Lists: Books, Books, and more Books!

I am a voracious reader of books on a broad swath of topics. Here is an ongoing list of recent reads as well as favorites. Check periodically for updates!

This post will be refreshed periodically as I add to my reading list.

Section I will cover Recent Reads. Section II will be Favorites by Category.

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SECTION I: RECENT READS

I’ve been keeping lists of books I’ve read over the last few years and find it interesting to revisit these lists (and some books) from time to time as a way of recollecting what was top of mind in that year. I share the lists below.

I tend to be in the middle of multiple books at the same time so the *’s denotes books in progress that weren’t finished that year, so you will see some names carry over to the next year.

It’s also interesting to note that my book consumption started declining in 2020 because I started consuming massive amounts of podcasts last year. Maybe I’ll compile a list of podcasts sometime.

2023 Reading List

1. Money And Empire

2. The Fall of Gondolin

3. Egyptian Mythology*

4. The Battle For Bretton Woods

5. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

6. The Money Revolution

7. The Children of Hurin

8. The Millionaire Messenger*

9. The Fall of Numenor

10. The Book of Lost Tales I*

11. Beren and Luthien

12. The Globalization Myth

13. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt*

14. The Royal Mummies*

15. Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History*

16. Beneath the Sands of Egypt

17. The Strategy of Denial*

18. Alexander the Great

19. Mindset*

20. The Art of War

21. Danger Zone

22. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

23. Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection *

2022 Reading List

1. Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey To Quantum Gravity

2. The World For Sale

3. Mao

4. The Absent Superpower

5. Geopolitical Alpha

6. This Is Your Mind On Plants

7. Sacred Knowledge

8. The Blue Age

9. Central Banking 101

10. Pompeii*

11. The End of the World Is Just The Beginning

12. All The Kremlin's Men

13. The Fed Unbound

14. Designing The Mind*

15. The Dark Forest*

16. Lords of Finance*

17. Shorting The Grid

18. Disorder

19. The Silmarillion

20. Chip War

21. The Book of Lost Tales*

22. The Atlas of Middle Earth*

23. Guide To Tolkien’s World: A Bestiary

24. Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests

2021 Reading List

1. The Bitcoin Standard

2. The Little Bitcoin Book

3. The 48 Laws of Power

4. The Price of Tomorrow

5. The New Map

6. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”

