Bookshelf

A list of books I’m currently reading:

• Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita.
• Jörg Guido Hülsmann, The Ethics of Money Production.
• Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.
• Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
• Steven Strogatz, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

Books I’ve read

This is an incomplete list of books I’ve read (and reread) since 2009 in reverse chronological order. My favorite books are bolded.

2020

• Rainer Maria Rilke, Briefe an einen jungen Dichter.

2019

• Jamie Woodward, The Ice Age: A Very Short Introduction.
• James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.
• Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
• Timi Ajiboye et al., The Little Bitcoin Book: Why Bitcoin Matters for Your Freedom, Finances, and Future.
• Gregory Zuckerman, The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms.
• Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles.
• Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. (Reread)
• Edward Snowden, Permanent Record.
• William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.
• Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan, What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars.
• Yan Pritzker, Inventing Bitcoin: The Technology Behind The First Truly Scarce and Decentralized Money Explained.
• Italo Calvino, Il barone rampante.
• Rab Houston, Scotland: A Very Short Introduction.
• Ben Mezrich, Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption.
• Ted Chiang, Exhalation: Stories.
• Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.
• Christopher Clark, The Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947.
• Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 4.
• Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 3.
• Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62.
• John Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.
• Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro.
• James Clear, Atomic Habits.
• Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think.
• Paul Jarvis, Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business.
• Evan Ratliff, The Mastermind: The Hunt for the World’s Most Prolific Criminal.
• Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

2018

• Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah.
• Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology.
• Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar, Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond.
• David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
• Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
• Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking.
• Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo.
• George Garnett, The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction.
• Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint.
• Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue.
• Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker. (Reread)
• Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.
• Oliver Sacks, On the Move: A Life.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life.
• John Williams, Butcher’s Crossing.
• Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values.
• Domenico Starnone, Lacci.
• Richard Yates, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness.
• Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia.

2017

• Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do.
• Hermann Hesse, Narziß und Goldmund.
• Min Jin Lee, Pachinko.
• Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky, Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck.
• Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico.
• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day.
• Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero.
• Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War.
• Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1).
• Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.
• Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad.
• Nathan Hill, The Nix.
• Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind.
• Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 2.
• Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1.
• Hermann Hesse, Demian.
• Philip Roth, American Pastoral.
• Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.
• Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men.
• Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.
• Rolf Potts, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.
• Ted Chiang, Stories of your Life and Others.
• Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country.
• John Williams, Stoner. (Reread)
• Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand.
• Hermann Hesse, Siddharta. (Reread)
• Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.
• Tim Ferriss, Tools of Titans.
• Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew.
• Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
• Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho.
• Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma.
• Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
• Cormac McCarthy, The Road.

2016

• Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Das Versprechen.
• Max Frisch, Stiller.
• Calvin Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
• J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye.
• Nathaniel Popper, Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money.
• Calvin Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.
• Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Hermann Hesse, Das Glasperlenspiel.

2015

• Urs Widmer, Reise an den Rand des Universums.
• Michael Lewis, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.
• John Steinbeck, East of Eden.
• John Steinbeck, Cannery Row.
• Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man.
• Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore.
• Saul Bellow, Herzog.
• Haruki Murakami, Von Männern, die keine Frauen haben.

2014

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men.
• Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road.
• John Williams, Stoner.
• Robert D. Kaplan, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific.
• Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.
• Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.
• Erich Maria Remarque, Im Westen nichts Neues.
• Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon.
• Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
• Charles Bukowsky, Women.
• Franz Kafka, Der Verschollene.

2013

• Julian Assange, Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet.
• Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power.
• Dino Buzzati, Il deserto dei tartari.
• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.
• Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood.
• John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath.
• Hermann Hesse, Siddharta.
• Gordon Mathews, Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong.
• Hermann Hesse, Der Steppenwolf.

