": "Hermann Hesse",
      "kind": "A novel",
      "firstPublished": "1922",
      "href": "/siddhartha/",
      "metadata": "/siddhartha.json",
      "image": "/images/siddhartha/river-horizon.webp",
      "tone": "river",
      "themes": [
        "attention",
        "place"
      ],
      "note": "A life in search of itself. Compare translations, follow the river, find a copy."
    },
    {
      "id": "den-of-thieves",
      "title": "Den of Thieves",
      "author": "James B. Stewart",
      "kind": "Reported nonfiction",
      "firstPublished": "1991",
      "href": "/books/den-of-thieves/",
      "metadata": "/books/den-of-thieves.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshop/den-of-thieves.webp",
      "tone": "midnight",
      "themes": [
        "power"
      ],
      "note": "Inside the ambition and financial crime of 1980s Wall Street. Read the record closely."
    },
    {
      "id": "playing-for-pizza",
      "title": "Playing for Pizza",
      "author": "John Grisham",
      "kind": "A novel",
      "firstPublished": "2007",
      "href": "/books/playing-for-pizza/",
      "metadata": "/books/playing-for-pizza.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshop/playing-for-pizza.webp",
      "tone": "parma",
      "themes": [
        "place",
        "attention"
      ],
      "note": "American football, a second chance and life in Parma. A different sort of Grisham."
    },
    {
      "id": "barbarians-at-the-gate",
      "title": "Barbarians at the Gate",
      "author": "Bryan Burrough & John Helyar",
      "kind": "Reported business history",
      "firstPublished": "1990",
      "href": "/books/barbarians-at-the-gate/",
      "metadata": "/books/barbarians-at-the-gate.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/barbarians-at-the-gate.webp",
      "tone": "oxblood",
      "themes": [
        "power"
      ],
      "note": "A reported corporate drama about the contest for RJR Nabisco. Follow the people before the numbers."
    },
    {
      "id": "new-rules-for-the-new-economy",
      "title": "New Rules for the New Economy",
      "author": "Kevin Kelly",
      "kind": "Ideas & economic argument",
      "firstPublished": "1998",
      "href": "/books/new-rules-for-the-new-economy/",
      "metadata": "/books/new-rules-for-the-new-economy.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/new-rules-for-the-new-economy.webp",
      "tone": "sage",
      "themes": [
        "networks",
        "power",
        "attention"
      ],
      "note": "Kevin Kelly’s 1998 argument about connected systems. Read its proposals in their moment, then test the questions they leave."
    },
    {
      "id": "ethan-frome",
      "title": "Ethan Frome",
      "author": "Edith Wharton",
      "kind": "A novella",
      "firstPublished": "1911",
      "href": "/books/ethan-frome/",
      "metadata": "/books/ethan-frome.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/ethan-frome.webp",
      "tone": "winter",
      "themes": [
        "place",
        "memory"
      ],
      "note": "Edith Wharton’s compressed story of desire and constraint. Attend to the weather, the rooms and the distance between telling and knowing."
    },
    {
      "id": "treasure-island",
      "title": "Treasure Island",
      "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
      "kind": "An adventure novel",
      "firstPublished": "1883",
      "href": "/books/treasure-island/",
      "metadata": "/books/treasure-island.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/treasure-island.webp",
      "tone": "sea",
      "themes": [
        "adventure",
        "place"
      ],
      "note": "A voyage, a dangerous company and a young narrator learning to judge people. Follow the voices as closely as the map."
    },
    {
      "id": "the-kite-runner",
      "title": "The Kite Runner",
      "author": "Khaled Hosseini",
      "kind": "A novel",
      "firstPublished": "2003",
      "href": "/books/the-kite-runner/",
      "metadata": "/books/the-kite-runner.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/the-kite-runner.webp",
      "tone": "indigo",
      "themes": [
        "memory",
        "place"
      ],
      "note": "Khaled Hosseini’s novel of friendship, memory and responsibility across a changing Afghanistan and a life abroad."
    },
    {
      "id": "mistborn-the-final-empire",
      "title": "Mistborn",
      "author": "Brandon Sanderson",
      "kind": "Epic fantasy",
      "firstPublished": "2006",
      "href": "/books/mistborn-the-final-empire/",
      "metadata": "/books/mistborn-the-final-empire.json",
      "image": "/images/bookshelf/mistborn-the-final-empire.webp",
      "tone": "ash",
      "themes": [
        "fantasy",
        "power",
        "adventure"
      ],
      "note": "Begin Sanderson’s Mistborn sequence with its first novel: a crew, a dangerous plan and a world whose rules matter."
    }
  ],
  "literaryDoors": [
    {
      "title": "The Bukowski room",
      "href": "/bukowski/",
      "image": "/images/bukowski/room.webp",
      "label": "A literary tribute",
      "note": "A quieter room for the work, the voice and the contradictions. An existing PointCast tribute, with its own reading paths."
    }
  ],
  "themes": [
    {
      "id": "all",
      "label": "Everything"
    },
    {
      "id": "power",
      "label": "Power & money"
    },
    {
      "id": "networks",
      "label": "Networks & ideas"
    },
    {
      "id": "place",
      "label": "Place & belonging"
    },
    {
      "id": "adventure",
      "label": "Adventure"
    },
    {
      "id": "memory",
      "label": "Memory & choices"
    },
    {
      "id": "fantasy",
      "label": "Fantasy"
    },
    {
      "id": "attention",
      "label": "Attention"
    }
  ],
  "commerce": {
    "inventory": false,
    "checkout": false,
    "prices": false,
    "affiliateLinks": false
  },
  "copyright": "Original editorial copy and generated atmosphere artwork. Full texts are linked only through authorized or jurisdiction-qualified public-domain sources. Modern introductions, notes, translations and illustrations retain separate rights.",
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-03"
}