Not much fiction: mostly philosophy, strategy and how companies get built. These are the books I have read, shelf by shelf, each with a line on what it is about.
- books
- 30
- authors
- 21
- shelves
- 4
Most read: Robert Greene (4), Epictetus (2), Jordan B. Peterson (2), Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2), Ryan Holiday (2), Seneca (2), Walter Isaacson (2).
The Stoics
How to keep your own mind: duty, death, fear, and what is in our control.
- MeditationsA Roman emperor's private notes to himself on duty, death and keeping his own mind.
- Letters from a StoicLetters to a friend on time, fear, wealth, friendship and how to live.
- On the Shortness of LifeLife is not short; we waste most of it.
- EnchiridionThe handbook: what is up to us, and what is not.
- DiscoursesA former slave's lessons on the freedom no one can take from you.
- The Obstacle Is the WayStoicism in practice: turning what stands in the way into the way.
- Ego Is the EnemyHow ego gets in the way when you aspire, when you succeed and when you fail.
Strategy, power and war
Power, war and mastery: how people actually win, from Sun Tzu to Robert Greene.
- The Art of WarWin before the battle: knowing yourself, the enemy and the ground.
- The 48 Laws of PowerThree thousand years of power, distilled into forty-eight laws and the stories behind them.
- The 33 Strategies of WarMilitary strategy, from Napoleon to guerrilla warfare, read as a guide to everyday conflict.
- MasteryHow masters in every field got there: apprenticeship, mentors, and years of deliberate work.
- The Laws of Human NatureReading people, and yourself: envy, grandiosity, the pull of the group.
- The PrinceHow power is won and kept, as it is rather than as it should be.
- The Book of Five RingsA duellist's treatise on strategy, timing and mastering one way thoroughly.
- On WarWar as the continuation of politics, and why plans meet friction.
Meaning, mind and decisions
How we think, decide and find meaning, and how to come out of chaos stronger.
- 12 Rules for LifeOrder against chaos: responsibility as the source of meaning.
- Beyond OrderThe companion: when order turns rigid, and how to bring life back into it.
- Man's Search for MeaningA psychiatrist who survived the camps, on meaning as what keeps a person going.
- Thinking, Fast and SlowThe two systems of thought, and the biases between them.
- AntifragileThings that gain from disorder, and how to build them.
- The Black SwanRare, unpredictable events that end up explaining most of history.
Entrepreneurship
How companies get built, run and kept alive, told by the people who built them.
- Zero to OneBuild something new instead of copying what exists; the case for the monopoly.
- The Hard Thing About Hard ThingsRunning a company when there is no recipe: layoffs, crises, the struggle.
- The Lean StartupBuild, measure, learn: validated learning instead of long plans.
- High Output ManagementManagement as production: leverage, meetings, one-on-ones and output.
- The Innovator's DilemmaWhy well-run companies lose to cheaper, simpler newcomers.
- Good to GreatWhat the companies that made the leap had in common.
- Shoe DogNike's founder on the years when the company almost didn't make it.
- Steve JobsThe biography written with Jobs's cooperation, flaws included.
- Elon MuskTwo years alongside Musk, from Tesla and SpaceX to X.