Reading

Aditya Bhargava

An illustrated, friendly introduction to algorithms and data structures. Uses Python examples and hand-drawn d…

Gayle Laakmann McDowell

189 programming questions and solutions covering data structures, algorithms, system design, and behavioral in…

David Thomas & Andrew Hunt

A collection of practical wisdom for software craftspeople: DRY, orthogonality, tracer bullets, broken windows…

Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck & Hyrum Wright

A detailed look at how Google approaches software engineering at scale: testing culture, code review, dependen…

Robert C. Martin

Martin's argument for keeping business logic independent of frameworks, databases, and UI. The dependency rule…

Robert C. Martin

An opinionated guide to writing readable, maintainable code. Covers naming, functions, comments, formatting, e…

Max Tegmark

Tegmark argues that physical reality is a mathematical structure — not merely described by math, but identical…

Bruce Lipton

Lipton argues that gene expression is controlled more by environment and perception than by fixed genetic code…

Michio Kaku

A concise history of physics' quest for a unified theory — from Newton through Maxwell, Einstein, quantum mech…

Edward Snowden

Snowden's memoir of growing up inside the US intelligence community and the decision to leak the NSA's global …

Walter Lewin

MIT professor Walter Lewin's joyful tour through physics — from rainbows and falling objects to electricity an…

Nick Bostrom

A rigorous analysis of what happens when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. Bostrom covers pos…

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…

Hamilton Helmer

The defining work on business strategy. This book contains an exhaustive list of the business strategies that …

Stephen Hawking

The history of our universe, but with too much unmotivated technical detail and not enough context.

Jeff Hawkins

An interesting new theory for thinking about how brain systems operate at a high-level. Hawkins argues for the…

Jaak Panksepp

A perfect introduction to the neuroscience of emotions, taught by one of its most insightful teachers.

Nassim Taleb

In a world full of randomness and disorder, building things that benefit from volatility is the only way to en…

Francis D.K. Ching

Considered a classic introduction to the simplest principles of architecture. I expected an explanation of des…

James Clear

The definitive book on building habits. I hesitated to read it because I thought it would be like most self-he…

Tony Robbins

From the title, I expected that this would be more about manifestation and the psychology of achieving big res…

Thomas Sowell

The most broad and effective coverage of the fundamentals of economics. Sowell builds visceral understanding o…

Reid Hoffman

Blitzscaling is the process of scaling a company by strategically prioritizing rapid growth above everything e…

Jeff Smith

Legendary kids fantasy graphic novel series with a plot resembling _The Lord of The Rings_. The first three bo…

Don Wenner

A good overview of the frameworks needed to build a high performing organization.

Arthur C. Clarke

An alien race far more technologically advanced than humanity descends on earth and takes control of human soc…

Chris Miller

The entire history of the semiconductor industry. Covers the stories of all the famous founders & scientists i…

Avula Parthasarathy

A breakdown of the Upanishads by Parthasarthy. A decent analysis of the texts and explains some concepts well.

Sigmund Freud

Civilization must suppress humans' natural sexual and aggressive desires to enable cooperation at scale. This …

Philip A. Fisher

One of Warren Buffet's two favorite books on investing. The guide to the most effective and proven strategy fo…

Osho

A compilation of Osho's spoken lectures on courage and risk-taking. This sentence from the book captures his p…

Bill Aulet

A rigorous first-principled approach to starting businesses that will give you confidence that you're working …

Rick Strassman

Accounts from the father of American psychedelic research on the nature of DMT experiences as observed during …

Ryan Holiday

Excellent required reading for all ambitious young people that want to build successful careers.

Walter Isaacson

Wow. Being surrounded by Elon's life is incredible. Isaacson does an excellent job highlighting the right stor…

Alfred Lansing

A crazy story about grit and the limits of the human will.

Osho

My favorite book about self-realization. Osho explains everything important with perfect concision and insight…

Alberto Hirschman

Useful commentary on the effective mechanisms of repair for organizations. Exit is the primary instrument of c…

Neville Goddward

A surprisingly concise book on the power of feeling and belief in achievement. Similar to _Think And Grow Rich…

James P. Carse

Very abstract book about the relationship between man and nature, and the games we partake in through our exis…

Daniel Keyes

This book is written as if it were the journal of the mentally challenged Charlie Gordon, who undergoes an exp…

Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew accomplished one of the most impressive feats of all time - he turned Singapore from a third-worl…

Ryan Breslow

A concise and tactical guide to fundraising with everything you need to know. Must-read for anyone planning to…

David Allen

This book reduces the art of execution to its most essential form and structures it into a set of memorable pr…

Adam Grant

Grant lays out three styles of building interpersonal relationships: givers, takers, and matchers.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

The women's equivalent of _King Warrior Magician Lover_. Jean Bolen is a psychiatrist and analytical psycholog…

Jim Collins

A few simple ideas on how to turn a good company into a consistently great company, backed by a data-driven st…

Eamonn Butler

A concise overview of all of Hayek's important contributions to economics, political philosophy, and the study…

Elad Gil

A value dense tactical guide on growing a company from initial success to scale.

