Book Ratings

Finding good books today isn't all that easy. I created this page to record what I've thought of the books I've read. Reading it should help you get an idea of how similar our tastes are. If we like the same things and I've missed one of your favorites, then what are you doing still sitting there on your hands? E-mail me already! Even better, create a page like this and bring civilization closer to a state of perfect literary harmony.

Current total number of books in the log:i671

A chronological log of what I've read is on a separate page.
Full disclosure: Amazon links here pay me a commission if you buy the books.

Alpha

If I had limited space for sending my past self a list of authors to pay attention to, these would make the cut.

Roberto Bolaño
great 2666[Wikipedia]
good The Savage Detectives[Wikipedia]
good The Skating Rink[Wikipedia]


Douglas Coupland
great Microserfs[Wikipedia]
good Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture[Wikipedia]
good Generation A[Wikipedia]
good JPod[Wikipedia]
good Hey Nostradamus![Wikipedia]
good Miss Wyoming[Wikipedia]


Don DeLillo
great End Zone[Wikipedia]
great Libra[Wikipedia]
great The Names[Wikipedia]
great Underworld[Wikipedia]
great White Noise[Wikipedia]
great Amazons: An Intimate Memoir By the First Woman to Play in the National Hockey League[Wikipedia]
great Zero K[Wikipedia]
great The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories[Wikipedia]
good Great Jones Street[Wikipedia]
good Point Omega[Wikipedia]
good Falling Man[Wikipedia]
good Americana[Wikipedia]
good Players[Wikipedia]
good Mao II[Wikipedia]
good Cosmopolis[Wikipedia]
good The Body Artist[Wikipedia]
good The Silence[Wikipedia]
bad Ratner's Star[Wikipedia]
bad Running Dog[Wikipedia] was much less intellectual than the above and much more "plot-centered"/"pulpy". It was still "good," but not really my style. I think this book and Ratner's Star show DeLillo going too far to opposite extremes.


Helen DeWitt
great The Last Samurai[Wikipedia]
good Some Trick: Thirteen Stories


Charles Dickens
great David Copperfield[Wikipedia]
great Great Expectations[Wikipedia]


Fyodor Dostoyevsky
great The Idiot[Wikipedia]
great Demons/The Possessed[Wikipedia]
great The Brothers Karamazov[Wikipedia]
great Crime and Punishment[Wikipedia]
great The Adolescent/A Raw Youth[Wikipedia]
great The Gambler[Wikipedia]
good Netochka Nezvanovna[Wikipedia]
good The Village of Stepanchikovo[Wikipedia]
good The House of the Dead[Wikipedia]
good Notes From the Underground[Wikipedia]
good Short stories
bad The Double[Wikipedia] is horrible. Anything else is worth reading.


Umberto Eco
great Foucault's Pendulum[Wikipedia]
great The Prague Cemetery[Wikipedia]
great Baudolino[Wikipedia]
good The Name of the Rose[Wikipedia]
good The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana[Wikipedia]
good Numero Zero[Wikipedia]
bad The Island of the Day Before[Wikipedia]


Ralph Ellison
great Invisible Man[Wikipedia]


Neil Gaiman
great American Gods[Wikipedia]
good The Annotated Sandman, Vol. 1[Wikipedia]
good The Annotated Sandman, Vol. 2[Wikipedia]
good The Annotated Sandman, Vol. 3[Wikipedia]
good Anansi Boys[Wikipedia]


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
great The Sorrows of Young Werther[Wikipedia]
great Faust[Wikipedia]
good Faust: Part Two[Wikipedia]
good Elective Affinities[Wikipedia]


Mark Haddon
great The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time[Wikipedia]
good A Spot of Bother[Wikipedia]


Joseph Heller
great Catch-22[Wikipedia]
great Something Happened[Wikipedia]
good Closing Time[Wikipedia]
good Picture This[Wikipedia]
good Now and Then[Wikipedia]
good Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man[Wikipedia]
bad God Knows[Wikipedia]


Hermann Hesse
great Steppenwolf[Wikipedia]
great Demian[Wikipedia]
good Narcissus and Goldmund[Wikipedia]
good Gertrude[Wikipedia]
good Beneath the Wheel[Wikipedia]
good Peter Camenzind[Wikipedia]
good Rosshalde
bad The Glass Bead Game[Wikipedia]
bad Siddartha[Wikipedia]
bad Journey to the East[Wikipedia]
bad Strange News from Another Star[Wikipedia]


