Books

last updated 1/23/23

Inspired by seeing the same thing in a couple other places – a reasonably thorough list of books I’ve read and would recommend over the past few years, sorted somewhat arbitrarily. Particularly good stuff in bold.

  • The Revolt of the Public, Martin Gurri
  • Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam
  • Alienated America, Tim Carney
  • The Price We Pay – Marty Makary
  • 1491, Charles Mann
  • The Dawn of Eurasia, Bruno Maçaes
  • Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
  • Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
  • Enemy of All Mankind – Steven Johnson
  • The Invisible Hook, Peter Leeson
  • The Glorious Cause, Robert Middlekauff
  • Empire of Liberty, Gordon Wood
  • Hamilton, Ron Chernow
  • Washington, Ron Chernow
  • The Shortest History of England – James Hawes
  • The Shortest History of Germany – James Hawes
  • Prisoners of Geography – Tim Marshall
  • The Art of War, Sun Tzu 
  • The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
  • The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss
  • The Belgariad, David Eddings
  • Mistborn: The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
  • The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
  • Dune, Frank Herbert
  • Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov
  • Infomocracy, Malka Older
  • Red Rising, Pierce Brown
  • Dark Matter – Blake Crouch 
  • Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
  • Artemis, Andy Weir
  • Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
  • The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
  • The Fifth Season, NK Jemisin
  • This is how you lose the time war, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone 
  • Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
  • Mythos, Stephen Fry
  • Heroes, Stephen Fry
  • Troy, Stephen Fry
  • The Logic of Sports Betting, Ed Miller & Matthew Davidow
  • Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke
  • The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova
  • How to Build a Car, Adrian Newey
  • The Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking, Russell Carleton
  • The Only Rule Is It Has To Work: Ben Lindbergh & Sam Miller
  • AstroBall, Ben Reiter
  • The MVP Machine, Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik
  • The Charm School, Nelson DeMille
  • City of Thieves, David Benioff
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
  • Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
  • The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel
  • The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le Carre
  • Mycroft Holmes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  • The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore
  • What in God’s Name, Simon Rich
  • The Mastermind, Evan Ratliff
  • American Kingpin, Nick Bilton
  •  I Heard You Paint Houses, Charles Brandt
  • Writing my Wrongs, Shaka Senghor
  • Injustice for All, Chris Surprenant and Jason Brennan
  • Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Philip Tetlock
  • Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein
  • Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivation, Dan Ariely
  • Inadequate Equilibria, Eliezer Yudkowsky
  • Nudge, Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
  • Expecting Better, Emily Oster
  • The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis
  • Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
  • Super Pumped, Mike Isaac
  • Billion Dollar Fantasy, Albert Chen
  • The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
  • The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
  • How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan
  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz
  • The Everything Store, Brad Stone
  • Chaos Monkeys, Antonio Garcia Martinez
  • The Spider Network, David Enrich
  • The Man Who Solved the Market, Greg Zuckerman
  • Debt: the First 5000 Years, David Graeber
  • Dark Pools, Scott Patterson
  • The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis
  • Stubborn Attachments, Tyler Cowen
  • Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
  • An Economist Walks into a Brothel, Allison Schrager
  • The Rent is Too Damn High, Matt Yglesias
  • The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs
  • The Death and Life of American Cities, Jane Jacobs
  • One Billion Americans, Matt Yglesias
  • The Gated City, Ryan Avent
  • How Schools Work, Arne Duncan
  • The New Chicago Way, Austin Berg & Edgar Bachrach
  • The Nation City, Rahm Emanuel
  • 10% Less Democracy, Garrett Jones
  • Let the People Rule, John Matsusaka
  • But What if We’re Wrong?, Chuck Klosterman
  • Powerhouse, James Andrew Miller
  • All the Pieces Matter, Jonathan Abrams
  • Meet Me in the Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman
  • Original Gangstas, Ben Westhoff
  • Live From New York, James Andrew Miller
  • Wine Simple – Aldo Sohm