Reading
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking
The history of our universe, but with too much unmotivated technical detail and not enough context.
The Dark Forest
Cixin Liu
Cixin Liu's biggest strength is his abundance of genuinely insightful & creative ideas that populate his sci-f…
The Compound Effect
Darren Hardy
The elements of success framed from the perspective of compounding yourself through small but intentional choi…
Good to Great
Jim Collins
A few simple ideas on how to turn a good company into a consistently great company, backed by a data-driven st…
Atomic Habits
James Clear
The definitive book on building habits. I hesitated to read it because I thought it would be like most self-he…
Pimp
Iceberg Slim
The life story of the renowned Chicago pimp Iceberg Slim. He tells his story as it is, with all the gory detai…
Our Mathematical Universe
Max Tegmark
Tegmark argues that physical reality is a mathematical structure — not merely described by math, but identical…
Awaken the Giant Within
Tony Robbins
From the title, I expected that this would be more about manifestation and the psychology of achieving big res…
My Life In Advertising & Scientific Advertising
Claude C. Hopkins
Claude Hopkins reflects on his lifetime of advertising experience and distills the principles of advertising t…
The Pragmatic Programmer
David Thomas & Andrew Hunt
A collection of practical wisdom for software craftspeople: DRY, orthogonality, tracer bullets, broken windows…
Finite and Infinite Games
James P. Carse
Very abstract book about the relationship between man and nature, and the games we partake in through our exis…
Mindset
Carol Dweck
People with fixed mindsets believe the qualities that determine their success are predetermined. People with g…
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
Given the popularity of Communism, I was at least expecting a very well reasoned and convincing thesis grounde…
Justice as Fairness
John Rawls
John Rawls reignited modern political philosophy with his 1971 book _A Theory of Justice_, prompting a wave of…
What Has the Government Done to our Money?
Murray N. Rothbard
A concise and insightful explanation of the fundamentals of money. Builds into an argument against government …
From Third World To First
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew accomplished one of the most impressive feats of all time - he turned Singapore from a third-worl…
Goddesses in Everywoman
Jean Shinoda Bolen
The women's equivalent of _King Warrior Magician Lover_. Jean Bolen is a psychiatrist and analytical psycholog…
7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
Hamilton Helmer
The defining work on business strategy. This book contains an exhaustive list of the business strategies that …
The Great CEO Within
Matt Mochary
Matt Mochary coaches the CEOs of Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Brex, OpenAI, Flexport, Rippling, and many more mult…
Recruiting
Ryan Breslow
A concise tactical guide to recruiting. Many useful strategies but lacking the powerful first-principled expla…
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
Anyone who strives to create faces Resistance at some point on their journey. Resistance is what prevents us f…
The Gardener and the Carpenter
Alison Gopnik
A book about the philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology of caring for children written by a grandmother who …
How the World Really Works
Vaclav Smil
More like how fossil fuels underlie core systems that the world depends on. A climate book on how technologist…
Architecture: Form, Space, and Order
Francis D.K. Ching
Considered a classic introduction to the simplest principles of architecture. I expected an explanation of des…
Building An Elite Organization
Don Wenner
A good overview of the frameworks needed to build a high performing organization.
The Way of the Superior Man
David Deida
A controversial but thought-provoking book on how men should act toward women. Many interesting ideas, mixed w…
Grokking Algorithms
Aditya Bhargava
An illustrated, friendly introduction to algorithms and data structures. Uses Python examples and hand-drawn d…
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
Unique spin on the contact with aliens theme with a compelling reveal. It's also nice variety to have the back…
Chip War
Chris Miller
The entire history of the semiconductor industry. Covers the stories of all the famous founders & scientists i…
High Output Management
Andy Grove
An insightful guide to management strategy and tactics, formed by Andy Grove's decades of experience leading I…
Steal Like An Artist
Austin Kleon
A short and highly readable book about how to hone your craft as an artist. Similar to "How to Do Good Work" b…
The Charisma Myth
Olivia Fox Cabane
From the blurb, I expected a first principled breakdown of charisma and what creates it, and some insightful a…
Ego is the Enemy
Ryan Holiday
Excellent required reading for all ambitious young people that want to build successful careers.