John Irving
great The Hotel New Hampshire[Wikipedia]
great A Prayer for Owen Meany[Wikipedia]
great The Cider House Rules[Wikipedia]
great A Son of the Circus[Wikipedia]
great A Widow for One Year[Wikipedia]
great The Water Method Man[Wikipedia]
good The World According to Garp[Wikipedia]
good Until I Find You[Wikipedia]
good The 158-Pound Marriage[Wikipedia]
good Setting Free the Bears[Wikipedia]
good The Fourth Hand
good Last Night in Twisted River[Wikipedia]
good Trying to Save Piggy Sneed[Wikipedia]
good The Imaginary Girlfriend
good Avenue of Mysteries[Wikipedia]


Stephen King
great It[Wikipedia]
great The Bachman Books[Wikipedia]
great 'Salem's Lot[Wikipedia]
great The Dead Zone[Wikipedia]
great Cujo[Wikipedia]
great Different Seasons[Wikipedia]
great Christine[Wikipedia]
great Pet Sematary[Wikipedia]
great Skeleton Crew[Wikipedia]
great The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three[Wikipedia]
great Misery[Wikipedia]
great The Tommyknockers[Wikipedia]
good The Shining[Wikipedia]
good The Dark Half[Wikipedia]
good Carrie[Wikipedia]
good Night Shift[Wikipedia]
good The Stand[Wikipedia]
good Firestarter[Wikipedia]
good Danse Macabre[Wikipedia]
good The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger[Wikipedia]
good Cycle of the Werewolf[Wikipedia]
good The Eyes of the Dragon[Wikipedia]
good Thinner[Wikipedia]
good Four Past Midnight[Wikipedia]
good The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands[Wikipedia]
good Needful Things[Wikipedia]
good Gerald's Game[Wikipedia]


Cixin Liu
great The Three-Body Problem[Wikipedia]
great The Dark Forest[Wikipedia]
great Death's End[Wikipedia]


H. P. Lovecraft
great The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft
great The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham


Henry Miller
great Sexus[Wikipedia]
great Plexus[Wikipedia]
great Nexus[Wikipedia]
good Moloch
good Tropic of Capricorn[Wikipedia]
good Tropic of Cancer[Wikipedia]
good The Colossus of Maroussi
good The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
bad Black Spring[Wikipedia]


Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
great Watchmen: The Annotated Edition[Wikipedia]


Haruki Murakami
great 1Q84[Wikipedia]
great Norwegian Wood[Wikipedia]
great Kafka on the Shore[Wikipedia]
great Wind/Pinball
great A Wild Sheep Chase[Wikipedia]
great Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[Wikipedia]
great South of the Border, West of the Sun[Wikipedia]
great The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle[Wikipedia]


Thomas Pynchon
great Mason and Dixon[Wikipedia]
great Gravity's Rainbow[Wikipedia]
great Vineland[Wikipedia]
great V.[Wikipedia]
great Bleeding Edge[Wikipedia]
great The Crying of Lot 49[Wikipedia]
great Slow Learner[Wikipedia]
good Against the Day[Wikipedia]
good Inherent Vice[Wikipedia]


Philip Roth
great The Human Stain[Wikipedia]
great I Married a Communist[Wikipedia]
great Portnoy's Complaint[Wikipedia]
great Operation Shylock[Wikipedia]
good Zuckerman Bound[Wikipedia]
good The Ghost Writer[Wikipedia]
good American Pastoral[Wikipedia]
good The Counterlife[Wikipedia]
good Sabbath's Theater[Wikipedia]
good The Plot Against America[Wikipedia]
good Exit Ghost[Wikipedia]
good The Great American Novel[Wikipedia]
good Everyman[Wikipedia]
good The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography[Wikipedia]
good Goodbye, Columbus[Wikipedia]
good Letting Go[Wikipedia]
good Deception[Wikipedia]
good When She Was Good[Wikipedia]


Salman Rushdie
great The Satanic Verses[Wikipedia]
good Midnight's Children[Wikipedia]


J.D. Salinger
great The Catcher in the Rye[Wikipedia]


