Opens your eyes to a wide array of fallacies that govern our daily life (unknown unknowns, "experts" explaining past events as obvious in retrospect, the news, predictions, survivorship bias, confirmation bias, iatrogenics and a lot, lot more) — almost to a fault, i.e. if you take it too far, you'll see these fallacies everywhere and things like stories of success/failure, biographies (or history in general) etc. will no longer make the same impression.
Note that the books are adapted from a free podcast of the same name, hence perhaps why they feel so comparatively approachable. As a podcast, however, I didn't find it easy listening in the usual contexts and states of mind that you would be listening to podcasts.
I had previously tried reading Anthony Kenney's a new history of Western Philosophy, but it didn't seem to me to contextualize each philosopher against their forebears as well as Adamson. This made each discussion seen isolated and made it more difficult to empathize how each philosopher grew to have the ideas they had, and why they are so interesting, since one ends up compelled to compare against our current far more sophisticated milleu.
Now, why I find these books so rewarding; they elucidate how we have come to have the frameworks through which we perceive the world, and also provide contrasts to them.
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem - It shed light on me in regards to microelectronics, swarm intelligence. Nothing ever eased my learning curve more for genetic algorithms like this short novel! It is also a good read in general. It also taught me that the difference in scientific vs force vs emotional approach to unknown. Would recommend as a springboard from a day-to-day acitivities.
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky - a Soviet sf classic, I've read it 3x already. It tells a story about a closed zone where 'aliens' left their artifcats, and how that changed people around them.
Ender's Game - I don't think there is an explanation needed. It is a total classic. It helps a lot to understand outsiders, not just aliens but a humans too.
All of the above are either hard or soft sf.
1. The Morning of the Magicians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians)
This book, although many (most?) of its claims are disproved really had an impact on me since it showed me that there could be _a lot_ more in the world than meets the eye. Everything around us and in history is filled with mysteries, unanswered questions. You could find interesting things everywhere. I would say the content is not the important part, but it instills the curiosity to dig deeper.
2. Memories, Dreams, Reflections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories,_Dreams,_Reflections)
A semi-autobiography of Carl Jung. It made me realise how "meta-programmable" humans are. How much of how we think can be though upon, itself. How we can introspect on our thoughs ... with our thoughts. Basically, made me in awe of conscious beings.
3. Ficciones (Fictions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones)
This is classic from Jorge Luis Borges. It showed me at the time "experimental" literature. How can one can push story-telling to another level, like many other art forms have done.
- The Stupidity Paradox. Ever feel the world works in a "stupid" way? That your organization keeps promoting stupid ideas? Read this book and get into the roots of functional stupidity. It's a bit repetitive, but extremely insightful book.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. The book I most recommend for any software professional.
From my notes:
"This is a non-fiction work translated from the original Polish. It is not a light work: it encompasses Lem’s complex and intricate musings and theories on technology, nature, genetics, cosmology, philosophy, biology, information theory, ecology, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, robots, programming, identity (cloning), human nature and how these all relate to mankind’s possible future or lack thereof. He discusses the likely shape of galactic civilizations as well as the possible composition or origins of its components, where their intelligence comes from, where it would likely develop, where it wouldn’t, why science fiction is lazy and, above all, he keeps the discussion rigorously supported by data, even when he seems to be engaging in the most whimsical flights of fancy."
"It is not an easy read, but it is legitimately a work of staggering genius. You don’t have to agree with him on everything, but you can’t argue with his method, with his intellectual rigor and devotion to the scientific method to reduce the ineffability of who we are and where we’re headed."
Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation.
Surprisingly readable and insightful, even if you don't buy his metaphysics. Einstein had Schopenhauer's portrait on his wall and considered him a genius.
* Poetry
John Milton - Paradise Lost
Powerful and beautiful writing.
* Fiction
Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel. Funny and a real feast of words (the translation is a work of art in itself)
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain. Haunting and moving
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons. Scandalous, gripping.
Ivan Turgenev - First Love. A masterclass in writing. Short, sensitive and exquisitely told.
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life.
