With so little time (< 30,000 days) and so many books (> 10^8), I think it’s important to spend time on books that are great — not good — great. Here are a list of books that I think are worth reading. If you think I’m missing something here, great! Let me know so I can read it!
Ideas
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS, Elizabeth Pisani
The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman
Influence, Robert B. Cialdini
An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen
Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore
The Shallows, Nicholas Carr
The Mythical Man-Month, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
Peopleware, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
What Women Want, Paco Underhill
How To Lie With Statistics, Darrell Huff
Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh
All Marketers are Liars, Seth Godin
The Long Tail, Chris Anderson
Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely
How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, Robin Dunbar
Viral Loop, Adam L. Penenberg
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
The Medici Effect, Frans Johansson
Evil Plans, Hugh MacLeod
Sex At Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
Microcosm, Carl Zimmer
Denialism, Michael Specter
Talent Is Overrated, Geoff Colvin
Lessons/Skills
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnigie
Using Your Brain — For a Change, Richard Bandler
Comedy Writing Secrets, Mel Helitzer and Mark Shatz
Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Peter D. Kaufman
Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons, Seymour Schulich
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence, Tom Peters
What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, Tina Seelig
The Art of Powerful Conversation, Stuart Knight
Rules for Aging, Roger Rosenblatt
The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss
Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki
Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The Art of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau
Biographies
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Roger Lowenstein
Blackberry, Rod McQueen
The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleck
Economics/Business/Wealth/Innovation
The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham
Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, Phillip Fisher
Investment Valuation, Aswath Damodaran
Naked Economics, Charles Wheelan
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, Roger Lowenstein
The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
Value Investing, Glen Arnold
Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter
How to Read a Financial Report, John A. Tracy
Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis
The Big Short, Michael Lewis
Technical
Probability Theory: The Logic Of Science, E. T. Jaynes
Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs, Scott Meyers
Interest
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max
The Alphabet of Manliness, Maddox
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
Fortune’s Formula, William Poundstone
The Art and Science of Cold Reading, Tradecraft
Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The Bed of Procrustes, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, Kageyama