7. Another Big Lie

8. A Flag Worth Dying For

9. The Great Mental Models, Volume 1

10. The Great Mental Models, Volume 2

11. Thrivers

12. The Art of Worldly Wisdom*

13. Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness

14. The Genius of Birds

15. Dark Matter And The Dinosaurs

16. What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions*

17. Destined For War

18. Dying of Money*

19. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

20. The Soul of an Octopus

21. The Lessons of History*

22. The Stand

23. The Next 100 Years

24. Metazoa*

25. The God Equation

26. "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character

27. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*

28. Feynman - Six Easy Pieces

29. Feynman - Six Not-So-Easy Pieces*

30. The Storm Before The Calm

31. Physics of the Future*

32. The New Great Depression

33. The Body Keeps The Score*

34. No Rules Rules*

35. How to Change Your Mind

36. China Unbound

37. Damsel In Distressed

38. The Power of Geography

39. Range: Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World

40. Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime*

41. The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Volume I*

42. The Generalissimo*

43. The Three-Body Problem

44. The Hidden Life of Trees*

2020 Reading List

1. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.*

2. An Inconvenient Truth*

3. Super Human

4. The Hockey Stick Illusion*

5. HTML & CSS*

6. Sapiens

7. The Lost City of the Monkey God

8. Clean Disruption

9. Net Social Cost of Electricity

10. SPQR*

11. Memories, Dreams, Reflections* (Jung)

12. Very, very, very Dreadful

13. Man’s Search For Meaning

14. The Philosophy Book*

15. Spillover*

16. Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time

17. Men And The Water or Life*

18. The Great Crash 1929

19. Viewpoints of a Commodity Trader

20. Baruch*

21. The Accidental Superpower

22. The Yosemite

23. The Mortgage Wars

24. Disunited Nations

25. How to Destroy America In 3 Easy Steps*

26. The Professor, The Banker and the Suicide King

27. Thinking In Bets

28. Hold ‘Em Poker*

29. The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes

30. Game On!

31. The Future of Humanity

2019 Reading List

1. Snowball

2. The Demonologist

3. The Survivors Club

4. Ship of Fools

5. Rape of Nanking

6. Positive Intelligence

7. Power of Now

8. Mountain Shadow

9. The Alchemist

10. A New Earth

11. Life 3.0

12. Cathedral: The Story of its Construction

13. Berkshire Hathaway: Celebrating 50 Years of a Profitable Partnership

14. The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

15. The Sopranos Sessions*

16. The Silk Roads

17. The Algebra of Happiness

18. Endurance

19. Prisoners of Geography

20. Essentialism

21. The Happiness Curve

22. The New Silk Roads

23. Andrew Carnegie

24. The Third Revolution

25. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change

26. Unfuck Yourself (audiobook)

27. The Power of Vulnerability (audiobook)

28. The Man Who Solved the Market

29. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.*

30. Stillness Speaks (audiobook)

31. An Inconvenient Truth*

32. Power of Now (audiobook)

33. Super Human*

34. The Hockey Stick Illusion*

35. HTML & CSS*

2018 Reading List

1. King Icahn

2. Shale Energy Development

3. The King of Oil

4. The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot

5. Iraq and the Politics of Oil

6. Escape from Camp 14

7. Hero with a Thousand Faces *

8. The First Billion Is The Hardest Proof of Heaven

9. Hardwiring Happiness

10. Inside the Kingdom

11. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

12. Hillbilly Elegy

13. The Intelligent Investor

14. Tulipomania

15. The Wisdom of Crowds

16. Norse Mythology

17. Win Bigly

18. Straight Talk on Trade

19. Mythology

20. JFK and the Reagan Revolution

21. The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs

22. The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels

23. Leonardo da Vinci

24. Einstein

25. Iron John

26. Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders

27. The Outsiders

28. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory

29. University of Berkshire Hathaway

30. Benjamin Franklin

31. Simply Einstein

32. Money Masters of Our Time

33. The Elegant Universe

34. Foundation

35. Cable Cowboy

36. Foundation and Empire

37. Second Foundation

38. Poor Charlie’s Almanack

39. Margin of Safety

40. Children of Time

41. Why We Sleep

42. Explore/Create

43. The War of Art

44. The Official Book of Ultima*

45. The Four

46. The Agony and the Ecstasy

47. Education of a Value Investor

48. Enchiridion (Epictetus)

49. Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)*

50. How Google Works

51. Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Mistakes

52. Life After Google

53. Bulletproof Diet

54. Manual of Ideas*

55. The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness

56. Journey to the Ants*

57. Survivors Club

58. Wool

59. The Demonologist*

60. Shantaram

61. Snowball*

62. Ahsoka

2017 Reading List

1. Red Notice

2. The Oil Kings

3. Out of the Desert

4. The Green and the Black

5. Black Edge

6. Principles

7. History of the US in 5 Crashes

8. Winter is Coming

9. The Quest

10. Market Madness

11. The Boom

12. Myths of the Oil Boom

13. Ready Player One

14. Elon Musk

15. The Everything Store

16. A Game of Thrones

17. Siddartha

18. Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

19. The Book of Joy

20. An Unquiet Mind

21. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

22. What a Fish Knows

23. Asia’s Cauldron

24. Lessons of History

25. Star Wars: Deceived

26. Letting Go

27. Shoe Dog

28. Shale Boom Shale Bust

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SECTION II: FAVORITES BY CATEGORY

This section has lists but also some reviews scattered here and there. Someday, I’d like to clean up this section/

BIOGRAPHIES

Mao, Chang

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,” Feynman

Very few books can make me LOL consistently. Not only did this book do that for me, it also caused me to go down a deep rabbit hole on quantum mechanics.

Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson

Another unforgettable read for me, especially since I read it en route to Milan/Venice. I loved how Isaacson started his Leonardo da Vinci biography by recounting how Leonardo sent Duke Sforza his long resume, which included building bridges and war machines like these, and finally at the end a postscript: “I can also paint a little.”

