Bizarre. Bold. Mind blowing. If you are caught up on season one of Severance and anxiously awaiting the roll out of season two, you know that there isn’t another show quite like it. The Adam Scott-led corporate sci-fi series follows Mark. He’s in charge of a team of employees at his job where everyone working there has agreed to “severance”. This is a technological process where the employees have agreed to have their memories severed. Their work selves don’t know anything about their personal lives, and their “outties” don’t know anything about their work.

At first, it seems like a perfect way to escape distraction from both and to truly achieve work/life balance, but things aren’t what they seem. What is their employer up to? Why is severance necessary? And what secrets are being hidden when half your memory is wiped every work day?

In the lead up to the season two premiere (that we’ve been anxiously awaiting for three years), the cast pulled off a pretty epic PR stunt by setting up their office in the middle of Grand Central Station.

Get a recap of season one (though I’d recommend a rewatch, it’s been a while and there was a lot going on in this show) and make sure you check out the season two trailer before you dive into the premiere on January 17.

And once you’ve gotten into the wild and weird world of Severance, you might want to check some of these titles that critique corporate life, play with twisty tech and deal with themes like memory, identity and surveillance.

Severance

Severance by Ling Ma

Now, this is a major point of confusion. Is the show an adaptation of a book? The answer is no, however, this book is actually a great companion read anyways. Candace Chen’s parents recently died, but she’s thrown herself into the routine of her job. So much so that she barely notices when a pandemic breaks out. Eventually reaching a point where she needs others to continue on, she joins a group of survivors led by IT tech Bob who promises they are headed towards a fresh start for society. But both Bob and Candace are keeping secrets in this satirical take on modern day life.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

The Employees by Olga Ravn, Martin Aitken (Translator)

In this captivating critique on productivity, a crew of humans and humanoids work aboard a spaceship. They complain of their day-to-day in memos and are struggling to stay content in the overly structured world. When artifacts from the planet New Discovery shows up, the passengers are sent into a frenzy with the humanoids verging on mutiny. In this exploration of what it means to be human, a keen eye is turned towards the strain of productivity.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

This book was made for modern office culture. Told entirely in Slack messages, we’re introduced to Gerald whose consciousness has been uploaded leaving him to work very remotely. His coworkers believe it’s a gag, his bosses don’t care where he is if he’s going to be this productive, but he’s desperate to locate his body. Diving into the strange and vast reality his mind has been relocated to, Gerald faces challenges ranging from office politics to long distance love with boundaries he’s not sure he can ever traverse. Tackling the work-from-home experience as well as the human experience, this book reflects on a remarkably relatable present-day predicament.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

In this speculative, dystopian thriller, Cloud is eerily familiar in its megalithic corporate grandeur. The Amazon-esque company is offering more than much of the outside world and that’s good enough for Paxton. A job, housing… it’s not what he saw for himself, but it’s also not a bad deal. Zinnia is determined to infiltrate the corporation and Paxton seems like the perfect scapegoat for her plan, if she can stomach betraying him. Examining the state of tech giants and our role in it, as well as the eery reality of an ever-looming Big Brother, The Warehouse is a novel that stares down the barrel of our current trajectory.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon 

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Frida Liu is hardly living the life her immigrant parents dreamed she might have. Her husband is cheating on her, but at least she has her perfect daughter. Under the constant surveillance of  the state, she makes a horrific mistake that could cost her everything. Desperate to prove herself a good mother to those watching, this speculative novel explores the systems that separate children from families and the perfection expected of mothers in the age when someone’s always watching (or recording).

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

A major tech company with a pseudo-celebrity CEO is on the hunt for a new opportunity. When Bix Bouton encounters professors dabbling in downloading and sharing memories, Bix finds a way to commoditize it. Soon, people have access to every memory they’ve ever experienced, even those buried in their unconscious mind, as well as the ability to share and trade with others. There are those who exploit the technology and those who understand the power and perils of this kind of access.

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The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe

Memory plays such a strong role in Severance and in The Memory Librarian we get a dive into a world where thoughts can be controlled or even erased. That is until Jane discovers how to break free. Exploring sentience, autonomy, technology, identity and so much more, singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe dives into a a totalitarian landscape with curiosity and reflection.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Cayce is a marketing consultant with a keen sensitivity to branding and logos, who becomes obsessed with mysterious video clips circulating online. As she delves deeper into their origin, she uncovers a web of corporate intrigue and questions about identity and memory. Pattern Recognition explores how corporate systems manipulate human perception and the interplay between professional and personal identity.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon |Barnes & Noble