# Books I Have Read A complete list of books I've read, organized by category. Click any title to find it on Amazon Kindle. **Total: 336 books** --- ## Biography & Memoir ### [All Creatures Great and Small](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=All%20Creatures%20Great%20and%20Small%20James%20Herriot%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *James Herriot* > had heard this sort of nonsense before. A short time in practice had taught me that all farmers were experts with other farmers’ livestock. When their own animals were in trouble they tended to rush to the phone for the vet, but with their neighbours’ they were confident, knowledgeable and full of helpful advice. ### [The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Autobiography%20of%20Benjamin%20Franklin%20Benjamin%20Franklin%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Benjamin Franklin* > Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday’s leisure in my course of study; but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens. ### [Becoming Trader Joe](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Becoming%20Trader%20Joe%20Joe%20Coulombe%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Joe Coulombe* > Whole Earth Harry’s moves into wine and health foods had taken us quite a distance into genuine retailing. In our cheese departments we were literally taking whole wheels and cutting them into pieces. I took this as an analogy for what we should do with everything we sold. Getting rid of all outside salespeople was corollary to the programs that would unfold during the next five years. In Mac the Knife, no outsiders of any sort were permitted in the store. All the work was done by employees. The closest thing to it that I see these days is Costco, which shares many features with Trader Joe’s. ### [The Billionaire Who Wasn't](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Billionaire%20Who%20Wasn%27t%20Conor%20O%27Clery%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Conor O'Clery* > Arnault discussed Feeney’s visit with his confidant, Robert Leon, when they met for their ritual Saturday morning coffee in a Paris café. ### [Churchill and Orwell](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Churchill%20and%20Orwell%20Thomas%20E.%20Ricks%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas E. Ricks* > To refuse to run with the herd is generally harder than it looks. To break with the most powerful among that herd requires unusual depth of character and clarity of mind. But it is a path we should all strive for if we are to preserve the right to think, speak, and act independently, heeding the dictates not of the state or of fashionable thought but of our own consciences. ### [Educated](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Educated%20Tara%20Westover%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tara Westover* > could take it all back—blame Lucifer and be given a clean slate. I imagined how esteemed I would be, as a newly cleansed vessel. How loved. All I had to do was swap my memories for theirs, and I could have my family. ### [Eminent Victorians](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Eminent%20Victorians%20Lytton%20Strachey%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lytton Strachey* > 'It would be a gain to this country,' Keble observed, 'were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than at present it shows itself to be.' 'The ### [Hillbilly Elegy](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Hillbilly%20Elegy%20J.%20D.%20Vance%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *J. D. Vance* > Mamaw’s family participated in the migratory flow with gusto. Of her seven siblings, Pet, Paul, and Gary moved to Indiana and worked in construction. Each owned a successful business and earned considerable wealth in the process. Rose, Betty, Teaberry, and David stayed behind. All of them struggled financially, though everyone but David managed a life of relative comfort by the standards of their community. The four who left died on a significantly higher rung of the socioeconomic ladder than the four who stayed. As Papaw knew when he was a young man, the best way up for the hillbilly was out. ### [Inventing FedEx](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Inventing%20FedEx%20Vance%20H.%20Trimble%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Vance H. Trimble* > He felt fear—just as any normal person would. At the same time, Fred was in a strange way fascinated by actually being in mortal combat. These contradictory emotions puzzled him. ### [Let's Go](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Let%27s%20Go%20Jeff%20Tweedy%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jeff Tweedy* > I became a songwriter not when I composed that perfect couplet, or experienced the right amount of pain. It’s when I realized that whatever I wrote, even if it meant gutting myself in front of strangers, letting all those raw emotions come flooding out, making a fool of myself with my own words, was exactly what I always wanted to do with my life. ### [Mark Twain](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Mark%20Twain%20Ron%20Chernow%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ron Chernow* > He clung to pretensions of supposed descent from the “First Families of Virginia”; what his son labeled “a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginia stock.” ### [My Struggle (Books 1-6)](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=My%20Struggle%20Karl%20Ove%20Knausgaard%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Karl Ove Knausgaard* > “I like Sleeping Tangle,” Tore said. “No, it’s too cryptic. What is a sleeping tangle?” “It’s a mood, a problem that exists but hasn’t had any impact yet. There’s something passive about it. Or abandoned. Above all, though, it creates a mood.” ### [Out of My Life and Thought](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Out%20of%20My%20Life%20and%20Thought%20Albert%20Schweitzer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Albert