Jean-Paul Sartre
great The Reprieve[Wikipedia]
great The Age of Reason[Wikipedia]
good The Wall[Wikipedia] (American collection of short stories)
good Nausea[Wikipedia]
bad Troubled Sleep[Wikipedia]


Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
great Illuminatus![Wikipedia]
bad Schrödinger's Cat[Wikipedia]


Neal Stephenson
great Cryptonomicon[Wikipedia]
great Snow Crash[Wikipedia]


Lev Tolstoy
great War and Peace[Wikipedia]
bad Anna Karenina[Wikipedia] was rather disappointing. It was full of absurd Christian conversions and pointless and detailed descriptions of social activities, without the redeeming qualities of War and Peace.


John Updike
great Rabbit is Rich[Wikipedia]
good Rabbit Redux[Wikipedia]
good Rabbit, Run[Wikipedia]
good Rabbit at Rest[Wikipedia]
good Licks of Love
good Bech: A Book[Wikipedia]
good The Witches of Eastwick[Wikipedia]


Vernor Vinge
great A Fire Upon the Deep[Wikipedia]
great A Deepness in the Sky[Wikipedia]
good The Peace War[Wikipedia]
good The Children of the Sky[Wikipedia]
good Rainbows End[Wikipedia]


David Foster Wallace
great Infinite Jest[Wikipedia]
great The Pale King[Wikipedia]
great Brief Interviews with Hideous Men[Wikipedia]
great Oblivion[Wikipedia]
great Girl with Curious Hair[Wikipedia]
great A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again[Wikipedia]
great Consider the Lobster[Wikipedia]
good Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity[Wikipedia]
good The Broom of the System[Wikipedia]


Tom Wolfe
great The Bonfire of the Vanities[Wikipedia]
great A Man In Full[Wikipedia]
good I am Charlotte Simmons[Wikipedia]
good Back to Blood[Wikipedia]

Beta

These authors are all worth reading.

Douglas Adams
good The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[Wikipedia]
good The Restaurant at the End of the Universe[Wikipedia]
good Life, the Universe and Everything[Wikipedia]
good So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish[Wikipedia]
good Mostly Harmless[Wikipedia]
good Young Zaphod Plays it Safe[Wikipedia]


Margaret Atwood
good The Handmaid's Tale[Wikipedia]


Iain Banks
good Consider Phlebas[Wikipedia]
good The Player of Games[Wikipedia]
good Use of Weapons[Wikipedia]


T. Coraghessan Boyle
good World's End[Wikipedia]


Michael Chabon
great The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay[Wikipedia]


Robert W. Chambers
great The King in Yellow[Wikipedia]


Susanna Clarke
good Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell[Wikipedia]


Philip K. Dick
great Ubik[Wikipedia]
good Radio Free Albemuth[Wikipedia]
good Confessions of a Crap Artist[Wikipedia]
good The Man in the High Castle[Wikipedia]


E. L. Doctorow
good Billy Bathgate[Wikipedia]
good The Waterworks


Elena Ferrante
great My Brilliant Friend[Wikipedia]
good The Story of a New Name[Wikipedia]
good Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay[Wikipedia]
good The Story of the Lost Child[Wikipedia]


F. Scott Fitzgerald
good Tender is the Night[Wikipedia]
good The Great Gatsby[Wikipedia]


Rebecca Goldstein
good The Mind-Body Problem
good The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind
bad Mazel


Graham Greene
good The Power and the Glory[Wikipedia]


Lev Grossman
good The Magicians[Wikipedia]


Nathaniel Hawthorne
good The Scarlet Letter[Wikipedia]
good The Blithedale Romance[Wikipedia]
good The House of the Seven Gables[Wikipedia]
good The Marble Faun[Wikipedia]


Frank Herbert
good Dune[Wikipedia]
good Dune Messiah[Wikipedia]
bad Children of Dune[Wikipedia]


Michel Houellebecq
good Submission[Wikipedia]


Franz Kafka
good The Castle[Wikipedia]
good The Trial[Wikipedia]
good Short stories


Jack Kerouac
good On the Road[Wikipedia]


Stephen King and Peter Straub
great The Talisman[Wikipedia]


Stanislaw Lem
great Solaris[Wikipedia]
great The Invincible[Wikipedia]


Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger
good Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers: 1852-1923


