What Books Have I Read? (My Reading List)

In my previous letter I expressed why I love reading so much.

Why Do I Read So Much?

For those interested and curious, I’m sharing the list of books that I’ve read over the years. This list started the year I dropped out of university. In the past 12 years I have read 117 books. Looking at it, this list charts the journey of my mind. You may notice some interesting things.

I’ve kept track of and highlighted the books based on my experience with them at the time of reading them. Some books I barely remember now, and other books have had an incredible impact on my life. I think it’s likely that if I re-read some of the books again now being older that I would have a different experience reading them.

Here is a key to the highlights:

Italics * I really enjoyed the book.

Bold ** I really enjoyed the book and would highly recommend.

Underlined *** Incredibly insightful book that highly impacted my way of thinking and I think every person should read this book!

2x I read the book a second time

Here’s the list:

2011 (20)

• Heart of Darkness

• The Iliad

• Guns, Germs, and Steel ***

• The Odyssey **

• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything ***

• The Republic (Plato) *

• 1984 *

• Propaganda (Edward Bernayes)

• The Scientific Outlook (Bertrand Russell) *

• Born to Buy *

• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man *

• Out of Our Minds **

• The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)

• Collapse *

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin *

• Crisis of Democracy

• The Best That Money Can’t Buy (Fresco) **

• The Meaning of the 21st Century **

• Your Money or Your Life **

• Plenitude

2012 (27)

• Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) **

• One Thousand and One Nights - “Arabian Nights”

• Les Miserables *

• The Divine Comedy

• Ulysses (James Joyce) *

• Architecture of Happiness *

• The Art of Travel *

• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) ***

• Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl) **

• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt **

• Benjamin Franklin: An American Life **

• Steve Jobs **

• Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography *

• Einstein: His Life and Universe **

• Cosmos (Carl Sagan) *

• The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan) **

• The Dragons of Eden (Carl Sagan) **

• The Lucifer Effect (Zimbardo) **

• Anatomy Of Peace: Resolving The Heart Of Conflict ***

• Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman) **

• Alone Together (Sherry Turkle) **

• DIY U (Anya Kamenetz) **

• How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie) ***

• The Great Gatsby *

• For Whom the Bell Tolls *

• Hamlet (Shakespeare) **

• Poetics (Aristotle) **

2013 (19)

• Deep Economy (Mckibben)

• Small is Possible: Life in a local Economy (Estill)

• Spirit Level (Wilkinson)

• The Shock Doctrine (Klein)

• The Curiosity of School (Zander Sherman) **

• Start with Why (Simon Sinek) ***

• Status Anxiety **

• Pleasures and Sorrows of Work *

• Religion for Atheists **

• Essays in Love **

• Don Quixote *

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer *

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn *

• Island (Aldous Huxley) **

• The World Until Yesterday (Jared Diamond)**

• Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan) **

• My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla *

• The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (Tesla) **

• The Story of My Experiments with the Truth (Gandhi) **

2014 (11)

• The Name Above the Title (Frank Capra) **

• Charles Chaplin: My Autobiography **

• Making Movies (Sidney Lumet) **

• Manhood of Humanity (Korzybski) **

• 1914: The Year the World Ended *

• Science and Sanity (Korzybski) ***

• The Tyranny of Words (Stuart Chase) **

• Language in Thought and Action (Hayakawa) **

• Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull) **

• Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek) **

• Meditations (Marcus Aurelius) **

2015 (10)

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brian (Betty Edwards) **

• The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Gustave Le Bon) **

• The Prince (Machiavelli) *

• The Art of War (Sun Tzu) *

• Building a Bridge to the 18th Century (Neil Postman) **

• Essays: First Series (Emerson) *

• Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (Syd Field) **

• Film Theory and Criticism *

• The Kindness Diaries (Leon Logothetis) **

• Casino Royale (Ian Fleming) **

2016 (11)

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell) **

• Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare) **

• In the Blink of an Eye (Walter Murch) **

• The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare) *

• The Story of My Life: Venetian Years (Casanova) **

• Vitamin N (Richard Louv) *

• Losing my Virginity (Richard Branson) **

• Essays: Second Series (Emerson) *

• Screw It, Let’s Do It (Richard Branson) **

• King Lear (Shakespeare) *

• How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie) 2x ***

2017 (10)

• Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future **

• Five Came Back (Mark Harris) **

• Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) *

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) *

• An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (Chris Hadfield) **

• Sex and Culture (J.D. Unwin) ***

• Starting Point (Hayao Miyazaki) **

• Turning Point (Hayao Miyazaki) **

• Ready Player One *

• The Anatomy of Story (John Truby) **

2018 (10)

• Leonardo Da Vinci (Isaac Walterson) **

• Story (Robert McKee) **

• The 10x Rule (Grant Cordone) **

• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead (Jerry Weintraub) **

• Walden (Thoreau)

• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame *

• The Richest Man in Babylon (George S Clason) **

• The Millionaire Fastlane (MJ Demarco) **

• The Education of Millionaires (Michael Ellsberg) *

• How to Get Rich (Felix Dennis) *

2019 (4)

• Principles (Ray Dalio) ***

• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) 2x ***

• Dune (Frank Herbert) **

• The Anatomy of Story (John Truby) 2x **

2020 (5)

• Wired for Story **

• What Every Body is Saying (Joe Navarro) **

• Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss) **

• Anatomy Of Peace: Resolving The Heart Of Conflict 2x ***

• How to Stay Alive in the Woods (Angier) *

2021 (5)

• Your Next Five Moves (Patrick Bet-David) **

• Foundation (Isaac Asimov) **

• The Wim Hof Method **

• Rational Male Religion **

• Ethics (Spinoza) ***

2022 (7)

• Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (Ray Dalio) ***

• Upheaval (Jared Diamond) **

• Parting Words: 9 Lessons for a Remarkable Life (Benjamin Ferencz) **

• Zero to One (Peter Thiel) *

• Rework (Fried and Hansson) **

• Simulacra and Simulation (Jean Baudrillard) *

• Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Girard) ***

And that’s the list of books that I’ve read over the past 12 years. I want to re-read some of these books eventually and I still have a lot of other books that I want to read. Here are a few of the books that I’m most looking forward to reading in 2023.

• The Beginning of Infinity (David Deutsch)

• The Network State (Balaji Srinivasan)

• War and Peace (Tolstoy)

What books would you highly recommend? What books do you want to read?