Cracking the Coding Interview
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
189 programming questions and solutions covering data structures, algorithms, system design, and behavioral in…
Top 5 Regrets of the Dying
Bronnie Ware
The author, who has been a palliative care nurse for many years, shares what she's learned about life from the…
The Personal MBA
Josh Kaufman
A collection of principles to understand every important aspect of building a great business.
Solaris
Stanislaw Lem
Unique alien-contact sci-fi with great ideas that suffer from incomplete execution. Explores the possibility o…
Principles
Ray Dalio
I scanned the section on Dalio's life and skipped to his principles. The principles are more like meta-princip…
The Idea Factory
Jon Gertner
Bell Labs independently invented the transistor, laser, solar photovoltaic cell, radio & satelite telecommunic…
Insanely Simple
Ken Segall
An analysis of how Steve Jobs obsessively built simplicity into every part of Apple. Written by one of Apple's…
The Courage To Be Disliked
Fumitake Koga & Ichiro Kishim
A highly readable philosophy book about the beliefs and psychology of Alfred Adler, a lesser known rival and e…
Invent and Wander
Jeff Bezos
A collection of Jeff Bezos' writing including his Amazon shareholder letters, speeches, and other thoughts.
Start With Why
Simon Sinek
The core concept of this book is important, but it could've been better explained in a 5 page blog post than i…
The Last Question
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov said this was his favorite of his own writing, which made me curious to read it.
Six Easy Pieces
Richard Feynman
My rating here is an unpopular opinion, given that Feynman is one of the best physics teachers of all time, an…
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Eliyahu Goldratt
One of the 3 books Jeff Bezos requires all executives at Amazon to read. Also the most painstakingly boring bo…
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
A creative non-traditional history book about humanity that explores how stories have our species.
Software Engineering at Google
Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck & Hyrum Wright
A detailed look at how Google approaches software engineering at scale: testing culture, code review, dependen…
Antifragile
Nassim Taleb
In a world full of randomness and disorder, building things that benefit from volatility is the only way to en…
The Changing World Order
Ray Dalio
All great nations go through cycles of rise and decline. With this in mind, Ray Dalio develops a framework bas…
The Biology of Belief
Bruce Lipton
Lipton argues that gene expression is controlled more by environment and perception than by fixed genetic code…
Mandukya Karika
Swami Gaudapada
The _Mandukya Upanishad_ is the most concise of the Indian philosophy texts. It's considered an exhaustive ove…
Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously
Osho
A compilation of Osho's spoken lectures on courage and risk-taking. This sentence from the book captures his p…
Bone
Jeff Smith
Legendary kids fantasy graphic novel series with a plot resembling _The Lord of The Rings_. The first three bo…
The God Equation
Michio Kaku
A concise history of physics' quest for a unified theory — from Newton through Maxwell, Einstein, quantum mech…
Give and Take
Adam Grant
Grant lays out three styles of building interpersonal relationships: givers, takers, and matchers.
The Lessons of History
Will & Ariel Durant
A concise history book full of unique observations and wisdom. After writing their 11 volume series _The Story…
On The Shortness of Life
Seneca
Seneca has one message here which is quite simple: life is short, but we make it much shorter by spending time…
The Private Equity Playbook
Adam E. Coffey
A concise introduction to private equity, similar to _The Real Estate Game_. Written from the perspective of a…
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden
Snowden's memoir of growing up inside the US intelligence community and the decision to leak the NSA's global …
Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams
Steven K. Scott
Everyone has dreams. Most people never achieve them. This book guides you to avoid this fate in your own life.
Tantra Illuminated
Christopher D. Wallis
The most thorough and well written book on the philosophy and history of non-dual Tantra.
Moonwalking with Einstein
Joshua Foer
About how to hack your memory, and the world of memory competitions.
