A master list of texts (1) I'm currently reading (2) or have read. Links are to long-form blog posts / any notes I took / thoughts about the book. ## Legend - `Title` | Author | Rating out of 5★ | optional comment - favorite books of the year 1. 🥇 == most favorite 2. 🥈 == 2nd most favorite 3. 🥉 == 3rd most favorite - 🥸 == favorite fiction book of the year ## Currently Reading... - [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/The Youngest Science|The Youngest Science]] | Lewis Thomas - [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Natural Obsessions|Natural Obsessions]]: Striving to Unlock the Deepest Secrets of the Cancer Cell – An Unforgettable Portrait of Scientific Research and Inquiry | Natalie Angiers ## I've Read ### 2026 > in chronological order 1. `Living Medicine: Don Thomas, Marrow Transplantation, and the Cell Therapy Revolution` | Fred Appelbaum | 4.5★ ^f99302 2. `Kitchen Confidential` | Anthony Bourdain | 4★ 3. [[1. Literature Notes/A Giant Leap - How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future|A Giant Leap - How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future]] | Robert Wachter | 3.7★ 4. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Final Exam - A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality|Final Exam - A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality]] | Pauline Chen | 4★ ### 2025 > in chronological order 1. `Apprentice to Genius` ([pdf](https://gwern.net/doc/science/1986-kanigel-apprenticetogeniusthemakingofascientificdynasty.pdf)) | Robert Kanigel | 4★ 2. `Breakneck` | Dan Wang | 4★ | lucky to have met Dan in person! interesting framing (engineering vs. lawyerly state). part about the one-child policy and how it was enforced was vivid and disturbing. 3. `The Old Man and the Sea` | Ernest Hemingway | 3.5★ | went in knowing roughly what the plot was. regardless of Hemingway's intentions (he says there is no deeper meaning in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961), I found a deeper meaning to the plot. sparse, direct, straightforward prose. 4. `The Death of Ivan Ilych` | Leo Tolstoy | 4★ | Ivan Ilyich lived an artificial life: status-driven work, hollow relationships, and emotional avoidance. Instead of confronting his unhappy marriage and distant family, he poured himself into career advancement. His wife and most of his friends are no better: polite, self-interested, and just as inauthentic. Only when he is dying is Ivan forced to ask himself whether he lived rightly at all. _Severance_ (Apple TV+) references this novella because both explore how a life organized around pain avoidance (being severed) and artificial benchmarks (working for Lumon where workers try to hit externally imposed, internally empty metrics) hollows out life's meaning. 5. `The Library of Babel` | Jorge Luis Borges | 5★ | trippyyyy 6. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/The Dance of Life - The New Science of How a Single Cell Becomes a Human Being|The Dance of Life]] | Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz & Roger Highfield | 4★ | This book may be a little dense for those with little prior exposure to developmental biology. I liked the author's mixing of her personal life with her science. She draws inspiration from her personal life (her pregnancy) for her research, and her professional life influences decisions with big impact on personal life like moving out of Poland and later to the UK. Those who just want to learn about developmental biology and symmetry breaking may find there to be excessive personal details, but I found it refreshing to see glimpses of her life beyond science. ### 2024 > in chronological order 1. `Outlive`| Peter Attia | 4★ 2. `Better` | Atul Gawande | 4★ 3. `The Healing of America` | T.R. Reid | 5★ | possibly the most frustrated i've ever felt after reading any book 4. `The Emperor of All Maladies` | Siddartha Mukherjee | 4★ 5. `Grit` | Angela Duckworth | 3.5★ 6. `Born to Run` | Christopher McDougall | 3.5★ 7. `The Code Breaker` | Walter Isaacson | 5★ (my [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/165868055-heidi-huang) review) 8. `Homo Deus` | Yuval Noah Harrari | 3.5★ 9. `Leonardo Da Vinci` | Walter Isaacson | 5★ (my [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6403014100?book_show_action=false) review) 10. `Endure` | Alex Hutchinson | 5★ (my [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6354090809) review) 11. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Supercommunicators|Supercommunicators]] | Charles Duhigg | 3.5★ 12. `Systems Thinking` | Donella H. Meadows | 4★ 13. `Complications` | Atul Gawande | 4★ 14. `The Culture Map` | Erin Meyer | 5★ 15. `Elon Musk` | Walter Isaacson | 4★ 16. 🥇 `Breaking Through` | Katalin Karikó | 5★ 17. `The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down` | Anne Fadiman | 4.5★ 18. `What My Bones Know` | Stephanie Foo | 5★ 19. `Invitation to a Banquet` | Fuchsia Dunlop | 5★ 20. `The Idea Factory` (Bell Labs) | Jon Gertner | 5★ 21. `The Demon Under the Microsope` | Thomas Hager | 4★ 22. `What if Fungi Win?` | Arturo Casadevall | 2★ 23. 🥈 `Nothing to Envy` | Barbara Demick | 5★ 24. `Drug Hunters` | Donald R. Kirsch | 5★ 25. 🥉 `The Worlds I See` | Fei-Fei Li | 5★ 26. `Eat the Buddha` | Barbara Demick | 5★ ### 2023 > in no particular order 1. `Empire of Pain` | Patrick Radden Keefe | 5★ 2. 🥉 `The Gene` | Siddhartha Mukherjee | 5★ 3. `Salt, Sugar, and Fat` | Michael Moss | 4★ 4. 🥸 `The Housekeeper and the Professor` | Yōko Ogawa | 4★ 5. 🥇 `Being Mortal` | Atul Gawande | 5★, has helped me initiate important conversations about death and dying with loved ones 6. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Hell Yeah or No|Hell Yeah or No]] | Derek Sivers | 4★ 7. `Without a Doubt` | Surbhi Sarna | 4★ 8. `Man's Search for Meaning` | Viktor E. Frankl | 4★ 9. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Nonviolent Communication|Nonviolent Communication]] | Marshall Rosenberg | 5★ 10. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/The Land of Open Graves|The Land of Open Graves]] | Jason De León | 3.5★ 11. `For Blood and Money` | Nathan Vardi | 4★ 12. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Deep Work|Deep Work]] | Cal Newport | 4★ 13. `The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks` | Rebecca Skloot | 5★ 14. [[0.1 Journal/2023/The Inner Game of Tennis|The Inner Game of Tennis]] | W. Timothy Gallwey | 3★ 15. `Can't Hurt Me` | David Goggins | 3.5★ 16. 🥈 `Bad Blood` | John Carreyrou | 5★ 17. `Zero to One` | Peter Thiel | 4★ 18. `The Almanack of Naval Ravikant` | Eric Jorgenson | 4★ 19. `Genentech` | Sally Smith Hughes | 4★ ### 2022 > in no particular order 1. [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Sapiens|Sapiens]] | Yuval Noah Harrari | 4★ 2. 🥇 `When Breath Becomes Air` | Paul Kalanithi | 5★ 3. `Capitalist Realism` | Mark Fisher | 4★ 4. `Principles` | Ray Dalio | 4★ 5. `The Defining Decade` | Meg Jay | 3★ 6. `Range` | David Epstein | 4★ 7. `Health Design Thinking` | Bon Ku | 3.5★ ### 2021 > in no particular order 1. 🥇 `Atomic Habits` | James Clear | 5★ 2. `The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck` | Mark Manson | 3★ 3. `The Dip` | Seth Godin | 3★ 4. `Digital Minimalism` | Cal Newport | 4★ 5. `How to Win Friends and Influence People` | Dale Carnegie | 4★ 6. `The Selfish Gene` | Richard Dawkins | 4★ 7. `Slaughterhouse-Five` | Kurt Vonnegut | 4★ ### Before 2021 > in no particular order - [[3. Synthesis/Lists/Reading List/Flow|Flow]] | Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - `Fast Food Nation` | Eric Schlosser - `People, Power, and Profits` | Joseph Stiglitz - `Show Your Work!` | Austin Kleon - `V for Vendetta` | Alan Moore - `Outliers` | Malcolm Gladwell - `The Tipping Point` | Malcolm Gladwell - `Freakonomics` | Steven Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner - `The Jungle` | Upton Sinclair - 🥸 `In Cold Blood` | Truman Capote - `The Beetle` | Richard Marsh - `Things Fall Apart` | Chinua Achebe - `Anthem` | Ayn Rand - `Brave New World` | Aldous Huxley - `Heart of Darkness` | Joseph Conrad - `To Kill a Mockingbird` | Harper Lee - `The Pearl` | John Steinbeck - `Lord of the Flies` | William Golding - `Fahrenheit 451` | Ray Bradbury - `基督山恩仇記 (abridged)` | Alexandre Dumas ## Abandoned - `The Genome Odyssey` | Euan Angus Ashley | picked up the book to learn more about genomic medicine but realized I was looking for mechanistic depth instead of narrative overview. Is not so much a reflection of the book as it is a reflection of my reading preferences. I still enjoy pop science books for context and inspiration. - `The Creative Act` | Rick Rubin | was listening to the audiobook on Spotify. the gong sounds as transitions was irksome. didn't find content inspiring. might revisit in the future.