Bookshelf: Book Summaries and Reviews
I owe my life to books. Knowledge, like any long-term investment, compounds at a rate that bores you at first, then astounds you in a few years.
Our ancestors have toiled through the muddled fog of ignorance, painstakingly recording each spark of truth so that its glow may not be extinguished, using this accumulated wisdom to illuminate humanity’s climb to prosperity.
Locked in this bookshelf are myriad superpowers, including the ability to eliminate suffering, strengthen moral character, achieve economic success, nurture fulfilling relationships, and actualize your true potential. I read because I wish to inherit this endowment.
Books I wrote
- Painless CSS: Learn Cascading Style Sheets from First Principles
Books I read: Summaries and Reviews
This is a collection of my personal notes, summaries, reviews, and selected quotes from each book. I created this page because I often get asked for book recommendations, and I can direct people here for more details. I hope it also helps you discover other books you may be interested in that you may not have heard of before.
Books are listed in random order. Recommendations are not endorsements, I do not necessarily agree with books I recommend.
FAQ
- Q: Why don’t you rate books?
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A: It’s difficult to rate all books on a single scale out of 5 stars or 10 points. Rating books presumes the book can be reduced to a one-dimensional metric that makes it globally comparable to all other books, which doesn’t really make sense.
How do you compare a book that is 10/10 in writing style but 5/10 in real-world usefulness to a book that is 5/10 in writing style but 10/10 in real-world usefulness? They would both presumably get an overall 7/10 rating, but that doesn’t mean they are of similar quality.
If you care more about reading pleasure then the first book is better, but if you care more about utility then the second book is better. This nuance can’t be captured in a one-dimensional rating scale.
- Q: Why are the books ordered randomly?
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A: I couldn’t think of an obvious one-dimensional scale that reflects the natural order of the books (see my answer to the previous question).
Alphabetical is not a natural ordering because titles (or authors’ names) starting with A don’t necessarily deserve more attention than those starting with Z. Further, titles (or names) that are proximate in the alphabet aren’t necessarily proximate in subject matter. Date (read or published) has the same problems, just substitute recent for A and old for Z or vice-versa.
Dewey Decimal is also not a natural ordering because it presumes a book can be shoehorned into a single subtopic when it may in fact cover a vast landscape of topics.
Therefore, lacking an obvious ordering, a random order is at least honest about its constituents being non-proximate and fair in distributing attention.
- Q: Why did you read/recommend X?
A: Reading or recommending a book is not an endorsement of that book. I do not necessarily agree with the books I read or recommend.
Click on the title of a book to read my review. If the title is not blue, it means I am still working on uploading my notes for that book. Get notified of new reviews.
- Hit Makers by Derek Thompson
- The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
- How to Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
- The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman
- The Consulting Economy by Jonathan Dison
- Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
- The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
- How to Not Die Alone by Logan Ury
- Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- It’s The Way You Say It by Carol A. Fleming
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
- Algorithms To Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
- Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
- Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
- Snoop by Sam Gosling
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
- The Straussian Moment by Peter Thiel
- Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- How to Fly a Horse by Kevin Ashton
- How to Instantly Connect with Anyone by Leil Lowndes
- Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
- Tribe by Sebastian Junger
- Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
- Click by Ori Brafman and Ron Brafman
- The Age of the Infovore by Tyler Cowen
- Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
- The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers
- The Tower by Chris Guillebeau
- What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson
- Average is Over by Tyler Cowen
- How To Speak How To Listen by Mortimer J. Adler
- The Mind-Gut Connection by Emeran Mayer
- How Children Learn by John Holt
- The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, and Shlomo Angel
- Annoying by Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman
- The Way of Men by Jack Donovan
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport
- Small Giants by Bo Burlingham
- Future Babble by Dan Gardner
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Models by Mark Manson
- It’s Not All About “Me” by Robin K. Dreeke
- How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
- Successful Aging by Daniel J. Levitin
- Trying Not to Try by Edward Slingerland
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
- Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
- Opening Up by Tristan Taormino
- Power and Love by Adam Kahane
- The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
- Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath
- How Children Succeed by Paul Tough
- The Power of Persuasion by Robert Levine
- Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
- The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore, Michael LeBoeuf, and Mel Lindauer
- Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by Allan and Barbara Pease
- Deskbound by Kelly Starrett
- America Against America by 王沪宁 (Wáng Hùníng)
- Financial Accounting by Paul Kimmel and Jerry Weygandt
- The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
- The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
- The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene
- Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith
- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
- This Will Make You Smarter by John Brockman
- Brain Trust by Garth Sundem
- The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss
- David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
- Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
- The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn
- 12 Rules For Life by Jordan B. Peterson
- Secret Ingredients by Stuart Laidlaw
- On Truth by Harry G. Frankfurt
- Smartcuts by Shane Snow
- The Start-up of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
- You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney
- Ready to Run by Kelly Starrett and T.J. Murphy
- Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray
- Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
- Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin
- Linear Algebra: Foundations to Frontiers by Margaret E. Myers and Robert A. van de Geijn
- How To Love by Thích Nhất Hạnh
- The Body by Bill Bryson
- Mightier Than the Sword by Kathleen Adams
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
- SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
- What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
- The Book In A Box Method by Tucker Max and Zach Obront
- Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday
- Don’t Call It That by Eli Altman
- The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau
- Everything is Fucked by Mark Manson
- Tribes by Seth Godin
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann
- Mastery by Robert Greene
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Lying by Sam Harris
- Principles by Ray Dalio
- Class by Paul Fussell
- The Complacent Class by Tyler Cowen
- Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
- Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
- Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne
- The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
- Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
- Future Crimes by Marc Goodman
- Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
- You Are What You Speak by Robert Lane Greene
- Fahrenheight 451 by Ray Bradbury
- A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel
- Range by David Epstein
- Reinforcement Learning by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto
- Purple Cow by Seth Godin
- Fuck Love by Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett
- Night by Elie Wiesel and Marion Wiesel
- Free Will by Sam Harris
- Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Ben Holden-Crowther
- Risk by Dan Gardner
- Mother Nature by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
- Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale and Stan Redding
- Quiet by Susan Cain
- Voice Lessons for Parents by Wendy Mogel
- The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
- The Road To Character by David Brooks
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
- The Power Of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath
- 50 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do by Daniel Kline and Jason Tomaszewski
- Nuclear War: What’s in it For You? by Ground Zero and Roger Molander
- The Habitual Hustler by Corey Breier
- Die Empty by Todd Henry
- The Six-Figure Second Income by David Lindahl and Jonathan Rozek
- The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
- Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
- And Mark an Era by Melvin T. Copeland
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver
- Understanding Machine Learning by Shai Shalev-Shwartz and Shai Ben-David
- She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Vampire Plagues by Sebastian Rook
- Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
- What Women Want by Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller
- Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
- Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
- This Book Will Teach You How To Write Better by Neville Medhora
- All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
- The Mythical Man Month by Fred P. Brooks
- Back Mechanic by Stuart McGill
- Modern Money Mechanics by Federal Reserve Bank Of Chicago
- The Flinch by Julien Smith
- How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
- Get Together by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, and Kai Elmer Sotto
- Choose Yourself! by James Altucher
- How to Solve It by George Pólya
- Do You Talk Funny by David Nihill
- Pricing on Purpose by Ronald Baker
- On Writing Well by William Zinsser
- Faster, Higher, Stronger by Mark McClusky
- The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray
- Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
- Linchpin by Seth Godin
- Fluent in 3 Months by Benny Lewis
- Priceless by William Poundstone
- How To Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
- Snakes in Suits by Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare
- Inadequate Equilibria by Eliezer Yudkowsky
- How to Win at College by Cal Newport
- Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
- Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
- Emotional Design by Don Norman
- Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Switzler, McMillan, and Grenny
- The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
- How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less by Nicholas Boothman
- Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
- Build & Launch by Justin Jackson
- The Passion Economy by Adam Davidson
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond
- Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
- The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
- The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
- Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin
- The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
- Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Investment Banking by Rosenbaum and Pearl
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- Unthinkable by Helen Thomson
- What Is Your Dangerous Idea? by John Brockman
- Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau
- Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- How to Do Things by David Cain
- Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Translated by Natasha Randall
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck? by Seth Godin
- Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
- The Wisdom of Psychopaths by Kevin Dutton
- Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday
- The World Is Curved by David Smick
- Practical Programming for Strength Training by Mark Rippetoe and Andy Baker
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Food Rules by Michael Pollan
- Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Jason Kelly
- Critical Mass by Philip Ball
- How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport
- Spent by Geoffrey Miller
- Yes! by Robert Cialdini and Noah Goldstien
- The Art of Deception by Kevin D. Mitnick and William L. Simon
- Contagious by Jonah Berger
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
- Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
- The Language Hacking Guide by Benny Lewis
- 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick
- Rationality from AI to Zombies by Eliezer Yudkowsky
- Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
- The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley
- This Explains Everything by John Brockman
- Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Sway by Ori Brafman and Ron Brafman
- The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
- Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joseph Sugarman
- Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler
- The Dip by Seth Godin
- The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
- The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert Letter
- Snowball by Warren Buffet
- The Real Thirteenth Step by Tina Tessina
- Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
- It’s the Way You Say It by Carol Fleming
- Mindwise by Nicholas Epley
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ by Jay Haley
- The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman
- Talking The Winner’s Way by Leil Lowndes
- The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Farsighted by Steven Johnson
- Win Your Case by Gerry Spence
- Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
- Buyology by Martin Lindstrom
- The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- The Myth of the Garage by Chip and Dan Heath
- The Age of Em by Robin Hanson
- The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
- Cesar’s Way by Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier
- You’ll See It When You Believe It by Wayne Dyer
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Outlive by Peter Attia
- When Anger Hurts by Matthew McKay and Peter Rogers
- How To Make Maximum Money in Minimum Time by Gary Halbert
- The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
- I Got There by JT McCormick
- The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles
- Lecturing Birds on Flying by Pablo Triana
- The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane
- How To Write Letters That Sell by Christopher Godefrey
- The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan
- Brief by Joseph McCormack
- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
- 80,000 Hours by Benjamin Todd
- Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Free by Chris Anderson
- Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer
- Cracking the Tech Career by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
- What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins
- What to Talk About by Chris Colin, Rob Baedeker, and Tony Millionaire
- Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein
- Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
- On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt
- The One Sentence Persuasion Course by Blair Warren
- The Science of Lifting by Greg Nuckols and Omar Isuf
- The 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss
- Give and Take by Adam Grant
- The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
- The Robert Collier Letter Book by Robert Collier
- The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner
- Wanting by Luke Burgis
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charles T. Munger, Peter D. Kaufman, Ed Wexler, and Warren E. Buffett
- Story by Robert McKee
- American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
- Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool
- Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
- The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
- Games People Play by Eric Berne
- The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
- Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Trump: The Art of The Deal by Tony Schwartz
- Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
- Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A. Glover
- The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman
- Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
- Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
- The 50th Law by Robert Greene
- 10% Happier by Dan Harris
- Breath by James Nestor
- Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
- Becoming a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza
- Age of Propaganda by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson
- How to Be Miserable by Randy J. Paterson
- Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- At Home by Bill Bryson
- Win Bigly by Scott Adams
- Fuck Feelings by Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett
- Why Are The Prices So Damn High? by Eric Helland and Alex Tabarrok
- Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
- What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles
- Crucial Accountability by Patterson, Switzler, McMillan, and Grenny
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
- Advanced Linear Algebra: Foundations to Frontiers by Robert A. van de Geijn and Margaret E. Myers
- The Hacking of the American Mind by Robert Lustig
- Money Master The Game by Tony Robbins
- The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely
- Brag Better by Meredith Fineman
- A Guide to the Good Life by William Braxton Irvine
- The Sports Gene by David Epstein
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
- The Art of Lifting by Greg Nuckols and Omar Isuf
- Quirkology by Richard Wiseman
- In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
- Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
- Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday
- Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday
- The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
- Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit by Steven Pressfield
- Skin In The Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister
- How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
- The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
- Play It Away by Charlie Hoehn
- The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
- Choke by Sian Beilock
- The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
- The Defining Decade by Meg Jay
- The Art of War by 孫子 (Sūnzǐ), Translated by Lionel Giles
- Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton
- Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
- The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely
- The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson
- Bare Minimum Parenting by James Breakwell
- Dark Lord’s Answer by Eliezer Yudkowsky
- Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin
- Talent by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross
- Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
- Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
- How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor O. Schwab
- Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden
- The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday
- The ABCs of Student Leadership by Sunjay Nath
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Big History by David Christian
- Originals by Adam Grant
- The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
- Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday
- The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
- A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
- 40 Alternatives to College by James Altucher
- The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne
- You’re Invited by John Levy
Prior Art
This bookshelf was inspired by: