reading-list 10

Rather than read individual books, why not read clusters on related topics? Using AI to summarize, compare, and fact-check? Tiny-habits + behavior design wave (2018–2020) Atomic Habits (James Clear, 2018) Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg, 2019/2020 editions) The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg, 2012) Learning faster, remembering more (2014–2020) Make It Stick (Peter C. Brown, 2014) A Mind for Numbers (Barbara Oakley, 2014) Ultralearning (Scott Young, 2019) How to Take Smart Notes (Sönke Ahrens, 2017) Motivation, grit, and “how people get good” (2016–2019). # Gemini Grit (Angela Duckworth, 2016) Peak (Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool, 2016) Range (David Epstein, 2019) Hidden Potential (Adam Grant, 2023) Mindset (Carol S. Dweck, 2006) The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle, 2009) Drive (Daniel H. Pink, 2009) The “Attention Resistance” and Digital Minimalism (2016–2022) Deep Work (Cal Newport, 2016) Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport, 2019) Indistractable (Nir Eyal, 2019) How to Do Nothing (Jenny Odell, 2019) Stolen Focus (Johann Hari, 2022) Trauma, healing, and therapy “going mainstream” (2014–2022) What Happened to You? (Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey, 2021) The Myth of Normal (Gabor Maté, 2022) The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk, 2014) No Bad Parts (Richard Schwartz, 2021) My Grandmother’s Hands (Resmaa Menakem, 2017) Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (Lori Gottlieb, 2019) It Didn’t Start with You (Mark Wolynn, 2016) Endurance running as history + meaning + limits (2006-2016) # The Road to Sparta (Dean Karnazes, 2016) Born to Run (Christopher McDougall, 2009) Endure (Alex Hutchinson, 2018) Ultramarathon Man (Dean Karnazes, 2006) What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Haruki Murakami, 2007) Running with the Kenyans (Adharanand Finn, 2011) Socialism “after the 20th century”: rebuilding the case, testing alternatives, arguing with critics (1944-2021) # Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism! (Todor Bombov, 2017/2021 editions) The Socialist Manifesto (Bhaskar Sunkara, 2019) Why You Should Be a Socialist (Nathan J. Robinson, 2016) Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Thomas Piketty, 2013/2014) The Nordic Theory of Everything (Anu Partanen, 2016) The Road to Serfdom (Friedrich Hayek, 1944) Coaching-centered leadership and building high-performing teams (1998-2019) # Trillion Dollar Coach (Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle, 2019) High Output Management (Andrew S. Grove, 1983) The Coaching Habit (Michael Bungay Stanier, 2016) Radical Candor (Kim Scott, 2017) The Making of a Manager (Julie Zhuo, 2019) Multipliers (Liz Wiseman, 2010) Superforecasting and the craft of good judgment under uncertainty (2001-2018) # Superforecasting (Philip E. Tetlock & Dan Gardner, 2015) The Signal and the Noise (Nate Silver, 2012) Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke, 2018) How Not to Be Wrong (Jordan Ellenberg, 2014) Fooled by Randomness (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2001) The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007) Notes: https://claude.ai/chat/201867d4-4a0e-44e3-8aa4-deba48a3a0ee Everything that compounds, has network effects, involves social contagion — Extremistan. A turkey is raised by a farmer for 1,000 days. Each day, the farmer brings food. The turkey’s confidence in the farmer increases with each passing day. On day 1,001, it is Thanksgiving. Nexus and the history of information networks: media, power, and the AI turn (2010-2024) # Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Yuval Noah Harari, 2024) The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (James Gleick, 2011) The Master Switch (Tim Wu, 2010) The Shallows (Nicholas Carr, 2010) The Square and the Tower (Niall Ferguson, 2017) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff, 2019) “Remarkable service” leadership playbook (1993-2022) # Unreasonable Hospitality (Will Guidara, 2022) Setting the Table (Danny Meyer, 2006) Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service (The Disney Institute, 2001; updated editions later) Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh, 2010) The Experience Economy (B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore, 1999) Raving Fans (Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles, 1993) Explanations, progress, and the Popperian worldview (1963–2018) # The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (David Deutsch, 