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Books I Regard I Highly

Will try to keep updating this :). Most of the best books I've ever read were referenced in other books and articles I read - always double click down if you're interested in the topic! The references, as primary sources, are often obscure but much better for deep understanding of a topic.


Business:

Most business books are really articles with a bunch of fluff - don't waste too much time on them but great for audio books :).

Real books:

  • True Power by Vicente Falconi - occassionally you find a book that's basically explicates all the stuff bouncing around your head. This is one of them for me. Half of Affirm did it in a book club with me. That said, it really discusses 1 to N, not 0 to 1, so read it with that in mind. Some of it will kill true entrepreneurship if implemented too soon
  • Warren Buffett's Company Letters
  • The 3G Way by Homem de Mello
  • Range
  • Never Split the Difference
  • The Misson, The Men and Me

Audio books:
*

  • Trillion Dollar Coach



Leadership and Development but all are mostly about Self-Management and Understanding People:

Leadership:

  • Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney
  • Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh (audiobook)
  • Extreme Ownership/Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink
  • The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
  • Anatomy of Peace / Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute

Self-Management and Understanding People

  • Peak by Anders Ericsson / Competent is not an Option by Art Turock (latter is better)
  • The Upside of Stress
  • The Power of Full Engagement
  • Grit by Angela Duckworth
  • The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie- if everyone's read it, you probably should to
  • The Red Queen by Matt Ridley


How to think/solve problems:

Generally one should look to develop two skill sets: an ability to analyze data, in a statistically significant way, or work from first principles using "mental models”. Some primers! Farnam Street's blog has a good list as well

  • All Charlie Munger’s work (Poor Charlie’s Alamanack)
  • Seeking Wisdom by Peter Develin
  • The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
  • Living within Limits/ Filters on Folly by Garrett Hardin
  • Deep Simplicity by John Gribbin
  • Models of my Life by Herbert Simon
  • The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
  • Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
  • On Intelligence (flawed but fun) by Jeff Hawkings
  • An Introduction to Statistical Learning
  • The Element of Statistical Learning



Ethics/Spirituality/Philosophy:

Please, please don't just read Stoic works like most Silicon Valley people :). I love them, but there's so much more out there

  • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
  • The Gay Science by Nietzsche (Also, The Birth of Tragedy and Beyond Good and Evil)
  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelis
  • Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  • Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
  • Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian (this was written in the 1600s and is truly amazing in how relevant it is)
  • Heidegger: Being and Time
  • The Second Sex: Simone du Beauvoir
  • Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
  • I'll dig out a bunch more here over time...

Drop off from the above, but included for completeness :)

  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Teachings of Don Juan - I find it silly now, but it can be useful depending on where you are in life
  • The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner (see above note)


Bios:

"I was lucky.  Imagine learning that  from your dead great-grandfather, at a very young age.  But you know I  spent my whole life with dead people.  They’re so much better than many  of the people I’m with here on earth.  All the dead people in the world,  you can learn a lot from them.  And they’re very convenient to reach.   You reach out and grab a book.  None of those problems with  transportation. So I really recommend making friends among the immanent  dead.  Which of course I did very early.  And it’s been enormously  helpful.  Some of you wouldn’t have helped me.  But Adam Smith really  did." - Charlie Munger

Ron Chernow is probably my favorite biographer, but so many good ones.

  • House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
  • Andrew Carnegie by Joseph Frazier Wall
  • Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow
  • Ben Franklin's Autobiography
  • Sam Walton: Made in America (Autobiography)
  • About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior by David Hackworth (Autobiography)
  • Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Les Schwab: Pride in Performance (Autobiography)
  • Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace
  • Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
  • Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
  • The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger
  • The Autobiography of Malcom X (admittedly I didn't finish this. I had just gotten past his conversion and development as a civil rights leader when my mom found it and took it away. She had skimmed the first half...should note I was in 4th grade...sooo, yeah, don't really blame her. I learned A LOT though.

Novels (using this term loosely):

Listed in chronological order of my discovery of them. I'm sure I'm missing a ton but will fill in as I remember them. I've hardly read a novel in the the last 15 years...not ideal.

  • Chronicles of Narnia
  • Lord of the Rings
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Dune Series by Frank Herbert
  • The Foundation Series by Issac Asimov
  • Spacey Odyssey and Rama Series by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Brothers Karamazov (Amusing anecdote. I turned in my 8th grade paper again in college. Shout out to Mr. Mandis, the best 8th grade teacher ever)
  • Electric Kool Aid Acid Test (Second anecdote: I stopped reading for a couple years puberty as I'd moved around a couple times and was a total mess. This got me reading again)
  • The Red and the Black by Stendhal

Sex/Relationships/Manhood:

I was going to exclude this section, but what the hell. I acknowledge how embarrassing the below is...

  • Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - I put this first because of a quote: "We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need." I didn't realize not having my dad around from 8th to 12th grade until a few years later. I was...embarrassing with "girls". I slowly worked my way to having a... better handle...on this area as any total nerd would...reading about it.
  • The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
  • Fashion and Costume Design
  • On Love by Stendhal (this book, well the first half, is truly amazing)
  • The Story of My Life by Giacomo Casanova (this is shockingly well-written and fun)
  • Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos - The Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century - literally no idea how I found this, but amazing
  • Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
  • All the Robert Greene books (Art of Seducation, 48 Laws of Power, etc.) - they're pretty silly but useful to find primary sources
  • Sperm Wars by Robin Baker
  • The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
  • Emergency by Neil Strauss (I did read The Game - this is, perhaps, weirdly much more useful as the author had grown a lot)