Reading List

✦✦ denotes books I greatly appreciated

Currently reading

• Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton

• The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya

• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

• Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Charles T. Munger

• Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson

2024

• Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber

• All Fours by Miranda July

• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

• Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield

• ✦✦ Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara

• ✦✦ Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

• ✦✦ The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Ford Motor Company, and Their Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A.J. Baime

• ✦✦ After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul by Tripp Mickle

• ✦✦ How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks

• Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell

• Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

• Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure by Vaclav Smil

• Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman

• The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson

• Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China by Desmond Shum

• Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship by Robert Kurson

• Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday

• ✦✦ Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

• The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time by Yascha Mounk

• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

• ✦✦ Invention: A Life by James Dyson

• Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West by Calder Walton

• How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between by Bent Flyvbjerg

• ✦✦ Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip and Dan Heath

• Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant

• Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg

• Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up by Abigail Shrier

• Thinking In Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows

• Gatsby OGN by Jeremy Holt

• ✦✦ The Women by Kristin Hannah

• Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller by Alec Nevala-Lee

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

• ✦✦ Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler

• ✦✦ Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactoring Your Wetware by Andy Hunt

• Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders

• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

• Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King

• ✦✦ Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway

• ✦✦ Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

• 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