Sinclair Lewis
good It Can't Happen Here[Wikipedia]


Ken Liu
great Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation
good Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation


Jack London
good John Barleycorn[Wikipedia]
good The Sea Wolf[Wikipedia]


Yann Martel
good Life of Pi[Wikipedia]


Cormac McCarthy
good All the Pretty Horses[Wikipedia]


China Miéville
great The City & The City[Wikipedia]
good Perdido Street Station[Wikipedia]
good The Scar[Wikipedia]
good King Rat[Wikipedia]
good Iron Council[Wikipedia]


David Mitchell
good number9dream[Wikipedia]


Vladimir Nabokov
good The Defense[Wikipedia]
good Pnin[Wikipedia]
good Pale Fire[Wikipedia]
good Invitation to a Beheading[Wikipedia]
good Lolita[Wikipedia]
good Nabokov's Dozen[Wikipedia]
good The Real Life of Sebastian Knight[Wikipedia]


Brian O'Nolan
great At Swim-Two-Birds[Wikipedia]
good The Third Policeman[Wikipedia]


George Orwell
great Down and Out in Paris and London[Wikipedia]
good 1984[Wikipedia]
good Burmese Days[Wikipedia]
bad Keep the Aspidistra Flying[Wikipedia]
bad Homage to Catalonia[Wikipedia] is really journalism and not an attempt at fiction, so don't expect otherwise!
bad Animal Farm[Wikipedia]


Chuck Palahniuk
good Fight Club[Wikipedia]
bad Survivor[Wikipedia]
bad Invisible Monsters[Wikipedia]


Robert Pirsig
good Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[Wikipedia]
good Lila[Wikipedia]


Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
good The Space Merchants[Wikipedia]


Daniel Quinn
good Ishmael[Wikipedia]
good The Story of B[Wikipedia]
good My Ishmael[Wikipedia]


Mary Shelley
great The New Annotated Frankenstein


Robert Silverberg
great Dying Inside[Wikipedia]
good To Open the Sky


Olaf Stapledon
good Last And First Men[Wikipedia]


Bram Stoker
great The New Annotated Dracula


Peter Straub
good Ghost Story[Wikipedia]


Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
good God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater[Wikipedia]
good Mother Night[Wikipedia]
good The Sirens of Titan[Wikipedia]
good Slaughterhouse-Five[Wikipedia]
good Breakfast of Champions[Wikipedia]
good Hocus Pocus[Wikipedia]
good Cat's Cradle[Wikipedia]
good Timequake[Wikipedia]


John Williams
good Stoner[Wikipedia]


Colin Wilson
great Ritual in the Dark
good Man Without a Shadow
good Adrift in Soho[Wikipedia]

Gamma

Some others that are above average

Sherwood Anderson
good Winesburg, Ohio[Wikipedia]


Isaac Asimov
good Foundation[Wikipedia]


David Brin
good Sundiver[Wikipedia]


Emily Brontë
good Wuthering Heights[Wikipedia]


Raymond Chandler
good The Big Sleep[Wikipedia]


William Gaddis
good Carpenter's Gothic[Wikipedia]


Milan Kundera
good The Unbearable Lightness of Being[Wikipedia]


Victor LaValle
great Big Machine
good The Ecstatic


Min Jin Lee
good Pachinko


Anita Loos
good Gentlemen Prefer Blondes[Wikipedia]


Michael Martone
bad Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler's List


Larry Niven
good Ringworld[Wikipedia]
good The Ringworld Engineers[Wikipedia]
good The Ringworld Throne[Wikipedia]


Boris Pasternak
good Doctor Zhivago[Wikipedia]


Rainer Maria Rilke
good The Diary of Malta Laurid Brigge[Wikipedia]


Tom Robbins
good Villa Incognito[Wikipedia]


Ivan Turgenev
good Fathers and Sons[Wikipedia]
good Short stories
bad Rudin/On the Eve


Owen Wister
good The Virginian[Wikipedia]

Nonfiction

I'm not going to bother comparing these books to each other. I'll just say that I found each worth reading.


Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson
great The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty
good Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty[Wikipedia]


Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi
good The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline


Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T. Hamilton
good Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality


Thomas Armstrong
good Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences


Robert Axelrod
good The Evolution of Cooperation


Safi Bahcall
great Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries


E. Digby Baltzell
good Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia


Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
good Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty[Wikipedia]


Richard J. Barber Associates, Inc.
great The Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1958-1974


William Barrett
good Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy[Wikipedia]


David T. Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok
good The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society[Wikipedia]


Bill Bishop
great The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart


Christopher Boehm
great Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior


Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis
good Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life[Wikipedia]


Jason Brennan
good Against Democracy[Wikipedia]
good Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know


David Brooks
great On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense[Wikipedia]
great Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There[Wikipedia]
good The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement[Wikipedia]
good The Road to Character[Wikipedia]


Frederick Brooks
good The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering[Wikipedia]
good The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist


Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
great Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon


Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
good The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies


Marty Cagan
good Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love


Pierre Cahuc and André Zylberberg
good The Natural Survival of Work: Job Creation and Job Destruction in a Growing Economy


Susan Cain
good Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking[Wikipedia]


T. Colin Campbell
great The China Study: Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health[Wikipedia]
good The Low-Carb Fraud


Bryan Caplan
great The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
good Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think[Wikipedia]
good Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration
good Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice


Fritjof Capra
good The Tao of Physics[Wikipedia]
bad The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture[Wikipedia]


Dale Carnegie
good How to Win Friends and Influence People[Wikipedia]


Noam Chomsky
good Keeping the Rabble in Line
good Necessary Illusions[Wikipedia]
good Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order[Wikipedia]


Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending
good The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution[Wikipedia]


JL Collins
great The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life


Geoff Colvin
great Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will


Steven Conn
good Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century


Tyler Cowen
great Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation[Wikipedia]
good The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better[Wikipedia]
good An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies
good What Price Fame?
good The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
good Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
good Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero


Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross
good Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World


Daniel M. Davis
good The Compatibility Gene: How Our Bodies Fight Disease, Attract Others, and Define Our Selves


Richard Dawkins
great The Selfish Gene[Wikipedia]
great The Ancestor's Tale[Wikipedia]
good The God Delusion[Wikipedia]
good A Devil's Chaplain[Wikipedia]


Felicia Day
good You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)


Daniel Dennett
good Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon[Wikipedia]
good Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life[Wikipedia]
good Consciousness Explained[Wikipedia]


Anita Dhake
good Operation Enough!: How to Retire Remarkably Early


Jared Diamond
good Guns, Germs, and Steel[Wikipedia]


Lars A. Doucet
good Land is a Big Deal: Why rent is too high, wages too low, and what we can do about it


David Scott Duncan
good The Secret Lives of Customers: A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior


Kevin Dutton
great The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success


David Eagleman
great Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain[Wikipedia]


Umberto Eco
good How to Write a Thesis


Barbara Ehrenreich
good Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America[Wikipedia]


Jeremy England
good Every Life Is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things


Nathan Ensmenger
great The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise


Greg Epstein
good Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe


Richard Epstein
good Simple Rules for a Complex World


Rip Esselstyn
good The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds


Zeke Faux
good Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall[Wikipedia]


Peter J. Feibelman
good A Ph.D. Is Not Enough!


Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
good Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist


Rob Fitzpatrick
good The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you


Richard Florida
great Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life[Wikipedia]
good The Rise of the Creative Class--Revisited: Revised and Expanded[Wikipedia]
good The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class-and What We Can Do About It


Martin Ford
good Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future


Robert Frank
good Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich


Benjamin Franklin
good The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin[Wikipedia]


Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman
good Free to Choose[Wikipedia]


Thomas L. Friedman
great The Lexus and the Olive Tree[Wikipedia]
great The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century[Wikipedia]
great From Beirut to Jerusalem[Wikipedia]
good Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America[Wikipedia]


Carol Frieze and Jeria Quesenberry
good Kicking Butt in Computer Science: Women in Computing at Carnegie Mellon University


William H. Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins
good Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes


John Taylor Gatto
great The Underground History of American Education[Wikipedia]
good Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling


Jon Gertner
great The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation


Bruce Cannon Gibney
good A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
good The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System


Elad Gil
good High Growth Handbook


Malcolm Gladwell
good Outliers: The Story of Success[Wikipedia]


Edward Glaeser
good Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier


Mark Goldman
good City on the Edge: Buffalo, New York, 1900 - present


Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox
good The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement[Wikipedia]


Gary B. Gorton
good Slapped by the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007


