Bookshelf

Some of the best books I’ve read, sorted according to topic, with reviews linked where I’ve completed them.

Sometimes I write longer form book reviews! I’ll link to these as I generate them.

Math & Physics

• A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley
• Naive Set Theory, Paul Halmos
• Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Ian Stewart
• A Programmer’s Introduction to Mathematics, Jeremy Kun
• A History of Vector Analysis, Michael J. Crowe
• Adventures of a Mathematician, Stanislaw M. Ulam
• Linear Algebra Done Right, by Sheldon Axler
• Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire: The Biggest Ideas in Science from Quanta, Thomas Lin
• Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions, Frederick Mosteller
• Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Edwin A. Abbott
• Godel’s Proof, Ernest Nagel
• Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, Keith J. Devlin
• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos K. Doxiadis
• Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning (Dover Books on Mathematics), A.D. Aleksandrov
• Men of Mathematics (Touchstone Books), Eric Temple Bell
• Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, Max Tegmark
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World, David Deutsch
• The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth, Paul Hoffman
• The Order of Time, Carlo Rovelli
• The Prime Number Conspiracy: The Biggest Ideas in Math from Quanta, Thomas Lin
• The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter, Paul J. Steinhardt
• Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics, Gerald Jay Sussman

Computer Science & Programming

• Code, Charles Petzold
• Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming, Peter Seibel
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy
• In the Beginning…Was the Command Line, Neal Stephenson
• Programming Clojure, Stuart Halloway
• Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Glyn Moody
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Harold Abelson
• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn, Richard Hamming
• The Daemon, the Gnu, and the Penguin, Peter H. Salus, Jeremy C. Reed, Jon Hall
• The Design of Design, Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
• The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, M. Mitchell Waldrop
• The Joy of Clojure, Michael Fogus, Chris Houser
• The Little Prover, Daniel P. Friedman, Carl Eastlund
• The Little Schemer, Daniel P. Friedman, Matthias Felleisen, Duane Bibby, Gerald J. Sussman
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
• The Reasoned Schemer, Daniel P. Friedman, William E. Byrd, Oleg Kiselyov
• The Seasoned Schemer, Daniel P. Friedman, Matthias Felleisen
• The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder
• Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, Michael A. Hiltzik
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, David Kushner
• Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies, Andreas M. Antonopoulos
• Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money, Nathaniel Popper

Machine Learning & AI

• Deep Learning, Ian Goodfellow
• Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, Richard S. Sutton
• An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R, Gareth James
• Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Max Tegmark
• Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Nick Bostrom

Science Fiction

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1), Arthur C. Clarke
• Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1), Richard K. Morgan
• Anathem, Neal Stephenson
• Axiomatic, Greg Egan
• Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
• Diaspora, Greg Egan
• Dichronauts, Greg Egan
• Distress (Subjective Cosmology #3), Greg Egan
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
• Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1), Frank Herbert
• Ender’s Game (Ender’s Saga, #1), Orson Scott Card
• Foundation (Foundation #1), Isaac Asimov
• Heavy Weather, Bruce Sterling
• Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1), Dan Simmons
• Ilium (Ilium, #1), Dan Simmons
• Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1), James S.A. Corey
• Caliban’s War (Expanse, #2), James S.A. Corey
• Abaddon’s Gate (The Expanse, #3), James S.A. Corey
• Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4), James S.A. Corey
• Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5), James S.A. Corey
• Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6), James S.A. Corey
• Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7), James S.A. Corey
• Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse, #8), James S.A. Corey
• Oceanic, Greg Egan
• Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1), Octavia E. Butler
• Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2), Greg Egan
• Quarantine (Subjective Cosmology #1), Greg Egan
• Schild’s Ladder, Greg Egan
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
• Speaker for the Dead (Ender’s Saga, #2), Orson Scott Card
• Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
• The Black Cloud, Fred Hoyle
• The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, Neal Stephenson
• The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1), Stephen King
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #1), Douglas Adams
• The Stand, Stephen King, Bernie Wrightson
• The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1), Liu Cixin, Ken Liu
• The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2), Liu Cixin, Joel Martinsen
• Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3), Liu Cixin
• Wool (Wool, #1), Hugh Howey
• Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1), Hugh Howey

Fiction

• A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1), George R.R. Martin
• American Gods (American Gods, #1), Neil Gaiman
• Catch-22 (Catch-22, #1), Joseph Heller
• East of Eden, John Steinbeck
• Ghost World, Daniel Clowes
• Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
• Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian
• Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa
• Neverwhere (London Below, #1), Neil Gaiman
• Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
• Shogun (Asian Saga, #1), James Clavell
• Summer of Night (Seasons of Horror, #1), Dan Simmons
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Hobbit or There and Back Again, J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King #1-4), T.H. White
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien, Martin Shaw
• The Talisman (The Talisman, #1), Stephen King, Peter Straub
• The Terror, Dan Simmons
• The World According to Garp, John Irving
• Ulysses, James Joyce
• Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac
• Phases of Gravity, Dan Simmons
• Bag of Bones, Stephen King
• Black House (The Talisman, #2), Stephen King
• Different Seasons, Stephen King
• Hearts in Atlantis, Stephen King
• It, Stephen King
• The Body, Stephen King
• The Shining (The Shining, #1), Stephen King
• The Tommyknockers, Stephen King
• Stop-Time, Frank Conroy

Shakespeare

• Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• Macbeth, William Shakespeare
• The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
• The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition, William Shakespeare

