I enjoy reading across disciplines and topics, non fiction or fiction. Here’s a list of books that I’ve found insightful and useful (in no real order of preference):
The Feynman Lectures on Physics – Richard Feynman, Matthew Sands, Robert Leighton
Principles of Systems – Jay W. Forrester
The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving – H. William Dettmer
The Goal – Eliyahu Goldratt
It’s Not Luck – Eliyahu Goldratt
Complexity – Melanie Mitchell
Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies – Geoffrey West
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies – Cesar Hidalgo
The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society – Eric D. Beinhocker
How the World Became Rich – Mark Koyama, Jared Rubin
The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created – William J. Bernstein
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World – William J. Bernstein
Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet – William J. Bernstein
Diffusion of Innovations – Everett M. Rogers
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge – Edward O. Wilson
The Logic of Scientific Discovery – Karl Popper
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas Kuhn
The Nature of Economies – Jane Jacobs
The Economy of Cities: From the Birth of the U.S. Navy to the Nuclear Age – Jane Jacobs
Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life – Jane Jacobs
The Structure of Production – Mark Skousen
The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics – Richard Koo
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder – Nassim N. Taleb
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life – Nassim N. Taleb
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World – Niall Ferguson
Empire: The Rise & Demise of the British World Order & the Lessons for Global Power – Niall Ferguson
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 – Paul Kennedy
The Lessons of History – Will & Ariel Durant
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia – Peter Hopkirk
A History of Interest Rates – Sidney Homer & Richard Sylla
The Next Perfect Trade: A Magic Sword of Necessity – Alex Gurevich
The Alchemy of Finance – George Soros
Rational Macro – John Butters
The Invisible Hands: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Bubbles, Crashes, and Real Money – Steven Drobny
Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery – Marc Faber
Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems – Didier Sornette
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk – Peter L. Bernstein
The Money Game – Adam Smith, George Goodman
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management – Roger Lowenstein
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century – Walter Scheidel
The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life – Richard Thaler
The Success Equation – Michael Mauboussin
More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places – Michael Mauboussin
Managing Equity Portfolios: A Behavioral Approach to Improving Skills and Investment Processes – Michael A. Ervolini
Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons from Wall Street’s Four Great Bottoms – Russell Napier
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation – Edward Chancellor
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds – Charles Mackay
The Road to Serfdom – F. A. Hayek
The Fatal Conceit – F. A. Hayek
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis – Richards J. Heuer
The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer – Steven Kotler
Algorithms to Live by: The Computer Science of Human Decisions – Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
Risk Savvy: How To Make Good Decisions – Gerd Gigerenzer
Talent Is Overrated – Geoff Colvin
The Talent Code – Daniel Coyle
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength – Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney
Certain to Win – Chet Richards
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life – Rory Sutherland
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Peter Thiel
Reasons and Persons – Derek Parfit
The Last Word – Thomas Nagel
Biographies/Autobiographies/Memoirs
The Mamba Mentality: How I Play – Kobe Bryant
Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers (The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European) – Stefan Zweig
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War – Robert Coram
Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945 – Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim
Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam – James A. Warren
A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market – Edward O. Thorp
Killing the Market: Legendary Investor Robert W. Wilson – Roemer McPhee
Fiction
The Dandelion Dynasty (The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms, The Veiled Throne, Speaking Bones) – Ken Liu
Remembrance of Earth’s Past – Cixin Liu
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov
Legend of the Galactic Heroes – Yoshiki Tanaka
Dune – Frank Herbert
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Classics
Kean Chan 