The Laws of Trading
Agustin Lebron
A simple introduction to the principles of trading. Provides mental tools useful for all investing and decisio…
Industrial Society and Its Future
Ted Kaczynski
The manifesto of the Unabomber originally published by _The New York Times_ before they knew him to be Ted Kac…
Getting Things Done
David Allen
This book reduces the art of execution to its most essential form and structures it into a set of memorable pr…
Several Short Sentences About Writing
Verlyn Klinkenborg
This is the most insightful book on writing I've read. The author's philosophy is simple: the sentence is the …
Choice Upanishads
Avula Parthasarathy
A breakdown of the Upanishads by Parthasarthy. A decent analysis of the texts and explains some concepts well.
The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Letters John D. Rockefeller wrote to his son on his philosophy of achievement that led him to his success in t…
Common Stocks & Uncommon Profits
Philip A. Fisher
One of Warren Buffet's two favorite books on investing. The guide to the most effective and proven strategy fo…
Disciplined Entrepreneurship
Bill Aulet
A rigorous first-principled approach to starting businesses that will give you confidence that you're working …
The Surrender Experiment
Michael A. Singer
Are we better off fighting with reality to bring our desires into existence, or letting go of our desires and …
Wild Problems
Russ Roberts
Life is made up of decisions. Most of these decisions can be evaluated using ordinary decision making framewor…
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman
Loved this book in middle school so I decided to read it again. It still has the same dark and uneasy tone, al…
Civilization and its Dicontents
Sigmund Freud
Civilization must suppress humans' natural sexual and aggressive desires to enable cooperation at scale. This …
Thinking in Bets
Annie Duke
The correct framework for all long-term decision making. Reality is fundamentally unpredictable. Don't try to …
Organizing Genius
Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman
A deep dive on exceptional groups and what unifies them all. Covers the stories of the original group at Disne…
On Intelligence
Jeff Hawkins
On the theory of intelligence, how its created in the brain, and how we could replicate it in machines.
On Writing Well
William Zinsser
Another concise and high value density book on writing, second only to _Several Short Sentences on Writing_.
The ABC Murders
Agatha Christie
After reading _Murder on the Orient Express_ and _And Then There Were None_ I got accustomed to the levels of …
The Art of Innovation
Tom Kelley
IDEO is the legendary product design lab that helped design Apple's first mouse, the Palm V, and many other pr…
High Growth Handbook
Elad Gil
A value dense tactical guide on growing a company from initial success to scale.
Clean Code
Robert C. Martin
An opinionated guide to writing readable, maintainable code. Covers naming, functions, comments, formatting, e…
Systems Medicine
Uri Alon
A first principled breakdown of diseases, covering hormone circuit malfunctions, autoimmune disorders, and agi…
Progress and Poverty
Henry George
The second most purchased book after the Bible during the late 19th century, though it has now dissappeared fr…
Enlightenment Is Your Nature
Osho
My favorite book about self-realization. Osho explains everything important with perfect concision and insight…
The Idea of Justice
Amartya Sen
A modern moral philosophy base for designing institutions built from a response to Rawls with more focus on pl…
Affective Neuroscience
Jaak Panksepp
A perfect introduction to the neuroscience of emotions, taught by one of its most insightful teachers.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie
The definitive handbook on being a genuine, likeable, influential, and positive-sum person with many practical…
Poor Charlie's Alamanack
Peter D. Kaufman
A compilation of Charlie Munger's best speeches. He focuses on the importance of building multi-disciplinary k…
Fundraising
Ryan Breslow
A concise and tactical guide to fundraising with everything you need to know. Must-read for anyone planning to…
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
Robert Moore & Douglas Gilette
Immature masculinity runs rampant in modern society due to the collapse of social functions like ritual intiti…
The Essays of Warren Buffet
Lawrence A. Cunningham
The best selections from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters organized into a comprehensive…
Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned
Kenneth Stanley & Joel Lehman
Definite objectives dominate modern incentive structures. But achieving ambitious goals & defining innovation …
The Interpretation of Financial Statements
Benjamin Graham
Straightforward guide to interpreting the financial statements of publicly traded company. Graham shows you ho…
The Startup of You
Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha
Modern career advice that everyone should read, especially those that haven't been exposed to the world of sta…
