All The Books I've Read (Since I Started Keeping Track)

This will be a living, iterative page of the books i'm reading, lessons i've learned from them and thoughts about them. I'll try to update this continuously, but since it'll never be done, I thought i'd release something of a first draft anyways in case anyone wants to nerd out together about our favorite books.

Updates:

5/25- Updating with recent reads

1/31- Just dropping the list with some miscellaneous notes.

• Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

  • Along the same vein, I want to become a much better writer, so i’m using this book to do that. None of these tips and tricks mean anything if I can’t actually get myself to sit down and write so i’ll have to build that into my day. But once writing becomes a habit, it’s over for y’all.

• A philosophy of Software Design- More or less a list of principles of software design. I’m getting really into thinking about coding as a craft so this book has been fun to read in that regard.

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being

  • If you’re not already woo-leaning or artsy, this book might not resonate with you. That being said, I am both of those things, so this has been an incredibly inspiring and energizing read and is actually motivating a personal renaissance of my writing career. It’s getting me to think about how to design my entire life and how to tap into my creative sources. Highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to make things.

• The Defining Decade: Why your Twenties Matter

  • Light, inspiring read if you’re early in your twenties and don’t know which way is up.

• The Art of Possibility

  • Introduction to viewing the world as a malleable place where you can do anything, build anything, and be anything. Not grounded in anything but anecdotes, but nice to hear nonetheless.

• What Hedge Funds Really Do

• The Wisdom of Compassion by the Dalai Lama

  • I'm sure the Dalai Lama is a magical person, but a magical writer he is not.

• Jonathan Livingston Seagull

  • Let go of conventional wisdom, do the unpopular thing, figure out how to adjust incentive structures to maximize your goals

• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

  • Type I thinking- fast, reactive

  • Type II thinking- slow, deep, careful

• Everything is Fucked: A book about hope by Mark Manson

  • The opposite of happiness is a lack of hope. The world is run by emotions (this is why we don’t do things we know we should). True freedom is not getting everything you want but choosing what to sacrifice. Behaving non-transactionally will set us free.

• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari

  • Humans are basically just genocidal animals who screwed themselves by developing agriculture and leaving monke. Believing in common myths (stories) enables cooperation. Empires were oppressive but unifying. Some hot takes in here for sure.

• Become What You Are by Alan Watts

  • A collection of essays and analogies for understanding eastern philosophies. Maybe my favorite book ever. Basically my bible.

• Think Like a Freak

  • Examples of how thinking outside the box can pay dividends.

• Essentialism by Greg McKeown

  • A book about learning to care more deeply about less things. Great book to snap you out of a daze from time to time. Will be revisiting this one.

• Design of Everyday Things

  • A book about how everything gets designed. Imo the first half of the book was great but then returns were marginal.

• Swipe to Unlock

• Animal Farm by George Orwell

• 1984 by George Orwell

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

• The Startup of You

• The Blockchain Revolution

• Talking to Strangers

• The Alchemist

  • Every sentence is a metaphor for life. Can come off a bit trite if you're not ready to see the message (I wasn't the first time).

• The Four Agreements

  • Be impeccable with your word (integrity), Don't take anything personally, Minimize interpersonal assumptions, Always do your best. As with most spiritual books, you might have to need this book to enjoy this book.

• The Extended Mind

• The Power of Now

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

• How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

• Weapons of Math Destruction

  • Key takeaway: Using algorithms to categorize people in any way, shape, or form (but especially where Type II errors are expensive) is pretty much always a bad idea.

• Mastering the VC Game

• Catching the Big Fish

• Atomic Habits by James Clear

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

  • Funny book, taught me the meaning of life (42)

• Let the Great World Spin

  • I kept putting this one off but it's a beautiful exploration of the complicated and intersecting lives of people in New York. Great exploration of Solipsism through a multi-threaded narrative. Would recommend.

• Happiness and Other Small Things

• How to Win Friends and Influence People

  • Timeless. Key takeaways: be nice + kind, put others first, treat others how you would like to be treated, listen.

• Catch 22

• The Stranger by Albert Camus

• Metahuman

• Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty

• Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

  • Honestly an incredible personal finance with immediate and actionable ROI

• Design of Data Intensive Applications

• Trino: Up and Running

• Terraform: Up and Running

• Kubernetes: Up and Running

• Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen

• Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R

Also, when was the last time you read a book?

Go read, nerd.