This is a list of books I’ve read or attempted to read. It is ordered from most to least recent. The further back it goes the less I remember about them.

I’ve but an asterick (*) beside the ones I thought were good

  • The Alchemy of Air * - great book about a technology that’s not thought about but crucual to the modern world (fertiliser)
  • Happy City * - interesting read about what makes cities great
  • Boom, Bust, Boom - about copper and mining industries and the real world impacts of the mines
  • A Philosophy of Software Design
  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things * - good but more suited for those starting a business, though I still took something away from it and his biography at the start is good
  • The Millionaire Fastlane - kindof a clickbait book but it’s an easy read and I like keeping finances on my mind
  • The Software Craftsman - I liked this as a reminder to take pride in your work
  • The Prize: Oil industry * - good book, almost a history of the modern world as oil has been so apart of it
  • Sam Walton: Made in America - good but obviously bias as is an autobiography
  • Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the world * - a book for the engineer in us all
  • The World for Sale * - good book on commodity traders and how they operate
  • The Hobbit
  • How To Win Friends And Influence People
  • American Prometheus (Oppenheimer) - read the introduction but found it a bit tedious. Maybe after watching the film I’ll read it as the book focuses a lot on his personal life and beliefs on Communism and politics, namely justifies them
  • Lights Out - GE, didn’t finish it but interesting to go through. Mainly just reads as a how this happened thing
  • The Psychology of Money
  • The Fish that Ate the Whale * - good
  • Build - interesting on how he did it with some personal insight but largely overly detailed
  • The Dynasty * - about the Patriots in the Brady years. Good insight to a team and sport I never knew much about
  • Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself - lot of self praise here not sure I’m falling for it. Maybe its good if you get past that and read it
  • Atomic Habits
  • American Kingpin * - creator of Silk Road and how he was caught, good book
  • Tiger Woods * - I never knew much about him before but this was a good overview of his life, how he was built up and how he became undone.
  • How Asia Works * - has a central idea of how developing countries should work and then makes this fit to the Asian economies - I don’t know if the theory is good but it fits for these countries. Even so, it does give a good overview of these economies and the paths each took to success or failure
  • Beautiful World, Where Are You - didn’t get too far, can’t really relate as they’re all really artsy in a close friend group
  • The Power Law
  • Project Hail Mary * - I don’t read many sci-fi but this was good
  • Say Nothing - I don’t know much about Northern Ireland so this was a good history
  • The Smartest Guys in the Room - didn’t actually read much of this, only the intro, but you can get a glimpse into the companies culture
  • Private Life of Chairman Mao - by the personal doctor of the chairman, tells the story of a man with unquestionable power in a huge country while also not really being that educated
  • To Pixar and Beyond * - good book of the early years of Pixar - small group of smart people creating magical movies
  • Flash Boys - about quants and others on Wall St how they make money from accepting trades, basically being the middle man and getting faster than anyone else
  • Open: An Autobiography - Andre Agassi * - I know nothing about tennis or the man but this was a really good book about him and his relentless push for greatness even though he “hated tennis”. Very honest portrayal and very good
  • The Phoenix Project - kinda gives an explanation of the things we do everyday as software engineers and how they came to be
  • Against the Gods - history of risk, how probability and statistics were invented and adapted over the years and how it’s all become so complicated to deal with risk
  • who is michael ovitz * - an autobiography from a man who was not liked very much due to the power he held over so many people. He gives his side of the story of being the power broker and talent man for hollywood as the agent of choice. If you crossed him you didn’t have much hope. Would be interesting to read from the other side
  • This is Going to Hurt - funny and sad book about being a doctor in the maternity ward
  • Good Strategy/Bad Strategy - didn’t get far
  • Staff Engineer - didn’t finish
  • The Mamba Mentality - didn’t finish, probably better as an actual book as there’s lot of images
  • An Ordinary Age- didn’t finish, how to find your way as a young adult
  • The Double Helix - didn’t finish but should, how DNA was found
  • Where is my flying car
  • How to Talk to Anyone
  • Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber - story of how to do things wrong now but how things were done back in those days in Uber
  • The Outlaw Ocean * - good book
  • Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom - good if you want to be a trader but not really for the rest of us
  • More Money Than God: Hedge Funds - good book about how hedge funds came to be and how they operate