Andy Grove

An insightful guide to management strategy and tactics, formed by Andy Grove's decades of experience leading I…

Vaclav Smil

More like how fossil fuels underlie core systems that the world depends on. A climate book on how technologist…

Dale Carnegie

The definitive handbook on being a genuine, likeable, influential, and positive-sum person with many practical…

Philipp Dettmer

An introduction to the immune system written by the founder of Kurzgesagt that far exceeded my expectations. P…

Ken Segall

An analysis of how Steve Jobs obsessively built simplicity into every part of Apple. Written by one of Apple's…

Douglass C. North

Traditional economic theory relies on the assumption that transactions have zero-cost, so exchange can natural…

Jeff Bezos

A collection of Jeff Bezos' writing including his Amazon shareholder letters, speeches, and other thoughts.

John Rawls

John Rawls reignited modern political philosophy with his 1971 book _A Theory of Justice_, prompting a wave of…

Robert Moore & Douglas Gilette

Immature masculinity runs rampant in modern society due to the collapse of social functions like ritual intiti…

Max Tegmark

A broad introduction to what the future of AI and general intelligence could hold for humanity, and the ethica…

Swami Gaudapada

The _Mandukya Upanishad_ is the most concise of the Indian philosophy texts. It's considered an exhaustive ove…

Carol Dweck

People with fixed mindsets believe the qualities that determine their success are predetermined. People with g…

Joshua Foer

About how to hack your memory, and the world of memory competitions.

Jeff Hawkins

On the theory of intelligence, how its created in the brain, and how we could replicate it in machines.

John Stuart Mill

An incredible and visionary work on the basis of liberty. Mill delivers the strongest argument for the foundat…

Seneca

Seneca has one message here which is quite simple: life is short, but we make it much shorter by spending time…

William Zinsser

Another concise and high value density book on writing, second only to _Several Short Sentences on Writing_.

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…

Iceberg Slim

The life story of the renowned Chicago pimp Iceberg Slim. He tells his story as it is, with all the gory detai…

Peter D. Kaufman

A compilation of Charlie Munger's best speeches. He focuses on the importance of building multi-disciplinary k…

Ray Dalio

I scanned the section on Dalio's life and skipped to his principles. The principles are more like meta-princip…

Henry George

The second most purchased book after the Bible during the late 19th century, though it has now dissappeared fr…

David Epstein

I was excited at the concept of a book about generalists and why being a generalist is useful. Was expecting s…

Ryan Breslow

A concise tactical guide to recruiting. Many useful strategies but lacking the powerful first-principled expla…

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…

Yuval Noah Harari

A creative non-traditional history book about humanity that explores how stories have our species.

Claude C. Hopkins

Claude Hopkins reflects on his lifetime of advertising experience and distills the principles of advertising t…

John Locke

Locke's justification for overthrowing the English monarchy with the Glorious Revolution, and the foundations …

Verlyn Klinkenborg

This is the most insightful book on writing I've read. The author's philosophy is simple: the sentence is the …

Swami Lakshmanjoo

This is a stand in for all the essential texts of Kashmir Shaivism including the _Shiva Sutras_, _Spanda Karik…

Steven K. Scott

Everyone has dreams. Most people never achieve them. This book guides you to avoid this fate in your own life.

Richard Feynman

My rating here is an unpopular opinion, given that Feynman is one of the best physics teachers of all time, an…

Stanislaw Lem

Unique alien-contact sci-fi with great ideas that suffer from incomplete execution. Explores the possibility o…

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…

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…

Uri Alon

A first principled breakdown of diseases, covering hormone circuit malfunctions, autoimmune disorders, and agi…

Christopher D. Wallis

The most thorough and well written book on the philosophy and history of non-dual Tantra.

