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 MaƧaes
- 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