2011). #TODO Read this chapter-by-chapter Conjectures and Refutations (Karl Popper, 1963) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Karl Popper, 1934; English 1959) The Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch, 1997) Enlightenment Now (Steven Pinker, 2018) Inequality, capitalism, and who wins (2012–2019) # Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Thomas Piketty, 2013/2014) Winners Take All (Anand Giridharadas) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff) The Price of Inequality (Joseph Stiglitz, 2012) Inequality: What Can Be Done? (Anthony Atkinson, 2015) After Piketty (Heather Boushey et al., 2017) Curable Plagues, Global Health, and Medical Inequality (2003–2025) Everything Is Tuberculosis (John Green, 2025) Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History (Vidya Krishnan, 2022) Mountains Beyond Mountains (Tracy Kidder, 2003) Pathologies of Power (Paul Farmer, 2003) The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson, 2006) Spillover (David Quammen, 2012) Algorithmic Harm, Data Power, and Automated Inequality (2015–2021) Weapons of Math Destruction (Cathy O’Neil, 2016) The Black Box Society (Frank Pasquale, 2015) Automating Inequality (Virginia Eubanks, 2018) Algorithms of Oppression (Safiya Umoja Noble, 2018) Race After Technology (Ruha Benjamin, 2019) Atlas of AI (Kate Crawford, 2021) Ancient Wisdom Meets Positive Psychology (1990–2023) The Happiness Hypothesis (Jonathan Haidt, 2006) Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) Authentic Happiness (Martin Seligman, 2002) Stumbling on Happiness (Daniel Gilbert, 2006) The How of Happiness (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2007) The Good Life (Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz, 2023) Data Infrastructure, AI Business, and the People Who Built the Stack (2001–2023) The Datapreneurs (Bob Muglia & Steve Hamm, 2023) The Dream Machine (M. Mitchell Waldrop, 2001) The Innovators (Walter Isaacson, 2014) The Master Algorithm (Pedro Domingos, 2015) Prediction Machines (Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans & Avi Goldfarb, 2018) Competing in the Age of AI (Marco Iansiti & Karim R. Lakhani, 2020) Soviet Espionage, Defectors, and Cold War Intelligence (1985–2018) Inside the Aquarium / Aquarium (Viktor Suvorov, 1985/1986) The Sword and the Shield (Christopher Andrew & Vasili Mitrokhin, 1999) A Spy Among Friends (Ben Macintyre, 2014) The Billion Dollar Spy (David E. Hoffman, 2015) The Spy and the Traitor (Ben Macintyre, 2018) Agent Sonya (Ben Macintyre, 2020) Race, systems, and social structure (2019–2020) How to Be an Antiracist (Ibram X. Kendi) White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo) Caste (Isabel Wilkerson) Social contagion, networks, and how behavior spreads (2009–2013) Connected (Christakis & Fowler) Contagious (Jonah Berger) The Righteous Mind (Jonathan Haidt) Science graphics, visual explanation, and evidence-based information design (1983-2023) Building Science Graphics (Jen Christiansen, 2023) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Edward Tufte, 1983) Visual Explanations (Edward Tufte, 1997) The Truthful Art (Alberto Cairo, 2016) Storytelling with Data (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, 2015) Show Me the Numbers (Stephen Few, 2004) Decision-making, noise, and cognitive bias (2011–2021) Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) Superforecasting (Tetlock & Gardner) Noise (Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein) Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke) Happiness → meaning → the good life (2016–2023) The Happiness Trap (ACT-based) The Power of Meaning (Emily Esfahani Smith) The Good Life (Waldinger & Schulz) Build the Life You Want (Brooks & Winfrey) Relationships + attachment + communication (2010–2018) Attached (Levine & Heller) Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg) Crucial Conversations The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work (Gottman) Longevity / healthspan “protocol” wave (2017–2023) The Telomere Effect (Blackburn & Epel, 2017) Lifespan (David Sinclair, 2019) Outlive (Peter Attia, 2023) Sleep finally gets its “public health” moment (2016–2018) Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker, 2017) The Sleep Revolution (Arianna Huffington) Sleep Smarter (Shawn Stevenson, 2016) The Power of When (Michael Breus, 2016) The Sleep Solution (W. Chris Winter, 2017) Metabolic health, obesity, and food environment (2015–2023) The Obesity Code (Jason Fung) How Not to Die (Michael Greger) Ultra-Processed People (Chris van Tulleken) Exercise as