Stephen Jay Gould
good The Mismeasure of Man[Wikipedia]


Henry Grabar
good Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World


Michael J. Graetz
good 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States


Alan Greenspan
good The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World[Wikipedia]


Michael Greger
great How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
great How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older


Jonathan Haidt
great The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion[Wikipedia]
great The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom[Wikipedia]


J. Storrs Hall
good Where Is My Flying Car?


Sam R. Hamburg
good Will Our Love Last?: A Couple's Road Map


Robin Hanson
good The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth[Wikipedia]


Yuval Noah Harari
great Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow[Wikipedia]
great Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind[Wikipedia]
good 21 Lessons for the 21st Century[Wikipedia]


Tim Harford
good Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
good The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World[Wikipedia]


Paul Hawken
great Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming


Malcolm Harris
good Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials


Hamilton Helmer
good 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy


Joseph Henrich
great The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter


Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
great The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life[Wikipedia]


Karen Ho
good Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street


Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh
good The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age


Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
great Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies


Ben Horowitz
good The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
good What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture


Neil Irwin
good How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World: The Definitive Guide to Adapting and Succeeding in High-Performance Careers


Daniel Jackson
good The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design


Jane Jacobs
good The Death and Life of Great American Cities[Wikipedia]


Garett Jones
great Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own[Wikipedia]
great 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less


Daniel Kahneman
great Thinking, Fast and Slow[Wikipedia]


Jerome Karabel
good The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton[Wikipedia]


Eric Kaufmann
good Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities


John Kay
great Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance


Melissa S. Kearney
good The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind


Stephanie Kelton
great The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy


Alec Klein
good A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America's Best High Schools


Ezra Klein
great Why We're Polarized[Wikipedia]


Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz
good From Poverty to Prosperity: Intangible Assets, Hidden Liabilities and the Lasting Triumph over Scarcity


Torkel Klingberg
good The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory


Steve Krug
good Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability[Wikipedia]


Ray Kurzweil
great The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence[Wikipedia]


David Kushner
great Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture[Wikipedia]


Gary Lachman
good Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson


George Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez
good Where Mathematics Comes From[Wikipedia]


Susan Lammers
good Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry


Steven E. Landsburg
great The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics
great More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics


Nick Lane
good Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life[Wikipedia]
good The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life[Wikipedia]


Jaron Lanier
good Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now


Agustin Lebron
great The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone


Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
good Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything[Wikipedia]


Harry R. Lewis
good Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education


Brink Lindsey
great Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth Has Made Us Smarter--and More Unequal


David Lipsky
great Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace[Wikipedia]


Jessica Livingston
great Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days


Annie Lowrey
good Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World


Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
great The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure[Wikipedia]


David J. C. MacKay
great Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air


John Mackey, Alona Pulde, and Matthew Lederman
good The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity


Sebastian Mallaby
good The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
good More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite[Wikipedia]


Jerry Mander
good Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television[Wikipedia]


Jim Manzi
good Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society


John Markoff
good What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry[Wikipedia]


W. David Marx
good Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change


Wednesday Martin
good Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir


Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller
good Mate: Become the Man Women Want


Megan McArdle
good The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success


Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman
great Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud


James E. McWilliams
great Just Food: How Locavores are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly


Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows
good Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update[Wikipedia]


Ashley Mears
great Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
great Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model


Geoffrey Miller
good The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
good Virtue Signaling: Essays on Darwinian Politics & Free Speech


David A. Mindell
good Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy


Dan Moller
good Governing Least: A New England Libertarianism


Charles Montgomery
great Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design[Wikipedia]


Geoffrey A. Moore
great Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers[Wikipedia]


Ian Morris
good Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve


Robert F. Moss
good Barbecue: The History of an American Institution


Charles Murray
good Coming Apart: The State of White America[Wikipedia]
good The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life
good In Our Hands: A Plan To Replace The Welfare State
good By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission
good Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class


Charles Muscatine
good Fixing College Education: A New Curriculum for the Twenty-First Century


David Niose
good Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans


Richard Nisbett
good Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count


Ara Norenzayan
good Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict


David Nutt
good Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Health


Richard A. Oppenlander
good Comfortably Unaware


Jennifer Pahlka
great Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better


Scott E. Page
good The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy


Tom G. Palmer
good Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice


Ron Paul
good The Revolution: A Manifesto[Wikipedia]


Louise Perry
good The Case Against the Sexual Revolution[Wikipedia]


Steven Pinker
good The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature[Wikipedia]
good The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined[Wikipedia]
good Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress[Wikipedia]
good The Sense of Style
good The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature[Wikipedia]
good The Language Instinct[Wikipedia]
good Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters[Wikipedia]


Susan Pinker
great The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap[Wikipedia]


Richard Posner
good Sex and Reason


William Poundstone
good Fortune's Formula


Richard O. Prum
great The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us


Robert D. Putnam
good Bowling Alone[Wikipedia]
good Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis


Emily Ratajkowski
great My Body


Jonathan Rauch
good Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy


Richard Reeves
great Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It


Richard Restak
good The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind


Al Ries and Jack Trout
good Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind


Eric Ries
great The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses[Wikipedia]


David Riesman
good The Lonely Crowd[Wikipedia]


Stuart Ritchie
good Intelligence: All That Matters


Amanda Ripley
great The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way


Lauren A. Rivera
good Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs


John Robbins
good The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World


Rich Roll
good Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself


Hans Rosling
great Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think[Wikipedia]


Jonathan Rottenberg
good The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic


Joan Roughgarden
good The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness


Christian Rudder
good Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)


Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá
good Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality[Wikipedia]


Carl Sagan
good The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark[Wikipedia]


Elyn R. Saks
great The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness


Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr.
great Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It


David E. Sanger
great The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age


Ben Sasse
great Them: Why We Hate Each Other--and How to Heal


Lynn Saxon
good Sex at Dusk: Lifting the Shiny Wrapping from Sex at Dawn


Eric Schlosser
good Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal[Wikipedia]


Peter Seibel
great Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming[Wikipedia]


Jeffrey J. Selingo
great There Is Life After College: What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow
great Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions


Robert J. Shiller
good Irrational Exuberance[Wikipedia]


Clay Shirky
good Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations[Wikipedia]


Donald Shoup
great The High Cost of Free Parking[Wikipedia]
good Parking and the City


Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
good The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life


Rachel Simmons
good The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence


Vaclav Smil
good How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going


Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
good The Millionaire Next Door[Wikipedia]


Andrew Steele
great Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old


Will Storr
great The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It


Cass Sunstein
good How Change Happens
good Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It


Steven H. Strogatz
good Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe


Alex Tabarrok
good Launching The Innovation Renaissance: A New Path to Bring Smart Ideas to Market Fast


Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
good Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness[Wikipedia]


Clive Thompson
good Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World


Henry David Thoreau
good Walden[Wikipedia]


Bob Tinker and Tae Hea Nahm
good Survival to Thrival: Building the Enterprise Startup - Book 1: The Company Journey
good Survival to Thrival: Building the Enterprise Startup - Book 2: Change or Be Changed


Alexis de Tocqueville
good Democracy in America, Volume I[Wikipedia]


Michael Tougias and John S. Burk
good AMC's Best Day Hikes Near Boston


Sherry Turkle
good Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other


Avi Tuschman
good Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us


Mark Twain
good Life on the Mississippi[Wikipedia]


Jean M. Twenge
great iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us
great Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents--and What They Mean for America's Future


J. D. Vance
good Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis[Wikipedia]


William T. Vollmann
good Imperial


Nicholas Wade
good A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History[Wikipedia]


Meik Wiking
good The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living


Colin Wilson
great The Outsider[Wikipedia]
good Religion and the Rebel
good The Occult: A History[Wikipedia]
good The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries with Damon Wilson
good Alien Dawn
bad The Age of Defeat


Edward O. Wilson
good Letters to a Young Scientist[Wikipedia]


Gordon S. Wood
great The Radicalism of the American Revolution[Wikipedia]


Colin Woodard
great American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
bad American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
good Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood


Robert Wright
great Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny[Wikipedia]
great The Moral Animal[Wikipedia]
great The Evolution of God[Wikipedia]
great Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment


Andrew Yang
great Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy
good The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future


Eliezer Yudkowsky
good Rationality: From AI to Zombies


Matt Yglesias
good The Rent is Too Damn High


Amy B. Zegart
good Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence


Peter Zeihan
good Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World


Howard Zinn
great A People's History of the United States[Wikipedia]
good You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
good Declarations of Independence

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