Agatha Christie

After reading _Murder on the Orient Express_ and _And Then There Were None_ I got accustomed to the levels of …

Eric Jorgenson

I went into the book expecting another iteration of self-help or life advice books, but ended up really liking…

Murray N. Rothbard

Concise first-principled explanation of the role of government. Takes an anarcho-capitalist lens on the view o…

Tom Kelley

IDEO is the legendary product design lab that helped design Apple's first mouse, the Palm V, and many other pr…

Ray Dalio

All great nations go through cycles of rise and decline. With this in mind, Ray Dalio develops a framework bas…

Olivia Fox Cabane

From the blurb, I expected a first principled breakdown of charisma and what creates it, and some insightful a…

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

Given the popularity of Communism, I was at least expecting a very well reasoned and convincing thesis grounde…

Darren Hardy

The elements of success framed from the perspective of compounding yourself through small but intentional choi…

Fumitake Koga & Ichiro Kishim

A highly readable philosophy book about the beliefs and psychology of Alfred Adler, a lesser known rival and e…

Cixin Liu

Cixin Liu's biggest strength is his abundance of genuinely insightful & creative ideas that populate his sci-f…

Lawrence A. Cunningham

The best selections from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters organized into a comprehensive…

Alison Gopnik

A book about the philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology of caring for children written by a grandmother who …

Eliyahu Goldratt

One of the 3 books Jeff Bezos requires all executives at Amazon to read. Also the most painstakingly boring bo…

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…

Matt Mochary

Matt Mochary coaches the CEOs of Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Brex, OpenAI, Flexport, Rippling, and many more mult…

Jon Gertner

Bell Labs independently invented the transistor, laser, solar photovoltaic cell, radio & satelite telecommunic…

Amartya Sen

A modern moral philosophy base for designing institutions built from a response to Rawls with more focus on pl…

Benjamin Graham

Straightforward guide to interpreting the financial statements of publicly traded company. Graham shows you ho…

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov said this was his favorite of his own writing, which made me curious to read it.

Agustin Lebron

A simple introduction to the principles of trading. Provides mental tools useful for all investing and decisio…

Will & Ariel Durant

A concise history book full of unique observations and wisdom. After writing their 11 volume series _The Story…

William N. Thorndike Jr.

A look into the exceptional capital allocation abilities of eight unconventional CEOs in completely unrelated …

Gad Saad

Elon recommendation that's clearly an inspiration behind how he's running X. About the idea pathogen's in West…

Josh Kaufman

A collection of principles to understand every important aspect of building a great business.

Eckart Tolle

The core message of spirituality condensed into an accessible format that focuses on the importance of the mom…

Adam E. Coffey

A concise introduction to private equity, similar to _The Real Estate Game_. Written from the perspective of a…

William J. Poorvu

A straightforward introduction to real estate by William J. Poorvu, a successful real estate investor who taug…

Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha

Modern career advice that everyone should read, especially those that haven't been exposed to the world of sta…

Michael A. Singer

Are we better off fighting with reality to bring our desires into existence, or letting go of our desires and …

David Clark

A compilation of Charlie Munger quotes with helpful commentary from David Clark. I found this to be far more r…

Cixin Liu

Unique spin on the contact with aliens theme with a compelling reveal. It's also nice variety to have the back…

Ted Kaczynski

The manifesto of the Unabomber originally published by _The New York Times_ before they knew him to be Ted Kac…

Steven Pressfield

Anyone who strives to create faces Resistance at some point on their journey. Resistance is what prevents us f…

David Deida

A controversial but thought-provoking book on how men should act toward women. Many interesting ideas, mixed w…

Napoleon Hill

The defining work on the principles and pscyhology of achievement. This book is famous, but still underrated. …

Annie Duke

The correct framework for all long-term decision making. Reality is fundamentally unpredictable. Don't try to …

Seth Godin

Seth Godin presents an unconventionally personal and holistic view of marketing.

Bronnie Ware

The author, who has been a palliative care nurse for many years, shares what she's learned about life from the…

Murray N. Rothbard

A concise and insightful explanation of the fundamentals of money. Builds into an argument against government …

Paul Kalanithi

A memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36. The book is a reflection on his …

Kenneth Stanley & Joel Lehman

Definite objectives dominate modern incentive structures. But achieving ambitious goals & defining innovation …

Russ Roberts

Life is made up of decisions. Most of these decisions can be evaluated using ordinary decision making framewor…

Herb Cohen

Everything is negotiable. All authority can be challenged. Most people negotiate far less often than they shou…

Peter Thiel

The bible of starting a massive technology company. Anyone interested in startups needs to read this.