Second Treatise of Government
John Locke
Locke's justification for overthrowing the English monarchy with the Glorious Revolution, and the foundations …
A Thousand Brains
Jeff Hawkins
An interesting new theory for thinking about how brain systems operate at a high-level. Hawkins argues for the…
The Real Estate Game
William J. Poorvu
A straightforward introduction to real estate by William J. Poorvu, a successful real estate investor who taug…
Life 3.0
Max Tegmark
A broad introduction to what the future of AI and general intelligence could hold for humanity, and the ethica…
Superintelligence
Nick Bostrom
A rigorous analysis of what happens when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. Bostrom covers pos…
Refactoring UI
Adam Wathan & Steve Schoger
A guide to UI design, written by the creators of Tailwind CSS. I was hoping for insight on the first-principle…
Shiva Sutras
Swami Lakshmanjoo
This is a stand in for all the essential texts of Kashmir Shaivism including the _Shiva Sutras_, _Spanda Karik…
You Can Negotiate Anything
Herb Cohen
Everything is negotiable. All authority can be challenged. Most people negotiate far less often than they shou…
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance
Douglass C. North
Traditional economic theory relies on the assumption that transactions have zero-cost, so exchange can natural…
The Anatomy of the State
Murray N. Rothbard
Concise first-principled explanation of the role of government. Takes an anarcho-capitalist lens on the view o…
Clean Architecture
Robert C. Martin
Martin's argument for keeping business logic independent of frameworks, databases, and UI. The dependency rule…
The Power of Now
Eckart Tolle
The core message of spirituality condensed into an accessible format that focuses on the importance of the mom…
The Outsiders
William N. Thorndike Jr.
A look into the exceptional capital allocation abilities of eight unconventional CEOs in completely unrelated …
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi
A memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36. The book is a reflection on his …
DMT: The Spirit Molecule
Rick Strassman
Accounts from the father of American psychedelic research on the nature of DMT experiences as observed during …
Immune
Philipp Dettmer
An introduction to the immune system written by the founder of Kurzgesagt that far exceeded my expectations. P…
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson
Wow. Being surrounded by Elon's life is incredible. Isaacson does an excellent job highlighting the right stor…
This Is Marketing
Seth Godin
Seth Godin presents an unconventionally personal and holistic view of marketing.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Eric Jorgenson
I went into the book expecting another iteration of self-help or life advice books, but ended up really liking…
Hayek: His Contribution to the Political and Economic Thought of Our Time
Eamonn Butler
A concise overview of all of Hayek's important contributions to economics, political philosophy, and the study…
On Liberty
John Stuart Mill
An incredible and visionary work on the basis of liberty. Mill delivers the strongest argument for the foundat…
Think And Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
The defining work on the principles and pscyhology of achievement. This book is famous, but still underrated. …
Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes
This book is written as if it were the journal of the mentally challenged Charlie Gordon, who undergoes an exp…
Zero to One
Peter Thiel
The bible of starting a massive technology company. Anyone interested in startups needs to read this.
Range
David Epstein
I was excited at the concept of a book about generalists and why being a generalist is useful. Was expecting s…
Feeling is the Secret
Neville Goddward
A surprisingly concise book on the power of feeling and belief in achievement. Similar to _Think And Grow Rich…
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing
A crazy story about grit and the limits of the human will.
Blitzscaling
Reid Hoffman
Blitzscaling is the process of scaling a company by strategically prioritizing rapid growth above everything e…
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
Alberto Hirschman
Useful commentary on the effective mechanisms of repair for organizations. Exit is the primary instrument of c…
The Parasitic Mind
Gad Saad
Elon recommendation that's clearly an inspiration behind how he's running X. About the idea pathogen's in West…
Basic Economics
Thomas Sowell
The most broad and effective coverage of the fundamentals of economics. Sowell builds visceral understanding o…
For the Love of Physics
Walter Lewin
MIT professor Walter Lewin's joyful tour through physics — from rainbows and falling objects to electricity an…
The Tao of Charlie Munger
David Clark
A compilation of Charlie Munger quotes with helpful commentary from David Clark. I found this to be far more r…
Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke
An alien race far more technologically advanced than humanity descends on earth and takes control of human soc…