Reading List

A master list of texts (1) I’m currently reading (2) or have read in the past. Links are to long-form blog posts / any notes I took / thoughts about the book.

Legend

• Title | Author | Rating/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

• Invitation to a Banquet | Fuchsia Dunlop
• The Double Helix | James D. Watson
• Apprentice to Genius (pdf) | Robert Kanigel

I’ve Read

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 review)
8. Homo Deus | Yuval Noah Harrari | 3.5★
9. Leonardo Da Vinci | Walter Isaacson | 5★ (my Goodreads review)
10. Endure | Alex Hutchinson | 5★ (my Goodreads review)
11. 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 | 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. 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. Nonviolent Communication | Marshall Rosenberg | 5★
10. The Land of Open Graves | Jason De León | 3.5★
11. For Blood and Money | Nathan Vardi | 4★
12. Deep Work | Cal Newport | 4★
13. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot | 5★
14. 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. 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

• 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
• The Creative Act | Rick Rubin