Andrew Carnegie, Nasaw

My biggest takeaway from this book was how “history may not always repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” to paraphrase Mark Twain.  The inexorable march of technological progress has consistently exerted deflationary pressure on wages and forced labor to become more educated/skilled in order to adapt.  Another recurring theme that is topical to today’s world is how the capitalistic engine of the Industrial Era in the U.S. both laid the groundwork for tremendous economic growth as well as some of the social issues that go with that growth (wealth inequality, labor rights, etc).  Finally, germane my own investments in commodity industries, it outlined the importance of being the lowest-cost producer when one has no control over commodity prices as was the case with Carnegie and the steel industry.

On the one hand, this “rags-to-riches” tale extols the virtues of the “American Dream” made possible by capitalism: how a poor immigrant boy from Scotland began his career as a “bobbin boy” in a cotton factory and stair-stepped his way  from industry to industry, eventually becoming one of the most prominent industrialists and philanthropists of America. 

On the other hand, it also paints a dark side to the fully unregulated capitalism of the day, showing how a complete lack of government protections against trusts/price-fixing led to rampant crony capitalism and a very uneven playing field, often causing violent clashes between corporations and unions.

Most interesting, however, was the fact that throughout Carnegie’s lifetime, technological innovation was the one constant that kept exerting a deflationary force on the economy.  The widespread adoption of the power loom cost Carnegie’s father (a handloom weaver) his job and forced the family to emigrate to America.  Throughout Carnegie’s steel career, inexorable advances in steel-making technology like the Bessemer process constantly created efficiencies that increased productivity but exerted downward pressure on wages.  If this happened over 100 years ago, imagine what is happening today in a global, cloud-connected society with AI/machine learning advances every other day.

The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China, Taylor

ENERGY / CLIMATE CHANGE

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Epstein

I found this book to be very provocative and eye-opening in many ways.  Alex Epstein, the author, very convincingly debunks a lot of myths regarding fossil fuel use and makes the case (with a lot of supporting evidence) that:

1. Fossil fuel use has greatly improved human quality of life for billions.

2. The Earth has been on a consistent warming trend since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution – long before significant carbon emissions could have possibly been an influence.

3. Most climate models have been grossly inaccurate (i.e. not even close) in their predictions.

4. Outside of nuclear, fossil fuels remain as the most efficient generator of energy for humankind.

5. There is much to-do about developing battery technologies (forget about the environmental impact of this) to enable widespread use of intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar – nature has already produced the most efficient battery, and it is called the hydrocarbon.

In short, he is not arguing against global warming nor is he denying that carbon emissions contribute to global climate change; rather, he makes the case that 1) the mainstream discussion regarding whether or not to eliminate fossil fuels from our energy diet largely revolves around inadequate theories that fossil fuels are the primary determinant of climate change (as opposed to long geologic eras of climate change that are inexorable), and 2) that it is not fair to single out the shortcomings of fossil fuels without simultaneously considering the positive contributions (cheap, abundant energy for billions).

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, Morano

My intent was to get educated on this subject, because it has become such a political hot potato when it seems to me that it should be a discussion that is fact-based.  This book, although partisan at times, was very revelatory on several fronts and at least gave me an overview of the main points of controversy in this debate.  I believe it is an important topic that affects everyone on Planet Earth and that there are extremists on both sides of the argument that obfuscate the issues in the name of politics and policy objectives.  At the minimum, it has led me to purchase several more books on the topic and led me to interview people myself on the topic, which led to this post:

Down the Rabbit Hole of Climate Change / ESG Investing & Disruption of Hydrocarbons.