2012

• Khaled Hosseini, Drachenläufer.
• Umberto Eco, Il cimitero di Praga.
• Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
• Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek.
• Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
• Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 3.
• Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 2.
• Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 1.
• Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men.
• Albert Camus, L’étranger.
• Hape Kerkeling, Ich bin dann mal weg: Meine Reise auf dem Jakobsweg.
• Volker Reinhardt, Die Geschichte der Schweiz: Von den Anfängen bis heute.
• Fernando Pessoa, O Banqueiro Anarquista.
• Douglas Rushkoff, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.
• Jack Kerouac, On The Road.

2011

• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.
• Jon Krakauer, Into The Wild.
• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.
• Rob Walling, Stay Small: A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup.
• Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing.
• G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology.
• Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience.
• Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
• Douglas R. Hofstadter, I am a Strange Loop.
• Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius.
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground.
• Joseph von Eichendorff, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts. (Reread)
• Frédéric Bastiat, The Law.
• George Orwell, Animal Farm. (Reread)
• Karl R. Popper, Alles Leben ist Problemlösen.
• Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon.
• Phil Gordon, Poker.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.
• Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.
• Sunzi, Daode Jing.
• Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (Reread)
• Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy.
• Ernest P. Chan, Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business.
• Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft.
• Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers.
• George Soros, Soros on Soros.

2010

• Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
• Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application.
• Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework.
• John Allen Paulos, A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market.
• Max Frisch, Andorra.
• Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.
• Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland.
• Hermann Hesse, Unterm Rad. (Reread)
• John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism.
• William Poundstone, Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street.
• Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
• Luigi Pirandello, La giara.
• David A. Moss, A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics.
• William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
• William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style.
• Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.
• Spencer E. Ante, Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital.
• William Shakespeare, Othello.
• Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World.
• Cliff Stoll, The Cuckoo’s Egg.
• Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework.
• Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker.
• Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.
• Sun Tzu, The Art of War. (Reread)
• Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, Mike Staunton, Triumph of the Optimists: 101 Years of Global Investment Returns.
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method.
• Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
• Gerald M. Loeb, The Battle for Investment Survival.
• Franz Kafka, Betrachtung.
• Humphrey B. Neill, The Art of Contrary Thinking.
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist.
• Suelette Dreyfus, Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier.
• Frédéric Bastiat, Essays on Political Economy.
• Gregory Zuckerman, The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History.
• Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
• Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton’s Army.
• Max Frisch, Homo Faber.
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Der Richter und sein Henker.
• William J. Bernstein, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World.
• Frédéric Bastiat, The Law.
• Andrew W. Lo and Jasmina Hasanhodzic, The Heretics of Finance.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan.
• Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget.
• William Golding, Lord of the Flies.
• Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System–and Themselves.
• Neil Davidson, Don’t Just Roll The Dice: A Usefully Short Guide to Software Pricing.
• Jessica Livingston, Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days.

2009

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.
• Alain De Botton, Status Anxiety.
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler.
• David J. Leinweber, Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines and Wired Markets.
• Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie der Massen.
• Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo.
• Cory Doctorow, Makers.
• Niall Ferguson, The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000.
• Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.
• Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning.
• Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance.
• Georg Büchner, Dantons Tod.
• Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, The Unincorporated Man.
• Thomas Mann, Der Tod in Venedig.
• Seth Godin, Tribes.
• Victor Niederhoffer, The Education of a Speculator.
• Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft.
• Jürgen A. Alt, Das Abenteuer der Erkenntnis.
• Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß.
• Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung.
• George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four.
• Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities.
• John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
• Gottfried Keller, Kleider machen Leute.
• Leo N. Tolstoi, Herr und Knecht.
• Michael Fitzgerald and Ioan James, The Mind of the Mathematician.
• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
• Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner, Practical Speculation.
• Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.
• Alice Schroeder, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.
• William Poundstone, Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street.
• Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
• Richard Bookstaber, A Demon of Our Own Design.
• Benôit Mandelbrot, The Misbehavior of Markets.
• Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers.
• Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.
• Emanuel Derman, My Life as a Quant.