medicine + movement as mood (2008–2020) Spark (John Ratey) Born to Run (McDougall) The Joy of Movement (Kelly McGonigal) Modern management craft: feedback, coaching, teams (2016–2019) The Coaching Habit (Michael Bungay Stanier) Radical Candor (Kim Scott) The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle) The Fearless Organization (Amy Edmondson) Execution systems: OKRs and operating cadence (2015–2018) Measure What Matters (John Doerr) Radical Focus (Christina Wodtke) The 4 Disciplines of Execution (McChesney et al.) Startups & product-building playbook wave (2011–2016) The Lean Startup (Eric Ries) Zero to One (Peter Thiel, 2014) Sprint (Knapp et al.) Hooked (Nir Eyal) The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz, 2014) Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull, 2014) Strategy “clarity” wave (2011–2017) Good Strategy Bad Strategy (Rumelt) Playing to Win (Lafley & Martin) The Innovator’s Dilemma (Christensen) Seven Powers (Hamilton Helmer) Incentives, misalignment, and corporate pathology (2015–2020) Misbehaving (Thaler) The Undoing Project (Lewis) The Man Who Solved the Market (Zuckerman) (if you like finance angle) No Rules Rules (Hastings & Meyer) “Why nations succeed/fail” + institutions (2012–2015) Why Nations Fail (Acemoglu & Robinson) The Dictator’s Handbook (Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall) Big History and the “Sapiens” Effect (2014–2021) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari, 2014) The Better Angels of Our Nature (Pinker) The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2015) Homo Deus (Yuval Noah Harari, 2016) The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow, 2021) Geopolitics reboot (2012–2020) The Revenge of Geography (Robert Kaplan, 2012) Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall, 2015) The Future is Asian (Parag Khanna) Connectography (Parag Khanna, 2016) AI and the future of work (2017–2023) Life 3.0 (Tegmark) AI Superpowers (Kai-Fu Lee) The Alignment Problem (Brian Christian) The Coming Wave (Mustafa Suleyman) Climate “this is the constraint” wave (2014–2021) The Sixth Extinction (Kolbert) Drawdown (Hawken, ed.) The Uninhabitable Earth (Wallace-Wells) How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Gates) Physics/cosmology for humans (2014–2017) Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Rovelli) The Big Picture (Sean Carroll) Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Tyson) Modern Stoicism and Ego Management (2014–2019) The Obstacle Is the Way (Ryan Holiday, 2014) Ego Is the Enemy (Ryan Holiday, 2016) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck (Mark Manson, 2016) Stillness Is the Key (Ryan Holiday, 2019) The “Wood Wide Web”: Plant and Fungal Intelligence (2015–2021) The Hidden Life of Trees (Peter Wohlleben, 2015) The Overstory (Richard Powers, 2018) Entangled Life (Merlin Sheldrake, 2020) Finding the Mother Tree (Suzanne Simard, 2021) Breathwork and Respiratory Health (2015–2020) The Oxygen Advantage (Patrick McKeown, 2015) Just Breathe (Dan Brulé, 2017) Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (James Nestor, 2020) The Microbiome and Gut-Brain Axis (2014–2016) Missing Microbes (Martin Blaser, 2014) The Good Gut (Justin & Erica Sonnenburg, 2015) 10% Human (Alanna Collen, 2015) I Contain Multitudes (Ed Yong, 2016) The Psychedelic Renaissance (2018–2021) How to Change Your Mind (Michael Pollan, 2018) The Psychedelic Renaissance (Ben Sessa, 2012/2018 edition) Acid Revival (Danielle Giffort, 2020) This Is Your Mind on Plants (Michael Pollan, 2021) CRISPR and the Gene Editing Revolution (2017–2021) A Crack in Creation (Jennifer Doudna & Samuel Sternberg, 2017) The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee) Hacking Darwin (Jamie Metzl, 2019) Editing Humanity (Kevin Davies, 2020) The Code Breaker (Walter Isaacson, 2021) The Meritocracy Trap (2019–2020) The Meritocracy Trap (Daniel Markovits, 2019) The Tyranny of Merit (Michael Sandel, 2020) The Cult of Smart (Fredrik deBoer, 2020) The Crisis of Democracy and Authoritarianism (2018–2020) How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, 2018) Fascism: A Warning (Madeleine Albright, 2018) The People vs. Democracy (Yascha Mounk, 2018) Twilight of Democracy (Anne Applebaum, 2020) The Gender Data Gap and Invisible Labor (2019–2021) Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Perez, 2019) Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters (Deborah Stone, 2020) The Authority Gap (Mary Ann Sieghart, 2021) The “Unicorn” Fall: Corporate Fraud and Failure (2018–2021) Bad Blood (John Carreyrou, 2018) Super Pumped (Mike