Running & Endurance

• Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Christopher McDougall
• Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, Alex Hutchinson
• North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail, Scott Jurek
• Once a Runner, John L. Parker Jr.
• Running with the Buffaloes: A Season Inside with Mark Wetmore, Adam Goucher, and the University of Colorado Men’s Cross-Country Team, Chris Lear
• The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It, Neal Bascomb
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel
• Why We Run: A Natural History, Bernd Heinrich

Adventure & Outdoors

• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
• Beyond the Mountain, Steve House
• Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
• Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier, by Bruce Barcott (my review)
• On Trails: An Exploration, Robert Moor
• The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks, Susan Casey
• The High Lonesome: Epic Solo Climbing Stories, John Long, Hai-Van K. Sponholz

Rowing

• Assault on Lake Casitas, Brad Alan Lewis
• Lido for Time, Brad Alan Lewis
• Lido for Time 14: 39: My Training Journal from October 1983 Through the Olympics in August ‘84, Brad Alan Lewis
• The Amateurs, David Halberstam
• The Last Car in the Parking Lot, Brad Alan Lewis
• The Shell Game: Reflections on Rowing and the Pursuit of Excellence, Stephen Kiesling

Science & Nature

• The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee
• A Genetic Switch, Phage Lambda Revisited, Mark Ptashne
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
• Chaos: Making a New Science, James Gleick
• Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology, Johnjoe McFadden
• Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Paul Stamets
• Radical Mycology: A Treatise On Seeing & Working With Fungi, Peter McCoy
• The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, Michael Pollan
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
• The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World – And Us, Richard O. Prum
• The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, Richard Preston
• The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, Langdon Cook
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
• The One-Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka
• The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

History & Biography

• All the President’s Men, Carl Bernstein
• Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb, Jim Ottaviani
• Feynman, Jim Ottaviani
• Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character, Richard P. Feynman
• Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life, Leonard Mlodinow
• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick
• Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: Letters of Richard P. Feynman, Richard P. Feynman
• John Adams, David McCullough
• Lincoln, David Herbert Donald
• Master of the Senate, Robert A. Caro
• Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2), Robert A. Caro
• On Power, Robert A. Caro
• The Passage of Power, Robert A. Caro
• The Path to Power, Robert A. Caro
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X
• The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Shelby Foote
• The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939-1945, R.V. Jones
• The Wright Brothers, David McCullough
• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand

Philosophy & Mind

• On Having No Head, by Douglas Harding (my review)
• Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, James P. Carse
• Free Will, Sam Harris
• I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas R. Hofstadter
• Lying, Sam Harris
• Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
• Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
• Letters from a Stoic, Seneca
• On the Shortness of Life, Seneca
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
• The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley
• Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, Sam Harris
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
• Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel
• Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, Terence McKenna
• How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, Michael Pollan
• The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, James Fadiman
• True Hallucinations, Terence McKenna
• A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, Ayelet Waldman

Writing & Craft

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
• Confessions of a Public Speaker, Scott Berkun
• Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, John McPhee
• How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, Mortimer J. Adler
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
• The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers, John Gardner
• The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm, Ian Jack
• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Steven Pressfield, Robert McKee

Business & Startups

• Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Michael Lewis
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days, Jessica Livingston
• Intel Trinity, The: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Company, Michael S. Malone
• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Michael Lewis
• ReWork, Jason Fried
• The 4 Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss
• The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Michael Lewis
• The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, Michael Lewis
• A Truck Full of Money: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success, Tracy Kidder
• Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, Ryan Holiday
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
• Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez

Self-Improvement & Productivity

• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Cal Newport
• So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport
• How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, Arnold Bennett
• Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
• The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence, Josh Waitzkin
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo, Cathy Hirano
• The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life, Robert Fritz
• Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, Gabriel Wyner

Fitness & Training

• Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Mean Ol’ Mr Gravity, Mark Rippetoe
• Practical Programming for Strength Training, Mark Rippetoe
• Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning, Dan John
• Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, Rory Miller
• The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch, Jonathan Gottschall

Military & War

• About Face: Odyssey Of An American Warrior, David H. Hackworth
• Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield
• Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War, Evan Wright
• In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War, Tobias Wolff
• One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, Nathaniel Fick
• The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228, Dick Couch, Cliff Hollenbeck

Big Ideas & Culture

• Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber
• Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Steven Pinker
• Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
• The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Judith Rich Harris
• Post-Truth, Lee McIntyre
• Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, John McWhorter
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe

John McPhee

• Basin and Range, John McPhee
• Coming Into the Country, John McPhee
• Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee
• Looking for a Ship, John McPhee
• Oranges, John McPhee
• The Crofter and the Laird: Life on an Hebridean Island, John McPhee
• The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor, John McPhee
• The Patch, John McPhee
• The Pine Barrens, John McPhee, James Graves
• Uncommon Carriers, John McPhee

Animals

• Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, Ted Kerasote
• Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals, Karen Pryor
• The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs, Patricia B. McConnell

Aviation

• Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying, Wolfgang Langewiesche

Memoir & Narrative Nonfiction

• A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, Michael Pollan
• Kafka, David Zane Mairowitz
• Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, George Horace Lorimer
• Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47, Philip Dormer Stanhope
• Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, Laurence Shames
• Old School, Tobias Wolff
• Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger
• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Christopher W. Alexander
• The Craftsman, Richard Sennett
• The Homeowner’s Handbook to Energy Efficiency: A Guide to Big and Small Improvements, John Krigger
• The American Religion, Harold Bloom
• Jesus and Yahweh, Harold Bloom