I read a bunch too. Here are some of the books I’ve read (and recently, with dates).
- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (April 2024)
- Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap (April 2024)
- Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry of the Future (March 2024)
- Neil MacGregor, History of the World in 100 Objects (February 2024)
- Ed Conway, The Material World (January 2024)
- Primo Levi, The Periodic Table (January 2024)
- Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Shear, Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration (December 2023)
- Jesse Jarnow, Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America (December 2023)
- Daniel Oberhaus, Extraterrestrial Languages (December 2023)
- Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (December 2023)
- Curtis Chin, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir (December 2023)
- Tom Standage, Uncommon Knowledge: The Economist Explains (November 2023)
- Gary Kamiya, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco (November 2023)
- Eric Weiner, The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley (October 2023)
- John Doe, More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk (October 2023)
- Shery Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (September 2023)
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies (September 2023)
- Jonathan Taplin, The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto (September 2023)
- Dan Charnas, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (August 2023)
- Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World (July 2023)
- John Markoff, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (June 2023)
- David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (June 2023)
- Paul Collier, Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World (May 2023)
- Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (March 2023)
- Lincoln Mitchell, San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team (February 2023)
- Patti Smith, Just Kids (February 2023)
- Karen Bakker, The Sounds of Life (January 2023)
- Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (October 2022)
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (October 2022) – It took me three tries over 20+ years to finish this wretched book
- Chris Ategeka, The Unintended Consequences of Technology: Solutions, Breakthroughs, and the Restart We Need (May 2022)
- Jimmy Soni, The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (April 2022)
- David Christian, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything (March 2022)
- Ernest Cline, Ready Player One (February 2022)
- Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (January 2022)
- Jonathan Tapli, The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life (December 2021)
- Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of AI and our Human Future (November 2021)
- Bru Srinivasan, Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism (October 2021)
- Michael Shellenberger, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (September 2021)
- David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (August 2021)
- Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix (August 2021)
- J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (July 2021)
- James Lovelock, Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence (June 2021)
- Kevin Scott, Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley – Making AI Serve Us All (June 2021)
- Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (May 2021)
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (May 2021)
- Phil Lesh, Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead (April 2021)
- Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Jazz: A History of America’s Music (January 2021)
- George Orwell, 1984 (January 2021)
- Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (January 2021)
- Alan Krueger, Rockonomics (December 2020)
- Douglas Coupland, Microserfs (December 2020)
- Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society (December 2020)
- John Tusa, On Board: The Insider’s Guide to Surviving Life in the Boardroom (December 2020)
- Nathalia Holt, Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (November 2020)
- Paul Brest and Hal Harvey, Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy (November 2020)
- E. O. Wilson, Tales from the Ant World (October 2020)
- Rebecca Henderson, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire (September 2020)
- Seth Shostak, Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (September 2020)
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (August 2020)
- David Byrne, How Music Works (August 2020)
- Ed Ward, The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock (August 2020)
- Glen Weyl and Eric Posner, Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society (July 2020)
- Andy Greenberg, Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers (July 2020)
- Condoleezza Rice and Amy Zegart, Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (June 2020)
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (May 2020)
- David Callahan, The Givers: Money, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age (April 2020)
- Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age (December 2019)
- E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops (October 2019)
- William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine (July 2019)
- Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine (June 2019)
- Ken Auletta, World War 3.0 : Microsoft and Its Enemies (May 2019)
- Rob Reich, Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (April 2019)
- Anand Giridharadasm, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (March 2019)
- Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (March 2019)
- Jaron Lanier, Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality (March 2019)
- Richard Florida, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class-and What We Can Do About It (March 2019)
- Joel Selvin, Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day (February 2019)
- Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk (February 2019)
- Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (February 2019)
- P.D. James, The Children of Men (January 2019)
- Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop December 2018)
- Kevin Mitnick, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker (November 2018)
- Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford, The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win (August 2018)
- Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World (August 2018)
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (July 2018)
- Tim O’Reilly, WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us (July 2018)
- Jeffrey Toobin, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst (June 2018)
- Ed Ward, The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963(June 2018)
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (April 2018)
- Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (March 2018)
- John Doe, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk (March 2018)
- Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (March 2018)
- Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
- Anonymous (Joe Klein), Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics
- Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
- Ryan Avent, The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-first Century
- Nicholson Baker, Vox
- James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency
- James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America’s Most Secret Agency
- Mahzarin R. Banaji, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People
- John Battelle, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
- Sharon Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain
- Lewis Black, Me of LIttle Faith
- Bill Bradley, Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir
- Erik Brynjolfsson, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
- Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
- Carl Bernstein, A Woman In Charge
- Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
- Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
- Stephen Carmichael and Susan Stoddard, Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
- Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
- Graydon Carter, What We’ve Lost
- Ram Charan, Know-How
- Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
- Brian Christian, Most Human Human
- Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance
- Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror
- Richard Clarke and Robert Knake, Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It
- Thurston Clarke, The Last Campaign
- Jim Collins, Good to Great
- Jim Collins, How the Mighty Fall
- Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
- Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- Tyler Cowen, The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better
- George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War
- Lanny Davis, Truth To Tell: Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself: Notes from My White House Education
- John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience
- John Dean, Worse than Watergate
- Ronald V. Dellums and H. Lee Halterman, Lying Down With the Lions
- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel
- Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, and Jonathan Woetzel, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trend
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four
- Arthur Conan Doyle, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
- Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- William Fleckenstein, Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve
- James Fallows, The Obama Presidency, Explained
- John Fialka, War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America
- Dave Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior
- Thomas Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded
- Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
- Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- Sharna Goldseker, Generation Impact: How Next Gen Donors Are Revolutionizing Giving
- Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford, The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance
- Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
- Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
- The Brothers Grimm, Grimm’s Fairy Tales
- Michael Hammer and James A. Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution
- Robert Harris, Fatherland
- Sam Harris, The End of Faith
- Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick
- John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change
- Peter Hershberg, Dale Dougherty, and Marcia Kadanoff, Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing Our Cities
- Michael Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
- Christopher Hitchins, God Is Not Great
- Christopher Hitchins, No One Left to Lie to
- Bryce G. Hoffman, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
- Robert Kagan, The Return of History and the End of Dreams
- Kenneth Kamler, Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor’s Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance
- Guy Kawasaki, Reality Check
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Kevin Kelly, Out Of Control: The Rise Of Neo-biological Civilization
- Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants
- Mahan Khalsa, Let’s Get Real
- Jon Krakauer, Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains
- Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
- Bill Kreutzmann, Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead
- Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal
- Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century
- Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations
- Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008
- Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?
- Jaron Lanier, You are not a Gadget
- Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court
- Lawrence Lessig, Code: And Other Laws Of Cyberspace
- Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
- Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics
- Steven Levy, Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government–Saving Privacy in the Digital Age
- Michael Lewis, The Big Short
- Michael Lewis, Flash Boys
- Charelele Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell
- Martin Lindstorm, Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy
- Roger Lowenstein, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West’s Greatest Intelligence Disaster
- Frank Luntz, Words That Work
- Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor
- Charles Mann, 1493
- John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer
- Harry Markopolos, No One Would Listen
- Robert McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
- Robyn Meredith, The Elephant and the Dragon
- Gabriel Metcalf, Democratic by Design: How Carsharing, Co-ops, and Community Land Trusts Are Reinventing America
- Jack Miles, God: A Biography
- Kevin Mitnick, The Art of Deception
- Kevin Mitnick, Ghost in the Wires
- Enrico Moretti, The Geography of Jobs
- Ian Morris, Why the West Rules – For Now
- Annalee Newitz, Autonomous
- Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone
- George Orwell, Animal Farm
- Kerry Patterson, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
- Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
- Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath
- Gregory Phister, In Search of Clusters: The Ongoing Battle in Lowly Parallel Computing
- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century
- Kevin Phillips, Bad Money
- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
- Howard Rheingold, Virtual Communities
- James Risen, State of War
- Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- Randall Robinson, The Debt : What America Owes to Blacks
- Douglas Rushkoff, Coercion: Why We Listen to What “They” Say
- Tsutomo Shimomura and John Markoff, Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick by the Man Who Did It
- Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus
- Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
- Joe Simpson, Touching the Void
- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
- James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of the Crowds
- Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine
- Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neil
- David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
- Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, Wikinomics
- Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
- Linus Torvalds and David Diamond, Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary
- Tim Weiner, Legacy Of Ashes
- H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
- H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
- Jack Weatherford, The History of Money
- Simon Winchester, Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers
- Simon Winthrop, How to Be a Mentalist: Master the Secrets Behind the Hit TV Show
- Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House
- Bob Woodward, Maestro: Greenspans Fed and The American Boom
- Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack
- Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
- Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008
- Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
- Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower
- Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World
- Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States