Reading is a big part of my daily life. This is a collection of books that have influenced me as a person and designer.
Top recommendations
Reading List
✦✦ denotes books I greatly appreciated
Currently reading
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King
Thinking In Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows
Beauty by Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactoring Your Wetware by Andy Hunt
Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution by Bjarke Ingels Group
2024
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson ✦✦
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant ✦✦
Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model by Marty Cagen
Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease by Robert H. Lustig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard
High Output Management by Andy Grove
On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis
Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel ✦✦
Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt ✦✦
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss ✦✦
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller ✦✦
The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield
East of Eden by John Steinbeck ✦✦
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
2023
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland
What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life by Sharon Saline
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore
Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout
What It is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products by Marty Cagen ✦✦
The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone
The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism by Adam Nagourney
Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Clarence L. Johnson
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson ✦✦
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese ✦✦
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion ✦✦
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson ✦✦
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson ✦✦
Positive Parenting: An Essential Guide by Rebecca Eanes
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by Arbinger Institute
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood
User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work & Play by Cliff Kuang ✦✦
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute
The Maintenance Race by Stewart Brand
Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business by Kindra Hall ✦✦
Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing by Brian Kurtz
Red Is My Heart by Antoine Laurain
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia ✦✦
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by Timothy W. Gallwey
We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations that Matter by Celeste Headlee
The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists by Richard P. Rumelt
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin ✦✦
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin ✦✦
2022
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell ✦✦
Building Trust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life by Robert C. Solomon
What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life by Sharon Saline
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World by Tyler Cowen ✦✦
Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality by Jared Diamond
Lexicon by Max Barry
Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science by Richard Preston
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today's Business While Creating the Future by Scott D. Anthony ✦✦
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck ✦✦
Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand by John Markoff
Thoughts on Design by Paul Rand
The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 by Jonathan Rauch ✦✦
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
Immune: a Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski ✦✦
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut ✦✦
Poland by James A. Michener ✦✦
Drown by Junot Díaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz ✦✦
Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe
Proof by David Auburn
San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities by Michael Shellenberger
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy, Vol. 2 by Harvard Business Review
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling ✦✦
The Lichtenberg Figures by Ben Lerner
Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger ✦✦
2021
The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel ✦✦
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric by Thomas Gryta
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen ✦✦
Robin by Dave Itzkoff
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt ✦✦
Calypso by David Sedaris ✦✦
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson ✦✦
The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture by Ben Horowitz
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey ✦✦
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson ✦✦
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come by Richard Preston ✦✦
Redesigning Leadership by John Maeda
Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein ✦✦
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson ✦✦
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar ✦✦
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston ✦✦
It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel ✦✦
In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
Writing That Works: How to Communicate Effectively in Business by Kenneth Roman
The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi ✦✦
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein ✦✦
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie ✦✦
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior ✦✦
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by Ben R. Rich ✦✦
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz
Making Things Right: The Simple Philosophy of a Working Life by Ole Thorstensen
Intercom on Jobs to Be Done by Des Traynor
Year Book by Seth Rogan
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir ✦✦
Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories by Truman Capote
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu ✦✦
Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant
First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing ✦✦
Dancing with the Gods: Reflections on Life and Art by Kent Nerburn ✦✦
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant ✦✦
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman by Peter Korn
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson ✦✦
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
A Promised Land by Barack Obama ✦✦
Inadvertent by Karl Ove Knausgård
The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni ✦✦
Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters by Ryan Singer ✦✦
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth ✦✦
Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields
Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse
The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts Vol 1. by Shane Parrish
2020
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt ✦✦
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett ✦✦
Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander
Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan
Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey ✦✦
The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard Feynman
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork by Reeves Wiedeman
You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future by Jonathan Keats
Eat a Peach by David Chang
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger ✦✦
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe
Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice by Clayton M. Christensen ✦✦
You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn by Wendy Lesser
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand ✦✦
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain ✦✦
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen ✦✦
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard Hamming
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagen ✦✦
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi ✦✦
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America by Ron Powers
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah ✦✦
High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker ✦✦
Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life by Diane Tavenner
Exhalation by Ted Chiang ✦✦
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner ✦✦
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
2019
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferris
The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility by Stewart Brand
Becoming by Michelle Obama ✦✦
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power ✦✦
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder by Michael Pollan
The Lessons of History by Will Durant
A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Hiroshima by John Hersey
The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo
The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money by Bryan Caplan
Tao of Charlie Munger by David Clark ✦✦
The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael D. Watkins
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
There There by Tommy Orange
Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard P. Rumelt ✦✦
Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most by Steven Johnson
Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore ✦✦
Educated by Tara Westover
How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization by Mary Beard
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Fox 8 by George Saunders ✦✦
The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out by Angela Liddon
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou ✦✦
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters
Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda
The Good News About Bad Behavior: Why Kids Are Less Disciplined Than Ever—And What to Do About It by Katherine Reynolds Lewis
In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart by Alice Waters
2018
Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Hannah Fry
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp
The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt ✦✦
Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior by Arthur Herman
Ethics in the Real World: 86 Brief Essays on Things that Matter by Peter Singer
The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection by Louisa Thomsen Brits
Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments: A Stone Reader by Peter Catapano
Ethics 101: From Altruism and Utilitarianism to Bioethics and Political Ethics, an Exploration of the Concepts of Right and Wrong by
Brian Boone
The Design of Future Things by Donald Norman
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan ✦✦
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
The Girls by Emma Cline ✦✦
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr
The Name of the World by Denis Johnson
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Information and Society by Michael Keeble Buckland
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Grant by Ron Chernow
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott ✦✦
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull ✦✦
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch ✦✦
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse ✦✦
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
The Vices and Virtues of Collaboration by The School of Life ✦✦
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright
See before 2018 on Goodreads