Isaac, 2019) Billion Dollar Loser (Reeves Wiedeman, 2020) The Cult of We (Eliot Brown & Maureen Farrell, 2021) New Urbanism and Walkable Cities (2012–2019) Walkable City (Jeff Speck, 2012) Happy City (Charles Montgomery, 2013) Streetfight (Janette Sadik-Khan, 2016) Soft City (David Sim, 2019) Silk Roads and “history as networks”: trade routes, exchange, and the Eurasian pivot (2008–2018) The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2015) The New Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2018) Empires of the Silk Road (Christopher I. Beckwith, 2009) A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World (William J. Bernstein, 2008) The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (David Abulafia, 2011) The Modern Synthesis forming: evolution meets genetics and math (1930–1942) The Causes of Evolution (J. B. S. Haldane, 1932) The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (R. A. Fisher, 1930) Genetics and the Origin of Species (Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1937) Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (Julian Huxley, 1942) What Evolution Is (Ernst Mayr, 2001) Forecasting science’s consequences: biotech futures and moral whiplash (1924–2005) Daedalus; or, Science and the Future (J. B. S. Haldane, 1924) The World Set Free (H. G. Wells, 1914) Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, 1962) The Singularity Is Near (Ray Kurzweil, 2005) Erudite historical mystery: monasteries, manuscripts, and ideas as suspects (1977–1993) The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1980) Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco, 1988) The Club Dumas (Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 1993) A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters, 1977) Labyrinth (Kate Mosse, 2005) Chemistry as memoir, ethics, and survival: science told as literature (1975–2016) The Periodic Table (Primo Levi, 1975) If This Is a Man / Survival in Auschwitz (Primo Levi, 1947) Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (Oliver Sacks, 2001) The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean, 2010) Lab Girl (Hope Jahren, 2016) Insight under pressure: intuition, expertise, and how people actually decide (1998–2015) Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights (Gary Klein, 2013) Sources of Power (Gary Klein, 1998) Blink (Malcolm Gladwell, 2005) Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman, 2011) Superforecasting (Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner, 2015) Awe and everyday transcendence: the science of wonder and its effects (2006–2023) Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (Dacher Keltner, 2023) The Happiness Hypothesis (Jonathan Haidt, 2006) Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) The Book of Delights (Ross Gay, 2019) Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013) Introversion, temperament, and the “extrovert ideal” (1996–2012) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (Susan Cain, 2012) The Highly Sensitive Person (Elaine N. Aron, 1996) The Introvert Advantage (Marti Olsen Laney, 2002) The Introvert’s Way (Sophia Dembling, 2012) Personality (Daniel Nettle, 2007) Why societies diverge: geography, germs, institutions, and big-history arguments (1997–2021) Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond, 1997) Why Nations Fail (Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2012) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (David S. Landes, 1998) Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall, 2015) The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow, 2021) Presence, mindfulness, and “waking up” from mental noise (1975–2014) The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle, 1997) The Miracle of Mindfulness (Thích Nhất Hạnh, 1975) Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994) Waking Up (Sam Harris, 2014) 10% Happier (Dan Harris, 2014) Therapy made legible: human stories, clinical craft, and change (1989–2020) Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (Lori Gottlieb, 2019) Love’s Executioner (Irvin D. Yalom, 1989) The Gift of Therapy (Irvin D. Yalom, 2001) Good Morning, Monster (Catherine Gildiner, 2019) Group (Christie Tate, 2020) Classic success psychology: ambition, persuasion, and “prosperity” narratives (1903–1937) Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill, 1937) How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie, 1936) The Richest Man in Babylon (George S. Clason, 1926) The Science of Getting Rich (Wallace D. Wattles, 1910) As a Man Thinketh (James Allen, 1903) TODO ...

