All-Time Favorite Books
Below, in no particular order, are some of my all-time favorite books by genre. Generally, these are books that had an effect on my worldview, those which I learned some very important things, and/or I remember quite clearly even many years after reading. There definitely is some recency bias in this list. I would love for you to let me know what is on your list.
Link to what I’ve been reading: Book Lists!
General Fiction
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (but some classify this book as non-fiction)
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Body & Soul by Frank Conroy
- The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
- Survivor by Chuck Palahnuik
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
- I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
- Bear Town, by Fredrik Backman
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Middlemarch, By George Eliot
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King
- The Three Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Neuromancer by William Gibson
- The Long Run by Daniel Keys Moran
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
- Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
- The Sky is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (fantasy)
- Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
- Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
General Non-Fiction
- Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover
- The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
- Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies, by Geoffrey West
- How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World, by Steven Johnson
- A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
- A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking
- The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling
- The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, by Tom Nichols
- Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell You About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.
- Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
- How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, by Jordan Ellenberg
- The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, by Daniel Yergin
- The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t, by Nate Silver
- Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine, by Thomas Hager
- Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, by Annie Duke
- The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt
- Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, by Lulu Miller
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari
Non-Fiction – Self-Improvement
- The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz
- Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, by Mark Manson
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown
- Atomic Habits – Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, by James Clear
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman
- Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, by David Goggins
Non-Fiction – Business and Leadership
- Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, by Seth Godin
- Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, by Youngme Moon
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, by Ben Horowitz
- The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth, by Chris Zook & James Allen
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Really Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink
- Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
- Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, by Bo Burlingham
- Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, by Tim Harford
- The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
- It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, by Michael Abrashoff
- The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eli Goldratt
Non-Fiction – Investments
- The Success Equation: Untangling Skill From Luck in Business, Sports and Investing by Michael J. Mauboussin
- Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahnemann
- The (Mis)behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence, by Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson
- Successful Investing is a Process: Structuring Efficient Portfolios for Outperformance by Jacques Lussier
- Zero-to-One: Notes on Startups, Or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel
- Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment by David Swenson
- Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter J. Bernstein
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassem Taleb
- Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance, by Nassim Taleb
- The Incredible Shrinking Alpha, by Larry Swedroe and Andrew Berkin
- A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds and the Perils of Financial Innovation, by Richard Bookstaber
- Expected Returns: An Investor’s Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards, by Antti Ilmanen
- Predictably Irrational, by Daniel Ariely
- The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics, by Michael Shermer
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles MacKay
- Investing: The Last Liberal Art, by Robert Hagstrom
- Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought, by Andrew W. Lo
- The Investor’s Paradox: The Power of Simplicity in a World of Overwhelming Choice by Brian Portnoy
- The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy by James Montier

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