FINANCE

Required Reading for My Analysts When I Ran My Hedge Fund:

Converts/Options:

• Convertible Securities, Calamos

• The Best Kept Secret on Wall Street, Nelson

• Option Volatility & Pricing, Natenberg

Markets/Trading:

• Market Wizards, New Market Wizards, Schwager

• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Lefevre

Equities/Valuation:

• The Intelligent Investor, Graham

• Margin of Safety, Klarman

• Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, Buffet

Other Favorites (alphbetical by author):

• Merger Mania, Boesky

• Metal Men: Marc Rich and the 10-Billion Dollar Scam, Copetas

• Margin of Safety, Klarman

• The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, Zuckerman

This was a quick, fun read but as an investor I was selfishly hoping for something a little more market-insightful, but I guess it’s not surprising to me given the iron-clad NDA’s required of all of Simons’ employees.  After reading this, I don’t know whether to be inspired or depressed as a fundamental investor, because it seems like the Renaissance team has truly carved out an almost unassailable edge through the successful harnessing of complex mathematical algorithms and machine learning.  I used to require my hedge fund employees to read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, which was about a legendary speculator named Jesse Livermore (1877-1940) and his incredible ups and downs in the markets during the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century, because I always said that, “Markets and technologies may change, but the two market constants are investor greed and investor fear.”  While I still largely hold this thesis, this book was sobering to me in that it shows that technology can even disrupt a highly uncertain and dynamic field like investing, so as in Carnegie’s/Livermore’s era, we need to keep learning new things to adapt.

GEOPOLITICS

• China Unbound, Chiu

• The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, Economy

  I thought this was a very, no-nonsense depiction of Xi Jinping’s rise to power, how his worldview was heavily influenced by Mao vs. Deng and explains why perhaps there is rare bi-partisan support for trade policies that stand up to China – when the “carrot” strategy doesn’t work, sometimes you have to use the “stick.”  Fascinating to see the motivations behind China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative as well as some of the consequences.

• The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Frankopan

  I read this earlier this summer en route to the heart of Turkey for our family summer trip.  I generally like to read something topical to where we visit, and this was a phenomenal book about the importance of geography.  Of particular interest to me (due to my trip) was how and why Constantinople held such an important role in world history due to its geographic position straddling Europe and Asia.

• The New Silk Roads, Frankopan

  Was a bit disappointing vs. Frankopan’s first book, The Silk Roads.  The first third of the book gave some interesting insights on how China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative is influencing development in the Central Asian countries (the “-stans”: Kazahkstan, Turkemistan, Kyrgyszstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan).  Unfortunately, the next two-thirds of the book devolved into a highly partisan tirade, which is a turn-off to me in any book.

• The Next 100 Years, The Storm Before The Calm, Friedman

• Prisoners of Geography, Marshall

  Continuing down this theme of the importance of geography, I found this gem of a book which takes you around the globe and frames age-old conflicts and modern geopolitics in geographical terms. Fascinating to see how geography plays a huge role in a lot of current world conflicts like Russia/Ukraine, India/Pakistan, the instability in the Middle East, etc.

• Geopolitical Alpha, Papic

  

• The New Map, Yergin

• The Accidental Superpower, The Absent Superpower, Zeihan

Some more Geopolitics books on my shelf:

MISCELLANEOUS

Range, Epstein

NON-FICTION NOVELS

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Lansing

Incredible true account of Ernest Shackleton’s doomed expedition to Antarctica in 1914 and the amazing story of grit, leadership and the will to survive against seemingly impossible odds.  Very engrossing and quick read.

Shantaram, Roberts

Finished this ~1200 pager in about 3 days a couple years ago. One of my favorite books of all time. Could not put it down!

PSYCHEDELICS

How To Change Your Mind, Pollan

Sacred Knowledge, Richards

PSYCHOLOGY / SELF-HELP

The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, Rauch

Although I’m not yet 50, I guess I’m already prepping for it!  This is somewhat of a dense read, but I found it fascinating nonetheless.  In short, the author cites clear statistical evidence that happiness follows a U-shaped curve, starting off high during youth when “the world is your oyster,” declining into middle-age ostensibly due to unrealistic expectations gaps as well as biological reasons, and then rounding the corner and going back into the highs thereafter – surprisingly even in infirm old-age situations.  Apparently, this pattern generally holds true across geographies, ethnicities – and even in other primates.  To my middle-aged friends – we all have something to look forward to!

SCIENCE / NATURE

Soul of an Octopus, Montgomery

Other Minds, Godfrey-Smyth

Reality Is Not What It Seems, Rovelli

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Feynman