I read 52 books in 2023 (about the same as in 2022, 2021 and 2020.) Here’s what I read (best books first). Fiction The Kingkiller Chronicle. I picked it up before a flight to London in 2014. Read it through the flight. Read it late into the night at our AirBnB. Skipped my workshop prep. Read it during the workshop breaks. Read it on the flight back. And I re-read it every year or two. The language is beautiful and the story gripping. I feel miserable this series isn’t complete. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Stormlight Archive. Another series I re-read regularly. Brandon Sanderson takes the scale of the story up a notch in every book. Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Andy Weir’s books. Since my daughter re-reads The Martian (laughing loudly), I picked up Project Hail Mary. It’s a brilliant depiction of alien physiology and communication, with a weird kind of humour I love. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Egg by Andy Weir ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Martian by Andy Weir ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Red Rising Saga. A pleasant discovery of a new series. Somewhat like The Hunger Games and Divergent. Red Rising by Pierce Brown ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Golden Son by Pierce Brown ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Morning Star by Pierce Brown ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Blake Crouch’s books. The two I read were both time-travel related and I love that genre. These do a great job of exploring some of the deeper implications of time-travel. Recursion by Blake Crouch ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Dark Matter by Blake Crouch ⭐⭐⭐ Ready Player One by Ernest Cline ⭐⭐⭐. It’s as good as the movie with slightly different scenes. The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson. Another series I re-read. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Firefight by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐ Calamity by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐ The Year of Sanderson. Brandon Sanderson’s kickstarter raised $41m for 4 books this year (mostly Cosmere). The stories themselves were OK but the hints they drop about the Cosmere are invaluable. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐ The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. After Death Note, it felt like a let-down when it started. A mundane story. Then it grew funny. Showed shades of a much deeper story. I’m mid-way through the series and I’m hooked. Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 2 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 3 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 4 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 5 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 6 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 7 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 8 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 9 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 10 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 11 by Hiromu Arakawa ⭐⭐⭐ Mono no Aware e altre storie by Ken Liu ⭐⭐⭐. A nice short story Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer ⭐⭐⭐. A well-writter fast-paced average story. Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐. Average story but with lots of “secrets” about the Cosmere. Asterix and the Griffin by Jean-Yves Ferri ⭐⭐. Some good jokes but not as good as the original series. Non-fiction ...

I read 52 books in 2022 (about the same as in 2021 and 2020.) Here’s what I read (best books first). Mind-blowing Man’s Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl. It’s 75 years old and timeless. Who we are is independent of what’s around us. This book shows us why. This story is a great example. My best book of 2022. The Paper Menagerie. Ken Liu. I cried all the way from the beach to home. The skies joined me. It’s short. Touching. It healed a wound I can’t speak about. The most touching book of 2022. The Data Detective. Tim Harford. 10 powerful, down-to-earth rules for how to make sense of data, and avoid being fooled. I plan to incorporate every one of these into my talks. The most useful guide to working with data in 2022. The Extended Mind. Annie Murphy Paul. Explains how we think not just inside our brains, but in our bodies, in our physical environment, and in the people around us. The most effective guide to transforming my thinking in 2022. Life-changing ...

I read 52 #books in 2021. The best #nonfiction was The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Succinct & deep. I can spend a decade practicing every sentence. The best #fiction was Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War. A brilliantly rich magic system, and what a plot, what an ending! My one-line #reviews of the books are below. http://www.s-anand.net/blog/books-in-2021/ LinkedIn

On my Goodreads 2021 reading challenge, I read 52/50 books in 2021. I managed 47/50 in 2020 (see 2020 reviews) and 26/24 in 2019. Here’s what I read (best books first). Mind-blowing The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. It’s the best non-fiction I’ve read in 5 years. It focuses Wealth and Happiness. It’s short. I finished it in a day. But it’s deep. I can spend a decade practicing just a single sentence. It’s available at navalmanack.com as a free e-book and audio book. Rhythm of War. The 4th book of the Stormlight Archives is an action-packed fantasy. A great gift for teenagers. In an extra-ordinary magic system, Brandon Sanderson builds up to the greatest climax I’ve read. What an ending! Death Note #1-#12. Light Yagami gets hold of a “death note”. If he writes a name on it, they die. “L” is out to catch him. In a cat-and-mouse psychological thriller, Light and L work next to each other, share their plans, and still try to outwit the other. It’s like chess. The pieces are visible. But it’s the strategy that counts. A brilliant comic series. Life-changing ...

