Book Reading List
2018
- Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin
- Notes on a Nervous Planet, Matt Haig
- Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
- The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, Niall Ferguson
- On Directing Film, David Mamet
- The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, Mariana Mazzucato
- Closely Watched Trains, Bohumil Hrabal
- Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult, Bohumil Hrabal
- Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia, Michael Vatikiotis
- The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken, The Secret Barrister
- A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen, David Hockney
- The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order, Bruno Macaes
- The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman
- So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport
- Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, Gordon S. Wood
- Equal Power: A Handbook for Men and Women, Jo Swinson
- The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Douglas Murray
- Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
- Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
- Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, Peter Pomerantsev
- Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life, John B. Arden
- Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio
2017
- The Penguin History of New Zealand, Michael King
- The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding, Robert Hughes
- Down Under, Bill Bryson
- American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Colin Woodard
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, Robert M. Pirsig
- Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland, David McKittrick
- Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge
- How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett
- The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, Daniel J. Levitin
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
- Micromastery: Learn Small, Learn Fast, and Find the Hidden Path to Happiness, Robert Twigger
- If This Is a Man / The Truce, Primo Levi
- The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848, Eric Hobsbawm
- Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?, Ian Dunt
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari
- Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall
- World Order, Henry Kissinger
- The Case Against Sugar, Gary Taubes
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport
- Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers, Timothy Ferriss
2016
- Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, James C. Scott
- Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution, Nathaniel Philbrick
- Who Governs Britain?, Anthony King
- The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time, Alex Korb
- Politics: Between the Extremes, Nick Clegg
- The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine – A Tale of Two Narratives, Padraig O'Malley
- Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual, Yvon Chouinard
- The Wealth of Humans: Work and its Absence in the Twenty-First Century, Ryan Avent
- Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours, Slavoj Žižek
- When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
- Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance
- What's Left?, Nick Cohen
- Ruling The Void: The Hollowing Of Western Democracy, Peter Mair
- Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World, Don Tapscott
- Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, William Poundstone
- The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, Peter Zeihan
- Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, Christopher Hitchens
- The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer
- What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, Marshall Goldsmith
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
2015
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Peter M. Senge
- Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, Jeff Sutherland
- Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies, C. Otto Scharmer
- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
- The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves, Stephen Grosz
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Empathy Exams: Essays, Leslie Jamison
- Become What You Are, Alan W. Watts
- A Death in the Family (My Struggle Book 1), Karl Ove Knausgård
- The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business, Clayton M. Christensen
- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
- John Adams, David McCullough
- The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World, Michael A. Wheeler
- The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health, Justin Sonnenburg
- Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
- Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, David Eagleman
- Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, Donald Sull
- Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy, Jonathan Rauch
- Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, A.G. Lafley
- Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, Dorie Clark
- Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel
- Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez
- The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, David Graeber
- Joy at Work, Dennis Bakke
- Germany: Memories of a Nation, Neil MacGregor
- The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene
- Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking), Christian Rudder
- The Martian, Andy Weir
- The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America, Mike McIntyre
- Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, Karen E. Fields
- The Scientist as Rebel (New York Review Books), Freeman Dyson
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond
2014
- How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness, Russ Roberts
- Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande
- 1491: The Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann
- Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, Henry Marsh
- How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondō
- The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Astra Taylor
- Sam Walton: Made In America, Sam Walton
- The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, Reid Hoffman
- The Art of Profitability, Adrian J. Slywotzky
- The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
- The Call of the Wild, Jack London
- The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage, Ryan Holiday
- Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks 1960-1969, Alan W. Watts
- How Google Works, Eric Schmidt
- The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age, John Heider
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, Peter Thiel
- Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success, Shane Snow
- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
- Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull
- Everyday Sexism, Laura Bates
- My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Ari Shavit
- On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman
- Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- At the Loch of the Green Corrie, Andrew Greig
- Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
- Meditations: A New Translation, Marcus Aurelius
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, Ben Horowitz
- My Share of the Task: A Memoir, Stanley McChrystal
- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, William B. Irvine
- The Outsider, Albert Camus
- How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, Paul Tough
- Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, Keith Ferrazzi
- The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, Erik Brynjolfsson
- The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
- It's Not All about Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone, Robin Dreeke
- Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, Daniel Goleman
- The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
- Poor White, Sherwood Anderson
- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, Marshall B. Rosenberg
- The Motivation Hacker, Nick Winter
- Truman, David McCullough
- The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, Ryan Holiday
- 1984, George Orwell