PG Wodehouse - the Jeeves series. Hilarious, perfectly frivolous, light and sunny
* Non-fiction
Stuart Russell - Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control. Potential bad outcomes from AI and what we might be able to do about them
Noam Chomsky - Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. How public discourse is shaped and controlled
Karl Popper - The Open Society and its Enemies. How to work against totalitarianism
The Incerto Series by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: where to start...I started reading this series over a decade ago and I still think about it weekly. It can be very dense to get through as I took a lot of notes. But I think it's worth the trouble. One of my favorite chapters is via negativa. This is the concept that it is easier to know what NOT to do than what should be done. Many interested ideas flow out from that when it comes to personal health, public policy, and morality.
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: this book opened up my eyes to a host of mental biases. It's similar to some of Taleb's work but IMO easier to read. My favorite chapter surrounded the idea of the self as your memory vs your experience. Thought experiment: if you could take your dream vacation at no expense but would have no memories or photos/videos of the trip would you do it?
I've read a few other of the popular programmer books eg Clean Code, Refactoring, the Pragmatic Programmer, Working Effectively With Legacy Code, and I didn't get much value from any of them. They're not bad, it's just that they didn't teach me much that I hadn't already picked up on the job, and I didn't feel like a book was the best way to learn their lessons as opposed to just picking up what you need to know from Google, colleagues, etc, over the years as you gain experience.
It opened up my mind to a whole new reality which was hidden in plain sight.
It was written by a graphics engineer who worked on the Android team, so it has some of that insider technical feel to it. Chet writes that he tried to make it accessible to the layperson too.
One interesting thing is how Android was formed from the remnants of teams from Danger, Palm/Be, and WebTV/Microsoft, who all had their own ideas on how to do these devices the right way (and what not to do). Also the project was not done slowly and carefully, but was a mad dash to get something out before something like iPhone completely took over the market. Some of the coding specialists they needed probably could not have passed Google's interview bar at the time, so Android was kind of a company within the company, which could bypass Google's interview bar in some cases.
I am an Android programmer so the book was especially interesting to me. It started out as a Javascript demo of an operating system for digital cameras in 2003. Android became an operating system that is actively being used by three billion mobile devices by 2022. So it as an interesting story of exponential growth, in the not too distant past.
Just like learning the math theorem is practically worthless without doing the exercises (at least to me), I'll advise to just do something in the domain you want to be elevated in. Of course this doesn't apply to things you can't hope to do: for example History's lessons; Invading another country all alone is quite resource-consuming.
Having your outputs to show the outside world is quite gratifying! You're not a pure function.
Self Help:
* Craft your own time management system (and write and sell a book about it)
* Create a blog in which you ponder about life
* Try to gracefully start a conversation with random people. You never know what you can learn
* Begin a new sport, like climbing
Tech:
* Write a silly website in Typescript + React, or WebGL
* Craft a new small language of your own
* Do an HTML parser in APL
* Port a concurrent library to Zig
* Like pg says, identify things you think are the future and do things with them
Misc:
* Try to decipher a latin text just from how the words resemble the words you know
Basically just give some ressource to that weird side project idea that keeps popping up in your head.
Do the mistakes first, and only then learn the theory of what can work. And iterate back and forth between exercises and theory. Let the exercises guide what you want to learn. It'll help you deal with failures and lack of results and might even give you the freedom of being weird.
It's probably different for fiction, but I've just recently started to get into that.
- Behave, by Robert Sapolsky. Here's[1] my mini review from the past. I've also picked up various other fascinating books from Behave.
- Seneca's all of 124 letters. A good English translation is key here. Get the edition published Chicago University; translated by Anthony Long and Margaret Graver. (Related: I wrote about high quality translations by top scholars of Stoic works here[2].)
Two fiction:
War and Peace: There's just has so much life in this book. The things you read, they age with you over time. I wish I could read it in the original
Ulysses: I don't know why I like this book tbh. There's a lot of "fluff" to it, but the parts that are good are so exceptionally good you will need to come back to them. I started reading the Wake a year ago and took a break bc busy. I still think about it though: he writes about culture like it's this drunken, surreal, fever dream. It's like you read it and wonder if this is how things actually are
It's about nature, how we're wired to think the wild landscapes we grew up with were pristine, how it's truly evolved through history in response to humans' presence and it's hard to really pinpoint a baseline, and how much wildlife and plant life has vanished so far in the last two hundred years (from whatever fuzzy baseline we can arrive at).