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge target is 50 books. I’m at 45/50, with little hope of getting to 50. (I managed 25/24 in 2019.) The 10 non-fiction books I read (most useful first) are below. The Lean Startup by Eric Reis. The principle of Build - Measure - Learn is useful everywhere in life too, not just in startups. Never Split The Difference by Chriss Voss. Shares principle-driven strategies to convince people. The 4 Disciplines of Execution by McChesney, Covey & Huling. Teaches how to build execution rigor in an organization. A bit long at the end, but the first section is excellent. Sprint by Jake Knapp. A detailed step-by-step guide to running product development sprints that you can follow blindly. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. Dilbert’s author shares his strategies for life. Very readable, intelligent, and slightly provocative, but always interesting. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Written as a story (like The Goal). Talks about the 5 problems in teams and how to overcome them. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. Explains the elements of strong cultures - belongingness, shared vulnerability, and shared purpose. Data-Driven Storytelling by Nathalie Henry Riche et al. Shares the latest points of view on telling data stories. My team and I read these chapters as a group. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. Inspiring when I read it, but I don’t remember what it said. Deep Work by Cal Newport. Shares tactics to focus. Practical and useful. I also started, by haven’t finished these four: ...

These are the Pulitzer prize winning non-fiction books. I’ve read only two: Godel, Escher, Bach and Guns, Germs and Steel. These were the very best books I have EVER read. If that’s any indication to go by, I want to finish this whole list. 1962: The Making of the President, 1960 by Theodore H White 1963: The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman 1964: Anti-intellectualism in America by Richard Hofstadter 1965: O Strange New World by Howard M Jones 1966: Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale 1967: The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis 1968: Rousseau & Revolution Story of CIV Volume 10 by Will Durant 1969: Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer 1970: Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence by Erik H Erikson 1971: The Rising Sun by John Toland 1972: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman 1973: Fire in the Lake by Frances Fitzgerald 1974: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker 1975: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard 1976: Why Survive?: Being Old in America by Robert N Butler 1977: Beautiful Swimmers by William W Warner 1978: Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan 1979: On Human Nature by Edward Osborne Wilson 1980: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter 1981: Fin-de-siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture by Carl Schorske 1982: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder 1983: Is There No Place on Earth for Me? by Susan Sheehan 1984: The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr 1985: The Good War: An Oral History of World War II by Studs Terkel 1986: Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas 1987: Arab and Jew by David K Shipler 1988: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes 1989: A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan 1990: And Their Children After Them by Michael Williamson 1991: Ants by Bert Holldobler 1992: Prize by Daniel Yergin 1993: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills 1994: Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick 1995: The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner 1996: The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg 1997: Ashes to Ashes by Richard Kluger 1998: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond 1999: The Annals of the Former World by John McPhee 2000: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower 2001: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix 2002: Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter 2003: A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power 2004: Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum 2005: Ghost Wars by Steve Coll Comments Jayant 30 Mar 2006 2:12 pm: Thanks a ton for the list. Pulitzer books in non-fiction are just gems! Arun 31 Mar 2006 8:08 am: Ouch, haven’t read even one of these. And i thought i read more non-fiction than most!!! S Anand 31 Mar 2006 9:45 am: Next on my reading list are Ants (don’t be fooled: though it’s really about ants, it’s apparantly a fascinating read), Annals of the Former World (which I developed a liking for since I read A Short History of Everything), and Carl Sagan’s Dragons of Eden. Sanchaari 31 Mar 2006 2:14 pm: Hi Anand, I liked your Bolg style, can I take some ideas from here? Which blogging site you are using? S Anand 31 Mar 2006 4:47 pm: Feel free to pull ideas. But I don’t use any blogging software. I write entries in Excel, and my Perl program converts that to HTML, which I then I FTP. Not much help, I’m afraid…

Amazon’s Best books of 2004, All consuming, and Daypop Amazon Wishlist are good places to look for books to read.

Comic Central offers comics downloads via eMule. This includes an Asterix collection (which is best read annotated. Comments rajesh 17 Jan 2007 9:22 am: great man thanks a lot niketha 27 Sep 2004 12:00 pm: Nice to see this website. Nahush Chaturvedi 27 Sep 2004 12:00 pm: Good job !!

Zen stories. Read some of these first in Douglas Hofstader’s Godel, Escher, Bach. Searched for a collection for a long time. This looks like quite a comprehensive one. If you want a flavour of these, Zen Master Gutei’s story is one of those bizarre ones.