Home
I love stumbling on other people’s reading lists, so this is a list of many of the books I’ve read in recent years. I also keep a log on Goodreads.
Jump to:
Economics
- Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
- Davidson, The Sovereign Individual
- Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers
- Warsh, Knowlege 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
History
- Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
- Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome
- Caesar, The Civil War
- Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus
- Liddell Hart
- Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon
- Why Don’t We Learn from History?
- 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 Path to Power
- Means of Ascent
- Yergin, The Prize
- Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia
- Durant, The Lessons of History
- 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
Philosophy
- Nietzsche
- Twilight of the Idols
- Ecce Homo
- Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
- La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other Reflections
- 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, Intution Pumps
Biography / Memoir
- Zweig, The World of Yesterday
- 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
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
- 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
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, Volume I: Swann’s Way
- 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
- McCarthy
- Mitchell
- Vodolazkin, Laurus
- 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
- Norweigan 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
- Mishima
- Patriotism
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
- Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
- Woolf, The Waves
- Abbott, Flatland
- 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
- 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
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King
Poetry
- Eliot, The Wasteland and Other Poems
- Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
- Homer
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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Essays
- Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
- 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
Investing
- Graham, The Intelligent Investor
- Marks, The Most Important Thing
- Dalio, Principles
- Feld, Venture Deals
Writing
- McCloskey, Economical Writing
- Strunk, The Elements of Style
Other reading lists