Earlier this year, I read Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and on almost every page I was taking notes! A huge eye-opener and felt like a missing link across sciences and social sciences. Also extremely readable and engaging.
Software engineering practices:
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications
- Site Reliability Engineering
- Software Engineering at Google
- Designing Event-Driven Systems
- The Data-Centric Revolution
- Code Complete
- Data Management at Scale
Self-help:
- So Good They Can't Ignore You
- Deep Work
- A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science
- Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- Ultralerning
Misc:
- The book of proverbs in the Bible
- The rest of the Bible
- On Intelligence
The Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver. I already knew I liked certain kinds of poetry, but never really understood why. This book breaks down metrical poetry and explains how it works.
The Rules for the Direction of the Mind by Descartes, aka the regulae.
The entire Aubrey-Maturin series starting with Master and Commander. Exquisite writing, funny, interesting, deep characters and chock full of interesting philosophy and life observations. These books are my happy place: like most fans of the series I have read them all 5 times, which I have never done with another series.
It's the transcript of a commencement speech he gave. It's really short.
I revisit it because it reminds me that everything is a matter of what you choose to think about. It's about realize that your thoughts are illusions and not becoming a slave to them.
I work for FAANG, so I struggle with reality on a daily basis.
- The Daily Stoic. A collection of snippets from stoic philosophers, tied with examples from modern living, it was a good and lightweight introduction to philosophy.
I personally find that beyond a point ( my point of course), it's worthless reading most books, the theme repeats and it then is a waste of time unless it's either entertainment or you if have a short memory.
Sapients was absolutely mind blowing and before it’s time. Many ideas in that book still resonate through the zeitgeist. Still worth reading.
- New Grub Street, George Gissing, 1891
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1867
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
- Candide, Voltaire, 1759
2. The Selfish Gene
3. Podcast: Kings of Kings
https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings...
Each one of these were worth every minute of read/listen.
Edit to add: The world around us feels like it was created as we see it today. But these books and the podcast, combined, show us how we got here, where we are today. Wars, long periods of peace, pandemics, evolution, human adaptability, luck, there are so many things that brought us where we are today. It's not a given, and we can lose it all and be pushed back to stone age, or further back, if we take our current progress for granted.
Republic - Plato
Laws - Cicero
National System of Political Economy - Friedrich List
Man and Technics - Oswald Spengler
The Bible
Finally a book that approaches climate change from an engineering perspective and focuses on possible, constructive solutions.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell will ruin fiction for you, from the classic myth up to modern storytelling.
2. The Crisis of the Modern World by Rene Guenon
3. Islam and the Destiny of Man by Gai Eaton
IMO these books are critical reading in a post-modern world to make any sense of life.
Always makes me think that as a species how we come to peace with and normalize extraordinary events.
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
Both offer a fictitious and simplistic introduction to eastern philosophy. Growing up as an atheist in Western Europe, I never realized just how deep the influence of religion on our culture, traditions and history was. These books gave me a playful look at Buddhism and Taoism, right when I needed it. Shifted my entire worldview.
Here is the start - https://brajeshwar.com/books/
Man in search of meaning
Atlas shrugged: too long winded, but popped my progressive reality buble.
Return to religion: made me see how most of our problems(depression, anxiety, meaninglessness) are caused by our lack of transcendental
Recently the bible, Marc, Genesis. But I saw the Peterson biblical lecture before, without that I would have not appreciated for sure.
I see all around me that the progressives are captured by ideologies, most cannot see clearly because their religious shaped hole almost always get filled with the ideology du jour. They tend to live meaningless lives, don’t have kids or very few, their couples are brittle, they run after money, travel, pleasures and then find out that it doesn’t give sustainable happiness.
My take is that our mind is religious even if you don’t want it to be, kind of our operating system. Better put something tested and reliable (with a few updates) than rewrite from scratch and fall in the same traps than everyone before.
As a person who hadn't finished a book in years, hadn't felt excited by a book, this reminded me of what it felt like to not be able to put a book down. It is non-fiction but written as a narrative. It was a good mix of history, economics, politics and business. I cannot recommend it enough.
It actually helped us understand the startup scenario in developing countries.
A World At Arms - A Global History of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg
I found it to be a shot of modern history that gave me surprisingly good context for many of current events. I really started to see world at different perspective . The author tries his best to avoid having a bias.
1. Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone
2. The Teenage Liberation Handbook
3. The Win Without Pitching Manifesto
I read a lot of fiction across many genres, but my long-time favourite is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
To avoid evil there is nothing more important than understanding how highly intelligent and likeable people end up perpetuating it. This book is a stunningly well written exploration of that.
"Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, Those smaller faults, half converts to the right." “ https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles...
To those who mentioned Marcus Aurelius's meditations, I recommend the reading of "Zen mind beginner's mind". Along the same lines of somewhat spiritual books, "Siddartha" is a classic and also Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet".
Very different: for my personal history, reading "Goedel, Escher, Bach" when I was 18 deeply affected my vision of things. Other science books I loved: "the unfolding of language" (historical linguistics) and "the world within the world" (physics and philosophy of physics).
For something much more recent, that changed my view of the contemporary world, I recommend "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling. It's about understanding "poor" countries in their variety and in a less stereotyped way, but especially about understanding that living conditions across the world, essentially without exception, have massively improved over the last century. I feel Rosling's is only part of the story, though, and "Sapiens" (mentioned by others below) tells parts of the other half.
I also like poetry, and in the rare occasions I am in the right frame of mind and focus to read poetry, it feels like a powerful meditation or prayer.
If you want to "expand" your vision of things, one thing I tried to do, and loved, is reading as much as possible books from other cultures, for example postcolonial literature. I particularly liked Chinua Achebe's "things fall apart". Somewhat related, "the moon and the bonfires" was deeply moving to me, the life of a man in agricultural Italy after ww2. The reason why I put these together is that they do something extraordinary: we are used to descriptions of africans during the colonization process, or of poor Italians after the war, but we are not very used to them being full three-dimensional characters, people like us, and stepping in their shoes.
Finally I enjoy travel books, for similar reasons. Among my favourites is "the road to Oxiana", written in the 1930s, and full of british humour. Also, Rory Stewart (british politician, diplomat and academic) walked Afghanistan in 2002 and told the story in "The places in between". Very, very helpful for understanding Afghanistan beyond the news.
I could go on forever!
It's a fantasy series that doesn't shy away from topics such as Mental Health, and all of the characters are extremely well written.
Then to fulfil the curiosity I would often read lot of blogs, articles on same topic. If I still feel that I am still not satisfied then I pick book on the topic.
I usually read around 20 books in an year and all are shortlisted [1] as per the above method. Last 3 books that I have read
- Code Breakers (I found the mRNA vaccine and gene editing fascinating) - How the world really works (To really understand that if the green future is really possible) - Natural Language Processing in Action (To understand how text models like GPT-3 really works
[1] - https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23156763-anmol-saini?s...
This book originally was for therapists, but later it got very popular and simplified for the common reader. I think it helps better than anything if you want to grow your soft skills. Because it does not have some generic advice on common life scenarios. It dives deep into the root cause of many issues any conscious living being will have. I find the mirror it holds to your face very healing for a lot of issues.
It changed how I look at the world, and our place in it. The sequels are equally as good and I've read them all many times.
These books helped me to realize that many insecurities I had where "common" in Software Engineering field. The last one is especially good if you're looking for improve your relations with people.
Before that I never really thought deeply about economics, but afterwards, it's almost like you have a deeper sense of predictions on cause-and-effect... there will always be second and third order effects (and higher harmonics so to speak).
2. The Satanic Verses by Rushdie.
(It felt like these two books have something in common.)
I don’t know where we are going but I know exactly how to get there
- Seven Languages in Seven Weeks
Career changing for me.
Fiction: Jurassic Park by M Crichton. Just for the world build up and writing
Non-Fiction: The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell. I fell in love with biology again after reading this book. The wonderful illustrations make the book come alive.
2. CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (Peter Walker);
3. Whole Again (Jackson McKenzie);
4. The Complete Robot (Isaac Asimov);
5. Outliers: The Science of Success (Malcolm Gladwell);
6. The Compound Effect (Darren Hardy).
It shows how politics works, and how there's no difference between democrats and dictators. Very interesting.
"The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
Don't let the title fool you. Its insights aren't limited to art. And very readable.
(The title may sound gimmicky, but it's actually very relatable in general.)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
It know better understand the importance of testing ideas before investing time and money.
