0. Types of books

Books that might be useful in a game about ideas:

(First) Story structures:

These provide the code format: the building blocks. More complicated ideas can then be fitted into these structures.  It might be tempting to merely simplify a longer novel instead, but in doing so you often lose what makes it interesting. 

• Grimm's fairy tales
• Hans Andersen's tales
• Arabian Nights
• Folk tales from around the world

Note how there are so many of these that they can provide minor stories for every possible location. Every tree can hide a pixie!

Semi-fiction (half structure, half list):

This format bridges the structured but small fairy tales with the less structured but larger non-fiction lists.

• Explorers' tales: "we did THIS and then THIS amazing thing happened."
• New Age ideas (e.g. Zak)
• Magic: again, "do THIS, and then THIS amazing thing happens"

Non-fiction (for lists):

Useful for creating lists of interesting locations, mysteries, technologies, etc. These can then be slotted into existing structures.

• TV Tropes for magical, horror, etc.
• Science, history, Wikipedia, etc.

Ancient ideas:

These provide the big ideas, the most proven, the most essential.

• The Bible
• Other ancient books (e.g. Gilgamesh)
• Other ancient scripture (e.g. Hindu)
• Myths and legends of every region: not just Greek!
• Esoterica: for the more amazing stuff 

Short stories

Shorter is easier

• Edgar Allan Poe
• Edward Page Mitchell
• Ambrose Bierce
• etc.

Plays

Longer than fairy tales, but not as long as novels. Bonus: as they are designed to be played, they tend to have clearer plots and less reliance on hard to draw events.

• Shakespeare
• Etc.

(Later) Novels:

These are long and complex, made from multiple sub blocks. No point in trying to build this house until I have perfected the strength and versatility of individual bricks (the fairy tale structure). 

• Good: simple "A causes B". E.g. Treasure Island.
• Bad: inner monologue. E.g. Jane Austen. I will do monologue in my own way - e.g. adapting AnswersAnswers into conversations with strangers.

Detective novels?

Seems like a natural fit for a game, BUT they usually rely on tiny details. E.g. secret mechanism in window frame, scratches on a lock, types of tobacco flake. I need:

• Stories that rely on large objects, that are easy to click  

History:

Like novels, but takes more effort - not pre-digested. On the plus side, history has far more choices - e.g. a given war can be traced to multiple causes, and surely one of them will be easy to code.

• Classical history - the kind any educated person used to know
• Modern history - not in copyright! Hooray!

Last: modern books (in copyright)

Only useful later, once the game already works. All modern ideas are based on older ideas (there is nothing new under the sun). Once I have a big pool of older ideas I can then recreate the form of a modern book but without any of the copyrighted elements. 

• The Fantastic Four
• Harry Potter
• Modern sci-fi. (robots, galaxies, space ships, etc.) For robots, see the golem or demons or Greek metal beings. For planets, see esoteric stories of progressing through the nine planets and heir associated spheres, as reflected in Dante's Paradisio.

Useless ideas:

These seem like a great idea at first, but are worse than useless. They are designed for novelists, not coders. Code has to be unambiguous. But these books are ambiguous by design: the absolute opposite of what  need. These books produce abstract skeletons with gaps that the writer must fill. But code cannot abide gaps. So for coding a game it is better to start with a completely finished story and then add one story at a time.

• The Hero's journey
• Plotto
• Existing procedural stories. These are usually built around a very restrictive premise, e.g. only Russian folk tales, or only dungeons and dragons. 
• Existing procedural theory. This is usually far too technical for me, or when I begin to understand it, I realise that it is like the other very limited procedural stories. 
• Commercial procedural story games. This stuff is commercially secret, usually not as good as it pretends, or limited as in the previous example.
• User created. These ideas tend to be low quality (the user has no experience of the code), and take more time than they save (I need to create complex code for accepting new ideas, I need time to assess them, have to protect the input from cyber attacks, etc.)