Le Guin is far and a way my favorite author. I've found her work to be consistently interesting and relevant.
The magic school part of it is also interesting compared to the kinds of stories that come later (see: Harry Potter), because the school is actually competent. The teachers are good mentors and provide an actually safe learning environment. As a result, not much of the story actually takes place there and the only thing that goes wrong is because of Ged's own personal failings.
So, thermocouples are commonly used in industry to make temperature probes, typically in the form of a coil of wire containing two conductors of different metals. I wonder if it'd be possible to get ahold of some thermocouple wire and put together a solar cell at home?
I'm not sure it totally fits, but Always Coming Home by Ursula K LeGuin was an amazing read. The premise is that an ethnographer of the future is writing about a future, post climate change California people called the Kesh. Most of the book is actually stories the Kesh themselves tell, be it poetry, folk tales, an autobiography, and even a snippet from a novel.
It's an absolutely transformative book that I can't recommend it enough. It's like nothing else I've ever read.
Always Coming Home - Ursula K. LeGuin - I absolutely loved this book. I'm still keep thinking about the Kesh people that this book explores. Very strange read, absolutely recommended.
The Fifth Season - N K Jemisin - Really enjoyed this book. The way it uses perspective was really great. The ending felt okay. I'm definitely going to be picking up the next one sometime soon.
Currently reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, which has been a fascinating read thus far, but I'm only halfway through.
After that I'm planning on reading Among Others by Jo Walton (I loved her Thessaly series)
There are already people working on decentralized insulin production, quick google search brought me to this: https://openinsulin.org/