* East of Eden - John Steinbeck
* How to Avoid a Climate Disaster - Bill Gates
- Lewis Dartnell The Knowledge: This book made me realize the fragility of modern technology and how it is funded on chemical industry, shipping, oil, and the exploitation of natural resources.
- Peter P. Wakker Prospect Theory: This is not an easy reading but it contains one of the few understandable and detailed explanations of rank-dependent utility theory and why early probability-weighing approaches were incorrect; a must read for anyone interested in rational decision making.
- Vöcking, Alt, et. al Taschenbuch der Algorithmen: This marvelous Springer book unfortunately only seems to be available in German; it's not at all what the title suggests, but rather a book that brings the fun back to programming, like an 80s hobby programming book; various contributors lay out their favorite algorithms and techniques in short, easy to read chapters. It's like Christmas for programmers.
- Rosen Handbook of Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics (Indian Edition): believe it or not, this handbook has helped me a lot with my work in philosophy; it's also the almost ideal handbook style, extremely concise but also very understandable. Of course, I didn't "read" this book but using it for reference was definitely worth it.
- Scott Programming Language Pragmatics: Anybody interested in creating a programming language should read this, preferably the latest edition (I don't know if it's still updated, though); I'm convinced that even though it mostly covers "generation 4" languages and earlier, if more language designers read this book, new programming languages would be better; not that anybody needs new programming languages, Common Lisp and Ada are perfectly fine.
- Jean-Claude Ellena Atlas of Perfumed Botany: Although it sounds a bit pretentious at times like the perfume market is in general (it's 90% marketing of emotions, 10% about the scent), this is a really nice and passionate book about perfumery with beautiful illustrations, written by one of the most renowned contemporary perfumers. It's also surprisingly cheap and by MIT Press.
- Duff / Gormly First Aid and Wilderness Medicine: This is perhaps the best first aid book out there. Of course, it doesn't replace a practical course but it's a great reference and generally good reading if you're interested in the topic.
There was another book I read as a child in German, translated from English. It fascinated me and was the main reason why I got interested in AI and ultimately studied philosophy and linguistics. It was about the Schank/Riesbeck group or some similar symbolic AI research at the time (during the 70s or early 80s) and mentioned meetings where members of the group watched Mork from Ork and analyzed Mork's misunderstandings. If anybody has an idea which book that was, please let me know!
Insightful and relate-able in a lot of ways.
For the mind:
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg - A great book on how to communcate more effectively with others.
Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman -He is the only psychologist ever to recieve the Nobel Prize if I remember correctly. This book scientifically digests human biases and errors and how they influence our every day lives and decision making. Sometimes it a bit too technical for my taste and I like mostly the first part. (its not an easy read) I rarely had so many Aha-moments.
A random walk down on wall street - For investing your income in stocks. What to do and what no to do. Simple, with facts.
Sapiens by Harari -Interesting, I remember it was a great read and fun read. Connecting a lot of dots :)
On programming:
Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann - I am failry a junior web dev, so any material that is clear and explains well is a great source of information and inspiration. This is such a book.
Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron - Teaches CS from the basics, which for me is a great source since I don't have a CS degree. I complement it with other materials from the internet (such as Harvard's CS50) for learning the fundamentals paralell working in my daily web dev job. Its a long book, so It will take a couple of months, years to go thorugh, but definitely worth the effort.
Fictions I love, without much introduction: Lord of the Rings Dune (first book) Game of thrones books For me JRRs storytelling is outstanding, the books are better than the serires IMO.
Spiritual Books:
(I am not a religous person by any means and I do not follow traditions) Spirituality for me means a deeper connection with the universe. If I really want to dig deeper than everyday work-life stuff I listen/read these books. Usually when there is a great emotional upheaval in my life or when I feel my daily distractions failed on me.
Power of now by Eckhart Tolle - This book gives me the occasional goosebumps, a great summary of all spiritual teachings (before becoming religions) in a really simple way. If you are interested in such, I highly recommend it.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - I see it mentioned here already, no intro needed.
Letters by Seneca - This book is a proof for me that the essential human experience, the core of what makes us human does not change over time. Seneca was a great stoic thinker, who is very relatable by anyone even today (and probably will be for many millenia)
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Suzuki Roshi - All true spiritual teaching have the same source, but all are expressed differently. This is a great, simple powerful book to read if you lean towards buddhism.