  • Irrational Exuberance - technical book I didn’t finish, goes through the history of bubbles and brings technical details into things
  • Way of the Turtle - trading book I didn’t finish
  • Running on Empty - good for an overview of why you might not be doing as good as you think you can
  • editing humanity * - how crispr was found and what it might mean next - good book
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow - never finished this as you can probably get the ideas from a video and it’s a little dry. Maybe a better way to read is to read the articles and watch the videos first, then read the book with context and some understanding
  • Designing Data-Intensive Applications - most recommended book but I struggle to try find ways of making it useful
  • Sounds Like Titanic - never really started it
  • Guns, Germs and Steel - old style writing I never really started
  • A Crack in Creation - book from Doudna about CRISPR but also the things that might not go right
  • The Biggest Bluff - from someone that learned to play poker, shows someone can learn to play on a high level but the training she got was second to none from some of the best
  • The Great Mental Models - maybe better if you want to study it than read it through, didn’t finish
  • The Art of Doing Science and Engineering - got good recommendations but it’s written in an old style which is hard to see past, guy makes himself out to be great in a military style of speech which was offputting
  • Genentech * - good book on how the company came to be
  • Nonviolent Communication - never really read much of it
  • Mastering the Market Cycle - good read about cycles in the market
  • Liars Poker * - from a trader in Salomon - opens up what it’s like behind the glass buildings
  • Cable Cowboy * - good book on the man that built an empire in cable but didn’t get very rich doing it, but then thought up a way to make himself rich
  • Why We Sleep - didn’t finish but kinda interesting
  • Never Split the Difference - interesting but to actually take things away you need to analyse the book and practice them
  • Very Important People - insightful into the VIP arena of nightclubs around the world, nothing to learn but cool to see behind the curtain
  • The Start-Up of You - didn’t finish this
  • Greenlights * - listened to the audiobook instead and it is very good
  • Masters of Doom * - I knew nothing of anybody or anything but this was cool to read about
  • Softwar - got halfway but it felt more of a day to day diary of Larry Ellison than analysing or critiquing him, left feeling there was a lot more to the story than was in the picture
  • Colonel Roosevelt - last in the series on him, more of an old man past his prime here but maybe it gets better as I only got halfway
  • Talking to My Daughter About the Economy - good overview of things that happen
  • Get a Financial Life - intro only
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck * - I enjoyed it, don’t take the book too seriously but I guess that’s the point of it too
  • The Intelligent Investor - keep trying to read but fall off after not that long
  • The Great Depression - diary of someone living through the depression and how things were actually for someone, get a glimpse to things that have been forgotten over time
  • The Ride of a Lifetime * - good book on how Iger built his career and Disney
  • The Essays of Warren Buffett - didn’t read much of this
  • Thinking in Systems * - good book that I’d like to read again as I was left feeling I didn’t get enough of it
  • Daily Rituals How Artists Work - goes through how lots of artists worked, shows how each were different and unique
  • The Richest Man in Babylon - good intro to personal finance and why it might be important
  • The Dud Avocado - novel I barely remember but I think it was good
  • Getting Things Done - barely started it but might be better as a video or article
  • How to Take Smart Notes - good book on note taking, I probably didn’t take much from it but I was able to build my own system and I get the concept of a large collection of notes which have links between each other
  • Grit - interesting but didn’t finish
  • The Road - didn’t get too far, maybe too smart for me
  • 48 Laws of Power - a bit outdated now it feels as most are old fashioned
  • 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - like most probably better served by a video or summary
  • Let My People Go Surfing - didn’t finish but interesting philosophy of running a company
  • The Headspace Guide - why he started the Headspace app - a very different life
  • A Guide to the Good Life - tried reading about stoicism but there’s lots to read
  • Before Happiness - self help book I didn’t finish
  • The Last Lecture * - good book from a professor with terminal cancer and how to live and how he lived
  • Washington Black * - novel of a slave who gets caught up inventing and exploring - good from what I remember
  • The descent of man - about masculinity and how the old image has destroyed many men
  • idea man - about Paul Allen when founding Microsoft
  • Little Fires Everywhere - novel but a good story
  • all the light we cannot see
  • the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
  • Clean Code
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • Meditations
  • How to Read a book - okay but tedious to follow it all so I never got through it
  • The Silkworm
  • The Cuckoo’s Calling