Books

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I like to read.

1. Check out my reviews below of books I’ve read.
2. Read my blog posts about the books and top quotes/takeaways (don’t forget to comment book recommendations)
3. For an easier view of my ratings and book categories, check out this Google Sheet

Most book titles below are hyperlinks to Amazon. I get a small % if you buy the book through that link.

2023 Books Read

Title	Author	Grade	Brief notes
Dude you’re Gonna Be a Dad	John Pfeiffer	B+	Review
The War of Art	Steven Pressfield	A	Review

2022 Books Read

Title	Author	Grade	Brief notes
Atomic Habits	James Clear	B
Clone Yourself	Jeff Hilderman	B
How to Talk to Anyone	Leil Lowndes	B-
How Highly Effective People Speak	Peter Andrei	B-
Kinfolk – The Mind	Various	A	Great works of writing by many artists. Topics range from relationships to design, to random things about casserole. Really insightful and well written. Enjoyed all the pieces (except one). Design/art focused imagery as well
Para Llevar – Issue 2	Various	A-	Mainly about a small restaurant in upstate NY and it’s owners. Discusses the affect of the restaurant on the town and the culture/soul of the town.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad	Robert Kiyosaki	B	Some good principles for building wealth. Questionable ethics and statements around workforce management.
Security Analysis	Benjamin Graham, David Dodd
Start With Why	Simon Sinek	B
The Call of the Wild	Jack London	A+	Who knew that a story about a dog could be so relatable. This book is a masterpiece. With 3 hours you can finish the book and reflect on if you are living a life of meaning and compassion. It’s a bit intense at time with the raw visuals of life in the wild, but it helps get your mind back to its natural state. It was symbolic in such a simple and beautiful way.
The Dhando Investor	Monish Pabrai	B	A good intro book to get a basic framework for investing with the right value mindset. A lot of the ideas can also be found in The Intelligent Investor (as the author states) but The Dhandho Investor is a bit easier and quicker to digest. Not the most groundbreaking book for people that have experience with value investing, but a good reminder and quick read nonetheless.
The Education of a Value Investor	Guy Spier	B+	I enjoyed this book a bit more than the Dhando Investor. They have a lot of the same insights and strategies for value investing, but despite Guy’s self-deprecating language which comes off a bit as lacking confidence and therefore not giving you a sense of strength, there are a lot of great pieces of advice and practical steps you can take to improve with investing. There are good research studies mentioned to solidify some of the points.
The First 90 Days	Michael D. Watkins	B
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive	Patrick Lencioni	A
The Phantom Tollbooth	Norton Juster	A+	It may be marketed to “young adults” but I think that’s just a way to say that all adults need to read it to stay young and imaginative. It’s a classic and “must read” with artful writing, humor, and metaphors. Positive reinforcement for living your life authentically. A quick read too.
The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking	Dale Carnegie	B
The Self Aware Leader	John C. Maxwell	A-
Things Remembered and Things Forgotten	Kyoko Nakajima	B	Forgot it was a short story at first. It was interesting and well written. The stories bring back a sense of nostalgia and seem realistic in their familiar descriptions. You can detect some cultural differences throughout the stories.

2021 Books Read

Title	Author	Grade
People’s History of The United States	Howard Zinn	A
How to Win Friends and Influence People	Dale Carnegie	B
Goldfinch	Donna Tart	C
Hunger	Knut Hamsun	B+
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job	Kikuko Tsumura	A-
Bullshit Jobs; A Theory	David Graeber	B
Lords of Finance	Liaquat Ahamed	A-

2020 Books Read

Title	Author	Grade
The Windup Girl	Paolo Bacigalupi	B+
Artemis	Andy Weir	B+
Snowball	Alice Schroeder	A
Randomize	Andy Weir	B+
The Last Conversation	Paul Tremblay	B
Emergency Skin	NK Jemisin
Summer Frost	Blake Crouch
Ark	Veronica Roth
The Art of Negotiation	Michael Wheeler	B
Artemis	Andy Weir	B-
Hippie	Paulo Coelho	A
Aleph	Paulo Coelho	B
One Small Step Can Change Your Life	Robert Maurer	A
Putin’s World	Angela Stent	A
The Secret of the Caves	Franklin	C

2018 Books Read

Title	Grade
Bitcoin for Dummies	B
Cryptoassets	B
The Art of War	B
How Money Got Free	A+
A Gentleman in Moscow	A+
Devil Take the Hindmost	A
Rules of Civility	A
The Minimalist Mindset	A
Thinking, Fast and Slow	A
Sentient Machines	A
The Destiny Forumula	C
Snowball: Warren Buffett	B
The Four Hour Workweek	A
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	B
The One	D
Origin	A
Beautiful Boy	C
When to Jump	C
The Chip	A
Dead on Arrival	A
The Fear Index	B
The Third Door	C
Only the Paranoid Survive	C
Man’s Search for Meaning	A+
The Art of Invisibility	B
Leonardo da Vinci	A
Made to Stick	B

2017 Books Read

Title	Grade
An American Life: Benjamin Franklin	A+
Congress and the shaping of the Middle East	B
Rose Water	C
The Fall of Heaven	B
A Gentleman in Moscow	A+
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy	A
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe	B
George Washington: The American Presidents Series	A
The Wizard of Menlo Park	A
Life, the universe, and everything	B
Stress Test	B
The Tipping Point	A
Boomerang	A
Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future	B
When Breath Becomes Air	B
Manifesting Change	B
Inheritance	A
My Life and Work	A
Zero to One	A
Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words	A
Quantum Reality	B
Liar’s Poker	B
The Big Short	A+
Anti-Fragile	B
Making Humans Multi-Planetary (Elon Musk)	A
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat	B
Apex (The Nexus Trilogy)	B
Flash Boys	A
Benito Mussolini: A Short History	B
Moneyball	A
More than human	C
Nexus (The Nexus Trilogy)	A+
Robber Barons	B
The Future of the Mind	A
Things I wish I’d known before we got married	A
Vietnam War: A Short History	A
Winston Churchill: A Short History	B
Abraham Lincoln: A Concise History of the Man Who Transformed the World	A
Theodore Roosevelt: A Life From Beginning to End	A
Crux (The Nexus Trilogy)	A
Soft Wired	A
Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future	A
Physics of the Future	A
Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics	A
TED TALKS: The Official Guide to Public Speaking	A
1984	A
Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness	B
Brave New World	A
Chop Wood and Carry Water	B
Customer Success	B
David and Goliath	A
The Outliers	A
The Undoing Project: A friendship that changed our minds	A
What the Dog Saw	A
Who Moved My Cheese?	A+
Will China Dominate the 21st Century?	B