My Recommended Books

People sometimes ask me for book reading recommendations. This page is my answer to that question.

UPDATED: Jan 8, 2024

About How I Read

I currently track my book reading with Goodreads. Here’s how I track my book reading.

I read around 50-60 books a year, which I typically share a post on in my year in reading along with my other year in data review.

My aim is to read 2000 books in coming decade or so. I’m currently at around 1100 books. So about halfway there and many great books to come (perhaps even one I’ll write myself)!

I read a wide range of book types. You can find my current readings here.

Contact me if you have a great book to recommend!

My Year-in-Reading Review

My Favorite Books

Below are yearly favorites and favorites by genre. Bolded titles are extra good to me.

Animals

Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong by Frans de Waal
Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes by Frans de Waal
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomer
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity by Justin Gregg

Behavior Sciences, Psychology and Behaviorial Economics

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabrial Weinberg
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being by Martin E.P. Seligman

Biology and Evolution

Darwin and the Barnacle: The Story of One Tiny Creature and History’s Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough by Rebecca Stott
What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology by Paul Nurse
The Secret Language of Cells: What Biological Conversations Tell Us About the Brain-Body Connection, the Future of Medicine, and Life Itself by Jon Lief
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
Lamarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present by Peter Ward
Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
Human Nature and Limits of Science by John Dupré

Brain Science and Neurology

The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness by António R. Damásio
The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness by Jeff Warren
A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain Paperback by John J. Ratey
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by by Antonio R. Damasio
Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief by Andrew B. Newberg

Business, Startups and Entrepreneurship

The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Business by David Rose
Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg
Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook by Dan Shapiro
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries by Safi Bahcall
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by James Collins
Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business by Amos Schwartzfarb and Trevor Boeh
To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H Pink
The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale by John List
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar
Super Mentors: The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Asking Extraordinary People for Help by Eric Koester
Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott

Creativity

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon
Daily Rituals by Mason Currey

Computer Science, Data Science and AI

Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI edited by John Brockman
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython by Wes McKinney
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow by Aurélien Géron
The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
Recommendation Engines by Michael Schrage
The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl

Design and UX

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities by David Airey

Economics

The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress by Joel Mokyr
Principles of Economics by Gregory Mankiw
23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan

Feminism and Gender Studies:

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
What Can She Know? by Lorraine Code
The Ethics of Care by Virginia Held
Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a Post-Feminist Era by Kristin Anderson
Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Brotopia by Emily Chang

Freediving and Breath:

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor
Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World by Tm Ecott

Health, Fitness and Running:

The Science of Running: How to find your limit and train to maximize your performance by Steve Magness
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb
Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally by Kelly Starrett
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Walker, Matthew
My Year of Running Dangerously: A Dad, a Daughter, and a Ridiculous Plan by Tom Foreman
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Open by Andre Agassi
The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner
Outlive by Peter Attia

History

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World
A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt
The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance by Paul Strathern
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Isaacson, Walter
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Weatherford, Jack
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U
Vietnam: A History by by Stanley Karnow
Bolívar: American Liberator by Marie Arana
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Dors Kearns Goodwin
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by William Rosen
Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time-the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker
The Electric War: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Light the World by Mike Winchell
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America by Michael Hiltzik
Electric War - AC/DC Battle between Edison and Tesla/Westinghouse
River of Doubt on Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt’s adventure to survey an unmapped Brazilian river.
Rough-hewn Land by Keith Heyer Meldahl - Geological tale from birth of California to the Rocky Mountains
Rough-Hewn Land by Keith Heyer Meldahl
Tractor Wars - Following Ford’s Model T and rise of cars, another industrial battle unfolds between multiple companies seeking to modernize and industrialize farming.
Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei - Located in a remote area of modern Sichuan province, Mount Emei is one of China’s most famous mountains and has long been important to Daoists and Buddhists. Wonderful retelling of famous Chinese travelogues.
The Last Duel A dramatic conflict between French Norman neighbors in Medieval Europe culminating in a blow-by-blow retelling of dueling knights.

Learning and Language

Ultralearning by Scott Young
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner
Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis
The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher. 📖 Read review.

Memoirs

Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949-1950 Skinner, G. William
The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place by Baker, Ian

Music

How Music Works by David Byrne (of Talking Heads)
This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin
How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back by Jeff Tweedy

Philosophy:

A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume
Nietzche - Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
The Work of Mourning by Jacques Derrida
The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
Critique of Pure Reason by Emmanuel Kant
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Plato’s Republic
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School and Its Contemporaries by Franck, Frederick
The Politics of Friendship by Jacques Derrida
Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer
Re-Engineering Humanity by Frischmann, Brett
Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents by Joseph Reagle
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality by Ronald Purser. 📖 Checkout my book review.
Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress by Hasok Chang
The History and Ethics of Authenticity: Meaning, Freedom, and Modernity by Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth. 📖 Read my book notes and review.
On Being Authentic by Charles Guignon. 📖 Read my book notes and review.
The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor. 📖 Read my book notes and review.
The Arts and the Definition of the Human by Joseph Margolis. 📖 Read review.
Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis

Phenomenology

Oneself as Another by Paul Ricœur
Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Time and Narrative by Paul Ricœur
Cartesian Meditations by Edmund Husserl
The Crisis of Euroean Sciences by Edmund Husserl
Husserl’s Phenomenology by Dan Zahavi
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction by Matthew Crawford

Productivity, Peak Performance, Flow and Staying Organized

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by Allen, David
The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Levitin, Daniel J.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Duckworth, Angela
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Duhigg, Charles
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K Anders Ericsson
Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Stulberg, Brad
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. 📖 Checkout my book review, The Power of Systematic Notes.
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler
The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile
Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life by Eurich Tasha
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. 📖 Checkout my book review, Time Management as Life Philosophy.
The Art of Self-Improvement: Ten Timeless Truths by Anna Katharina Schaffner
Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler

I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchú
Central America’s Forgotten History

Science and the Future

Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by Gribbin, John
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Kaku, Michio
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
Existential Physics by Sabine Hossenfelder

War

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 by Ian Toll
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie

Fiction:

Science-Fiction (Sci-Fi)

The Martian by Andy Weir
Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Three-Body Problem (Book / Series) by Liu Cixin
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
The Expanse by James Corey
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Nexus by Ramez Naam
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Brave New World by Huxley, Aldous
La Saga des Fourmis / Ants Saga by Bernard Werber
Dauntless (Lost Fleet series) byJack Campbell
Recursion by Black Crouch
Octavia Butler’s dystopia two-book series that starts with “Parable of the Sower”
Red Rising (Book / Saga) by Pierce Brown
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Mysts of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Upgrade by Blake Crouch
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. 📖 Read review.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin

Contemporary Novels:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, #1) by Lian Hearn
The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Paper Towns by John Green
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood by Murakami, Haruki
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
American Gods by Neal Gaiman
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
The Magus by Jhn Fowles
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Moby-Dick or, the Whale by Herman Melville
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Midnight Library by Haig
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannafh
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

My Writings on Reading and Books

Here are a few posts I’ve written about reading: