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I wasn’t a big reader when I was young and didn’t fall in love with books until my early 20s. I started with Taleb, Sapiens, The Blank Slate, Predictably Irrational, and generally orbited what some now call the Silicon Valley canon. The more I read, the more I wandered outside that circle, and I found myself reading Houellebecq’s Submission in the waiting room of a dental office in San Francisco. I can’t say for sure that’s the book that did it for me, but for whatever reason that memory marks when reading changed from something I did to improve myself into something I do to understand myself and the world.
I can never quite tell whether a book will stick with me until some time has passed. The best ones sneak up on me, and one day I notice how much real estate they have in my head. Here’s some of what I think about when I think about my favorites:
Homer, The Iliad
- I enjoyed The Iliad on a first read but didn’t fully appreciate it. When Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey came out in theaters, I decided to give it another go. To make sure I really got it, I listened to Elizabeth Vandiver’s Great Courses lecture series alongside it, which helped me understand what Homer meant to the Greek people and the alien morality they lived by. I fell in love. Honor, glory, force, the absence of modern good vs. evil, Achilles weeping with Priam - I hope to read Homer over and over again throughout my life.
Herodotus, The Histories
- It’s astonishing to me that this book exists. Herodotus is at the top of my list of dead people I’d want to take out to dinner. He traveled widely in the ancient world with relentless curiosity, and while The Histories is considered the first work of history, much of what he appears to be doing is recording gossip. I loved the Egyptian and Scythian ethnographies, and his digressions are every bit as good as his account of the Persian Wars. The notes and commentary in the Landmark Edition were essential, and Vandiver again has superb lectures.
Bolaño, 2666 and The Savage Detectives
- The middle part of The Savage Detectives is a series of interviews with people who crossed paths with the protagonists. It made me reflect on what it means to view your life through the lens of other people. You can be a hero in someone’s life, a vague memory they think about every few years, or a monster who’s inflicted deep pain. Which of these are you - all three or none at all?
- I felt an ambient background anxiety in 2666 that gave me the same feeling as watching a David Lynch film.
Proust, In Search of Lost Time
- No other book so closely captures what it’s like to be alive. Compulsively readable prose on status, social hierarchy, jealousy, deception, memory, and art as the answer to it all.
Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain
- Taught me the value of going straight to the source in matters of history. Surprisingly balanced and sympathetic firsthand account of Europe’s clash with the New World.
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
- One of the first primary works of philosophy I read. I devoured it over Christmas at my parents’ house by the fireplace. I haven’t revisited it since, but remember underlining nearly every page.
Borges, Ficciones and The Aleph
- When I was young I loved the 90s obsession with “what’s even real”: The Matrix, Fight Club, The Truman Show, etc. At some point though the novelty wore off. Borges scratches the same itch, but his questions have a depth that gives them an infinite shelf life.
Zweig, The World of Yesterday
- There’s a chance we are living through the most consequential century in history, and I like to imagine our descendants reading with fascination about what it was like to be there for it. Most books about upheaval take a macro approach, but I find individual accounts more interesting. Zweig lived through both world wars and saw the world of his youth annihilated.
Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
- I read this when I had some time off between jobs and remember falling asleep at night thinking about the puzzles and paradoxes it poses. A reminder that logic and abstractions can be every bit as beautiful as poetry.
Ferrante, Neapolitan Novels
- Lila is my favorite character in all of literature. The HBO adaptation is surprisingly good.
Beyond the highlights, here’s a list of many of the books I’ve read in recent years. I love stumbling on other people’s reading lists and link to some favorites at the bottom. I also keep a log on Goodreads.
Jump to:
History
- Herodotus, The Histories
- Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
- Durant
- Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization, Vol III
- The Age of Louis XIV: The Story of Civilization, Vol VIII
- The Lessons of History
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome
- Caesar, The Civil War
- Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus
- Holland, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
- Liddell Hart
- Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon
- Why Don’t We Learn from History?
- Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain
- Roberts, Napoleon: A Life
- McCullough, 1776
- Kershaw, Hitler
- Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- Johnson, Churchill
- Churchill, My Early Life: 1874-1904
- Perlstein
- Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
- Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
- Caro
- The Power Broker
- The Path to Power
- Means of Ascent
- Yergin, The Prize
- Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia
- Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- Higgs, Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century
- Hamilton, Mythology
Philosophy
- Nietzsche
- Twilight of the Idols
- Ecce Homo
- Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
- Plato, Euthyphro; Apology; Crito
- La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other Reflections
- James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
- Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach
- Palaver, Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory
- Popper
- Selections
- The Poverty of Historicism
- Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing
- Zizek, How to Read Lacan
- Cowen, Stubborn Attachments
- Machiavelli, The Prince
- Wilde, Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man
- Durant, The Story of Philosophy
- Dennett, Intuition Pumps
Fiction
- Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
- Bolano
- The Savage Detectives
- 2666
- Distant Star
- By Night in Chile
- Borges
- Ficciones
- The Aleph and Other Stories
- Pynchon
- Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Volumes I, II, III, IV
- Tolstoy
- Anna Karenina
- The Death of Ivan Ilych
- Hadji Murat
- Houellebecq
- Submission
- The Elementary Particles
- Whatever
- Ferrante, The Neapolitan Novels
- Knausgaard, My Struggle Books I, II, III
- Sebald
- Austerlitz
- The Rings of Saturn
- The Emigrants
- Marías, A Heart So White
- McCarthy
- Mitchell
- Vodolazkin, Laurus
- Rulfo, Pedro Páramo
- Melville, Moby-Dick
- Adams, Watership Down
- Williams, Stoner
- Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe
- Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
- Murakami
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- Norwegian Wood
- Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
- Graves, I, Claudius
- Moravia, Agostino
- West, Miss Lonelyhearts
- Bernhard, The Loser
- Auster, The New York Trilogy
- Johnson, Jesus’ Son
- Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
- Casares, The Invention of Morel
- Camus, The Stranger
- Calvino, Invisible Cities
- Stendhal, The Red and the Black
- Kafka, The Trial
- Mishima
- Patriotism
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
- Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
- Woolf, The Waves
- Abbott, Flatland
- Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- Chandler, The Big Sleep
- Nabokov
- Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
- Ishiguro
- The Remains of the Day
- Never Let Me Go
- Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
- Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
- Roth, American Pastoral
- DeLillo, White Noise
- Hemingway
- The Sun Also Rises
- The Old Man and the Sea
- Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Steinbeck, East of Eden
- Balle, On the Calculation of Volume I
- Kavan, Ice
- Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
- Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- Ernaux, The Years
- Lispector, The Hour of the Star
- Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
- Eagleman, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
- Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
- Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude
- Mandel, Station Eleven
Poetry
- Homer, The Iliad; The Odyssey
- Shakespeare, Sonnets
- Dante, Inferno
- Cavafy, Collected Poems
- Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems
- Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
Drama
- Aeschylus, The Oresteia; Persians; Prometheus Bound
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone; Electra
- Euripides, Alcestis; Medea
- Shakespeare, Macbeth; King Lear; Henry IV; Richard II; Richard III; Twelfth Night; The Taming of the Shrew; Measure for Measure
Essays
- Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
- Knausgaard
- In the Land of the Cyclops: Essays
- Inadvertent
- Weil, War and the Iliad
- Hickey, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy
- Wallace, Consider the Lobster
- Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- Houellebecq, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
- Tolstoy, A Confession
- Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic
- Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
- Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
- Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Biography / Memoir
- Zweig, The World of Yesterday
- White, Marcel Proust
- Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
- Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
- Coram, Boyd
- Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
- Moser, Sontag: Her Life and Work
- Smith, Just Kids
- Glass, Words Without Music: A Memoir
- Herzog, Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir
Economics
- Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
- Davidson, The Sovereign Individual
- Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers
- Warsh, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations
- Haskel and Westlake, Capitalism without Capital
- Helland and Tabarrok, Why Are The Prices So Damn High?
- Cowen
- In Praise of Commercial Culture
- The Great Stagnation
- The Complacent Class
- Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History
- Landsburg, The Armchair Economist
- Mallaby, The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan
Tech History
- Mallaby, The Power Law
- Soni
- A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
- The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
- Waldrop, The Dream Machine
- Reid, The Chip
- Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine
- Berlin, Troublemakers
- Miller, Chip War
- Stone
- The Everything Store
- Amazon Unbound
- Stross, eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work
- Slootman, Tape Sucks
- Bryar & Carr, Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
Business History
- Chernow, Titan, The Life of John D. Rockefeller
- Morris, The Tycoons
- Herman, Freedom’s Forge
- Ferguson, The Ascent of Money
- Thorndike Jr., The Outsiders
- Thorp, A Man for All Markets
- Burrough, Barbarians at the Gate
- Rich and Janos, Skunk Works
- Hoffman, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
- Levy, To Pixar and Beyond
- Coulombe, Becoming Trader Joe
- Wright, Billion Dollar Whale
- Cohen, The Fish that Ate the Whale
- Knight, Shoe Dog
Science Fiction
- Chiang
- Stories of Your Life and Others
- Exhalation
- Liu, The Three-Body Problem
- Stephenson, Snow Crash
- Lem, Solaris
- Clarke, Childhood’s End
- Dick
- Ubik
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- The Man in the High Castle
- Weir, Project Hail Mary
Science / Physics
- Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity
- Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics
- Gleick, The Information
- Gribbin, The Time Illusion
- Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems
Biology / Anthropology
- Henrich, The Secret of Our Success
- Scott, Against the Grain
- Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
- Ridley, The Red Queen
- Mukherjee, The Gene
- Pinker, The Blank Slate
Space
- Murray, Apollo: The Race To The Moon
- Kurson, Rocket Men
China
- Bougon, Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping
- McGregor, The Party
- Wang, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
- Kroeber, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know
- Lovell, Maoism: A Global History
- Studwell, How Asia Works
Politics / Sociology
- Mansfield, Tocqueville
- Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
- Bastiat
- The Law
- That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
- Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
- Caplan
- The Myth of the Rational Voter
- Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality
- Kling, The Three Languages of Politics
- Gurri, The Revolt of the Public
- Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
- Rothbard, Anatomy of the State
- Wriston, The Twilight of Sovereignty
- Snow, The Two Cultures
- Zeihan, The Accidental Superpower
- Fisher, Capitalist Realism
Ideas, Broadly
- Bayles, Art and Fear
- Johnstone, Impro
- Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
- Taleb, Incerto
- Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
- Gray, Straw Dogs
- Simler and Hanson, The Elephant in the Brain
- Yudkowsky, Inadequate Equilibria
- Thiel, Zero to One
- Ito, Whiplash
- Landsburg, The Big Questions
Art
- Gombrich, The Story of Art
- Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
- Moser, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- Knausgaard, So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch
- Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon
- Wilde, The Critic as Artist
- Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice
- Berger, Ways of Seeing
Music
- Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers
- Swafford, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
- Johnson, Mozart: A Life
- Murakami, Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa
Film
- Tarantino, Cinema Speculation
- Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time
- Dyer, Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room
- Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
Investing
- Graham, The Intelligent Investor
- Marks, The Most Important Thing
- Dalio, Principles
- Feld, Venture Deals
Writing
- McCloskey, Economical Writing
- Strunk, The Elements of Style
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