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