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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.
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
Money And Empire
The Fall of Gondolin
Egyptian Mythology*
The Battle For Bretton Woods
The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
The Money Revolution
The Children of Hurin
The Millionaire Messenger*
The Fall of Numenor
The Book of Lost Tales I*
Beren and Luthien
The Globalization Myth
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt*
The Royal Mummies*
Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History*
Beneath the Sands of Egypt
The Strategy of Denial*
Alexander the Great
Mindset*
The Art of War
Danger Zone
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection *
2022 Reading List
Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey To Quantum Gravity
The World For Sale
Mao
The Absent Superpower
Geopolitical Alpha
This Is Your Mind On Plants
Sacred Knowledge
The Blue Age
Central Banking 101
Pompeii*
The End of the World Is Just The Beginning
All The Kremlin's Men
The Fed Unbound
Designing The Mind*
The Dark Forest*
Lords of Finance*
Shorting The Grid
Disorder
The Silmarillion
Chip War
The Book of Lost Tales*
The Atlas of Middle Earth*
Guide To Tolkien’s World: A Bestiary
Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests
2021 Reading List
The Bitcoin Standard
The Little Bitcoin Book
The 48 Laws of Power
The Price of Tomorrow
The New Map
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”
Another Big Lie
A Flag Worth Dying For
The Great Mental Models, Volume 1
The Great Mental Models, Volume 2
Thrivers
The Art of Worldly Wisdom*
Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness
The Genius of Birds
Dark Matter And The Dinosaurs
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions*
Destined For War
Dying of Money*
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
The Soul of an Octopus
The Lessons of History*
The Stand
The Next 100 Years
Metazoa*
The God Equation
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*
Feynman - Six Easy Pieces
Feynman - Six Not-So-Easy Pieces*
The Storm Before The Calm
Physics of the Future*
The New Great Depression
The Body Keeps The Score*
No Rules Rules*
How to Change Your Mind
China Unbound
Damsel In Distressed
The Power of Geography
Range: Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World
Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime*
The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Volume I*
The Generalissimo*
The Three-Body Problem
The Hidden Life of Trees*
2020 Reading List
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.*
An Inconvenient Truth*
Super Human
The Hockey Stick Illusion*
HTML & CSS*
Sapiens
The Lost City of the Monkey God
Clean Disruption
Net Social Cost of Electricity
SPQR*
Memories, Dreams, Reflections* (Jung)
Very, very, very Dreadful
Man’s Search For Meaning
The Philosophy Book*
Spillover*
Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time
Men And The Water or Life*
The Great Crash 1929
Viewpoints of a Commodity Trader
Baruch*
The Accidental Superpower
The Yosemite
The Mortgage Wars
Disunited Nations
How to Destroy America In 3 Easy Steps*
The Professor, The Banker and the Suicide King
Thinking In Bets
Hold ‘Em Poker*
The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes
Game On!
The Future of Humanity
2019 Reading List
Snowball
The Demonologist
The Survivors Club
Ship of Fools
Rape of Nanking
Positive Intelligence
Power of Now
Mountain Shadow
The Alchemist
A New Earth
Life 3.0
Cathedral: The Story of its Construction
Berkshire Hathaway: Celebrating 50 Years of a Profitable Partnership
The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The Sopranos Sessions*
The Silk Roads
The Algebra of Happiness
Endurance
Prisoners of Geography
Essentialism
The Happiness Curve
The New Silk Roads
Andrew Carnegie
The Third Revolution
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change
Unfuck Yourself (audiobook)
The Power of Vulnerability (audiobook)
The Man Who Solved the Market
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.*
Stillness Speaks (audiobook)
An Inconvenient Truth*
Power of Now (audiobook)
Super Human*
The Hockey Stick Illusion*
HTML & CSS*
2018 Reading List
King Icahn
Shale Energy Development
The King of Oil
The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot
Iraq and the Politics of Oil
Escape from Camp 14
Hero with a Thousand Faces *
The First Billion Is The Hardest Proof of Heaven
Hardwiring Happiness
Inside the Kingdom
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Hillbilly Elegy
The Intelligent Investor
Tulipomania
The Wisdom of Crowds
Norse Mythology
Win Bigly
Straight Talk on Trade
Mythology
JFK and the Reagan Revolution
The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs
The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels
Leonardo da Vinci
Einstein
Iron John
Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
The Outsiders
Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
University of Berkshire Hathaway
Benjamin Franklin
Simply Einstein
Money Masters of Our Time
The Elegant Universe
Foundation
Cable Cowboy
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Poor Charlie’s Almanack
Margin of Safety
Children of Time
Why We Sleep
Explore/Create
The War of Art
The Official Book of Ultima*
The Four
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Education of a Value Investor
Enchiridion (Epictetus)
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)*
How Google Works
Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Mistakes
Life After Google
Bulletproof Diet
Manual of Ideas*
The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness
Journey to the Ants*
Survivors Club
Wool
The Demonologist*
Shantaram
Snowball*
Ahsoka
2017 Reading List
Red Notice
The Oil Kings
Out of the Desert
The Green and the Black
Black Edge
Principles
History of the US in 5 Crashes
Winter is Coming
The Quest
Market Madness
The Boom
Myths of the Oil Boom
Ready Player One
Elon Musk
The Everything Store
A Game of Thrones
Siddartha
Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
The Book of Joy
An Unquiet Mind
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
What a Fish Knows
Asia’s Cauldron
Lessons of History
Star Wars: Deceived
Letting Go
Shoe Dog
Shale Boom Shale Bust
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:
Fossil fuel use has greatly improved human quality of life for billions.
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.
Most climate models have been grossly inaccurate (i.e. not even close) in their predictions.
Outside of nuclear, fossil fuels remain as the most efficient generator of energy for humankind.
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:
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
Lists: Books, Books, and more Books!
Excellent list. Will you be back on Grant Williams' podcast at all?
A few noteworthy reads from my cheap seat in primary manufacturing:
- Vaclav Smil's 'How the World Really Works' (great companion to Shorting the Grid)
- Jean Edward Smith's Eisenhower in War and Peace (odd to read about a politician who seemed to, uh, actually care about something greater than his own ego)
- John Meacham's 'And there was light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle'
- Randy Lanier/AJ Baime 'Survival of the Fastest: Weed, Speed, and the 1980s Drug Scandal...'
- AJ Baime's Arsenal of Democracy
Here is a non obvious question. How do you select the books you are going to read. I have personally spent a lot of time spending on which books to read as I spend on actually reading (I read a lot too). My logic is simple. Time is the most precious commodity we have, way more important than money. And books are damn cheap compare to most other things. So it really boils down to you deciding whether a particular book is worth your time or not. And the more successful you are the more your time is worth. So this measure “normalises” across a wide spectrum. Would be very keen to hear your thoughts on it. Or if you want to hear mine, would be more than happy to share.