Books I Recommend & Notes From My Reading System

Books by Tierranked by my star ratings

Recently Added

0 Total Books Read

Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

2003

by David M. Buss

Not yet read

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

1855

by John Bartlett, Geoffrey O'Brien

Not yet read

What We Owe the Future

2022

by William MacAskill

Read

Mastery

2012

by Robert Greene

Not yet read

On Writing Well

1976

by William Zinsser

Not yet read

A Tier

Influence

1984

by Robert Cialdini

4 ★★★★☆

The Art of Thinking Clearly

2013

by Rolf Dobelli

Read

A Tier

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

2014

by Ben Horowitz

4 ★★★★☆

S Tier

Sapiens

2011

by Yuval Noah Harari

5 ★★★★★

Ultralearning

2019

by Scott Young

Not yet read

Tested Advertising Methods

1932

by John Caples

Not yet read

How to Lie with Statistics

1954

by Darrell Huff

Not yet read

Benjamin Franklin

1938

by Carl Van Doren

Not yet read

Napoleon: A Concise Biography

2016

by David A. Bell

Not yet read

The Philosophy Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)

2024

by DK

Not yet read

Benjamin Franklin

2003

by Edmund S. Morgan

Not yet read

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

2006

by Haruki Murakami

Not yet read

A Tier

Eric Ries · 2011

The Lean Startup

★★★★☆

Review — Eric Ries codified what many successful founders learned the hard way: build, measure, learn, repeat. The core insight is simple but profound: most startups fail not because they can't build a product, but because they build something nobody wants. The solution? Validated learning through rapid experimentation. The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) concept has been overused and misunderstood since this book, but Ries's original formulation is spot-on: build the smallest thing that lets you start learning. My favorite chapters focus on pivot vs. persevere decisions. Knowing when to change course is an art, and Ries provides frameworks to make that call more scientific. If I have one criticism, it's that the book can feel repetitive. The key concepts could have been compressed. But for anyone building a product, this is required reading.

The Lean Startup

2011

by Eric Ries

4 ★★★★☆

Essential reading for entrepreneurs on building successful startups.

The Checklist Manifesto

2010

by Atul Gawande

Read

Who: The A Method for Hiring

2008

by Geoff Smart, Randy Street

Not yet read

S Tier

Daniel Kahneman · 2011

Thinking, Fast and Slow

★★★★★

Review — Kahneman's magnum opus is dense, challenging, and absolutely essential for understanding how humans think. The dual-system framework—System 1 (fast, intuitive, emotional) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, logical)—explains so much about human behavior. We like to think we're rational, but System 1 is running the show most of the time. What makes this book brilliant is the decades of rigorous research behind every claim. Kahneman doesn't just theorize; he shows you the experiments, the data, the replication studies. Key insights that stuck with me: - Anchoring effects are everywhere and impossible to avoid - Loss aversion drives more decisions than we realize - The experiencing self vs. the remembering self explains why we make choices that don't maximize happiness Warning: This book will make you question every decision you've ever made. You'll start seeing cognitive biases in yourself and others constantly. It's both enlightening and slightly disturbing. Required reading for anyone interested in psychology, economics, or making better decisions.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

2011

by Daniel Kahneman

5 ★★★★★

A masterpiece on human cognition and decision-making.

Becoming Steve Jobs

2015

by Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli

Not yet read

Sam Walton: Made in America

1992

by Sam Walton

Not yet read

Only the Paranoid Survive

1996

by Andrew S. Grove

Not yet read

Hitler

2008

by Ian Kershaw

Not yet read

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

1984

by Richard Feynman

Read

Ogilvy on Advertising

1983

by David Ogilvy

Read

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

1986

by Max H. Bazerman, Don A. Moore

Not yet read

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

2006

by Joseph Sugarman

Not yet read

Bloomberg by Bloomberg

1997

by Michael Bloomberg

Not yet read

Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger

2000

by Janet Lowe

Read

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

1791

by Benjamin Franklin

Not yet read

Choices, Values, and Frames

1985

by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky

Not yet read

Thinking and Deciding

1988

by Jonathan Baron

Not yet read

To Pixar and Beyond

2016

by Lawrence Levy

Not yet read

The Remains of the Day

1989

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Read

The Coming Wave

2023

by Mustafa Suleyman

Read

The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts

2024

by Shane Parrish, Rhiannon Beaubien

Read

Hackers & Painters

2004

by Paul Graham

Not yet read

Churchill: Walking with Destiny

2018

by Andrew Roberts

Not yet read

Bird by Bird

1994

by Anne Lamott

Read

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

1998

by Ron Chernow

Read

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination

2006

by Neal Gabler

Not yet read

Confessions of an Advertising Man

1963

by David Ogilvy

Read

The Habit of Labor

2015

by Stef Wertheimer

Not yet read

S Tier

James Clear · 2018

Atomic Habits

★★★★★

Review — James Clear's "Atomic Habits" is one of the most practical books on behavior change I've ever read. The framework is brilliantly simple: tiny changes compound over time. Clear doesn't promise overnight transformation—instead, he shows how 1% improvements, when stacked consistently, lead to remarkable results. What I loved most: - The habit loop framework (cue, craving, response, reward) makes abstract concepts concrete - Real-world examples from athletes, artists, and entrepreneurs - The focus on systems over goals—a paradigm shift in how I approach personal development Key takeaway: You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. This idea alone changed how I structure my daily routines. If you struggle with consistency or want to understand why you do what you do, read this book.