A Course in Miracles (no official author) -Now this is a heavy read. It has a textbook with daily practices also. This is definitely not a book for everyone.
Coming Apart - this book described the coming separation of the US into two “classes” long before it was widely talked about. Today most talk about it as a political divide. This book tackles it as a divide between knowledge workers and the rest. A controversial take that adds much needed food for thought to the conversation. If you’ve lived poor and you’ve also lived in a place like Palo Alto, you’ll be astounded by how readily you can point and say, “that’s me”. Lots of fascinating statistics.
Bowling Alone - a great book about the collapse of US social life. Dense, lots of statistics, but a clear picture is laid out of increasing isolation and alienation. Read it alongside something like Consumer’s Republic to understand how so much of this stems from the selfishness and individuality encouraged by consumerism in post-war America.
Triumph of the City - an excellent take that can be used as food for thought when people are talking about how dirty cities are. In truth, the author argues, they are our greenest “invention” ever. Lots of good evidence. Imagine collecting the trash if every human lived on their own acre of land. The sewage, the energy usage. Cities are incredibly efficient and clean.
The Man Who Solved The Market - everyone interested in finance needs to read this and it’s precursor More Money Than God. The Bogleheads and their index fund ilk are often correct when they say “money managers all lose to an index after fees”. Beating the market is nigh on impossible for all but a few. Most of those few work at Renaissance Technologies. Their Medallion Fund has made 36% after fees every single year since 1989. The fund does its best in market crash years. Closed to outside investors. A story of mathematicians essentially building models that can predict the future reliably. Utterly fascinating, the most successful money printer ever built. As a bonus, we learn that Jim Simons originally controlled this printer and spent the money helping US math teachers. He then ceded control to Robert Mercer, who used the printer’s output to fund Cambridge Analytica, Steve Bannon, Trump, etc.
The Snowball - a biography of Warren Buffet that tells an incredible story. The story is one of total obsession. Of a human who literally started from a few dollars, learned about some principles like compounding at age 6, and applied the exact same principles every day for the rest of his life with very little deviation. The craziest part of this story is how every 10 years, he’s surrounded by people saying “times have changed, you’re missing out”. Then those people get blown up by whatever black swan, and Warren’s snowball just grows and grows. He didn’t become a billionaire till he was in his 50’s but the snowball is still growing and he’s one of the richest people alive.
Something Deeply Hidden - Sean Carroll
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth - Paul Hoffman
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - Robert Kanigel
Lost in Math - Sabine Hossenfelder
The First Three Minutes - Steven Weinberg
Hyperspace - Michio Kaku
Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit
The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin
About Time - Paul Davies
Time Reborn - Lee Smolin
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
The Hidden Reality - Brian Greene
The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene
Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe - Jim Baggott
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
Three Roads To Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos - Seth Lloyd
Higgs - The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle' - Jim Baggott
Analogy Making As Perception - Melanie Mitchell
Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 1 - Ben Goertzel
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 2 - Ben Goertzel
The AGI Revolution - Ben Goertzel
Hackers & Painters by our very own Paul "pg" Graham
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy
The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder
Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff
Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology - Steven Levy
Ghost In The Wires - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Intrusion - Kevin Mitnick
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstrong
Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes
Charles Proteus Steinmetz: The Electrical Wizard of Schenectady - Robert Bly
Report From Engine Co 82 - Dennis Smith
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! - Al Ries and Jack Trout
Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries
Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition - Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
Marketing High Technology - William H. Davidow
Marketing Warfare - Al Ries
The Discipline of Market Leaders - Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
As for me, I can't really say that any single book was worth it in the sense - if I didn't read it, would I have been in the worse position or would I have missed some crucial and/or unique (only in that book) knowledge? Probably not.
PS: just not to sound entirely negative, I can recommend two ideas.
Idea 1: there are marks in Wikipedia, which denote especially good articles. And there is a meta page with a list of top10, top100, top1000 and so on pages. I made myself a personal project to read eventually through top1000 articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles
Idea 2: find a good in-depth history channel on youtube or a streaming service, explaining in-depth certain historic evens and the whole timeline. I wager a lot of things will turn out not quite as you may have remembered or imagined. It teaches a lot about social conflicts, wars, money etc. I can recommend a series of streams but they are in Russian. Don't have an English equivalent at the moment.