Schweitzer* > By itself the affirmation of life can only produce a partial and imperfect civilization. Only if it turns inward and becomes ethical can the will to progress attain the ability to distinguish the valuable from the worthless. We must therefore strive for a civilization that is not based on the accretion of science and power alone, but which cares most of all for the spiritual and ethical development of the individual and of humankind. ### [A Place of My Own](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Place%20of%20My%20Own%20Michael%20Pollan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Pollan* > For isn’t it in our daydreams that we acquire some sense of what we are about? Where we try on futures and practice our voices before committing ourselves to words or deeds? Daydreaming is where we go to cultivate the self, or, more likely, selves, out of the view and earshot of other people. Without its daydreams, the self is apt to shrink down to the size and shape of the estimation of others. ### [Ten Acres Enough](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ten%20Acres%20Enough%20Edmund%20Morris%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edmund Morris* > character. Indeed, character consists in little acts, and honorably performed; daily life being the quarry from which we build it up and rough-hew the habits ### [Twelve Years a Slave](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Twelve%20Years%20a%20Slave%20Solomon%20Northup%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Solomon Northup* > Mary, a tall, lithe girl, of a most jetty black, was listless and apparently indifferent. Like many of the class, she scarcely knew there was such a word as freedom. Brought up in the ignorance of a brute, she possessed but little more than a brute's intelligence. She was one of those, and there are very many, who fear nothing but their master's lash, and know no further duty than to obey his voice. ### [Unbroken](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Unbroken%20Laura%20Hillenbrand%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Laura Hillenbrand* > forgave him everything. When he trained, people ### [Working](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Working%20Robert%20A.%20Caro%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert A. Caro* > “What good is thinking to me? I need to know!” Bobby Baker, who was his chief vote-counter, said, “He never wanted to be wrong, never. I learned I had better never be wrong.” ### [Working Days](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Working%20Days%20John%20Steinbeck%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Steinbeck* > The play M & M [Ed.-Of Mice and Men] went on and is a success. And with its success, I know there is never to be any ease, any pleasure for me. People I liked have changed. Thinking there is money, they want it. And even if they don’t want anything, they watch me and they aren’t natural any more. ### [The World of Yesterday](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20World%20of%20Yesterday%20Stefan%20Zweig%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Stefan Zweig* > unfailing and binding power of tolerance and conciliation. ## Business & Management ### [7 Powers](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=7%20Powers%20Hamilton%20Helmer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Hamilton Helmer* > In cases of competitor-led compelling value, the uncertainty is two-fold: (1) Will the new features be differentially attractive enough to drive share gains? And (2) will the existing competitors be sufficiently delayed in their response? ### [Barbarians at the Gate](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Barbarians%20at%20the%20Gate%20Bryan%20Burrough%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bryan Burrough, John Helyar* > From the outset, Wilson’s relations with the Reynolds board were shaky. None of the directors condoned his strong-arm tactics in winning the chairmanship, and his treatment of their friend Sticht wasn’t appreciated. Wilson tried to build bridges, in his fashion. He sent directors briefing papers between board meetings. He scheduled one lunch a year with each director, during which he took copious notes as his guest aired whatever was on his mind; Wilson kept the notes in little books, one for each director. But where it mattered most, Wilson fell hopelessly short. John Macomber was still pestering him for business and getting rebuffed. When Vernon Jordan pressed for more legal work, Wilson would coolly reply that, as a nonlawyer, he couldn’t judge whether there was anything appropriate; he referred Jordan to Reynolds’s general counsel. In contrast to chief executives such as Paul Sticht and Ross Johnson, who played their boards like a personal symphony orchestra, Wilson had a tin ear. ### [Build](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Build%20Tony%20Fadell%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tony Fadell* > The whole product narrative should be in there—every pain, every painkiller, every rational and emotional impulse, every insight about your customer. It needs to encompass everything because: It’s essential for product development: Product management and marketing work on the messaging architecture from day one. In order to build a great product, each pain has to be extremely well understood and answered with a painkiller in the form of a product feature. The messaging architecture is a sister text to the plain list of features and their functionality that makes up your basic product messaging. Both need to exist side by side: the what and the why. It’s a living document: As the product and your team’s understanding of the customer evolve, so does the messaging architecture. It’s a shared resource: Everyone who is responsible for any customer touchpoints should be looking at this document, not just marketing. It should steer engineering, sales, and support as well. Every single team should be thinking about the what, the why, and the story you’re telling. ### [Building a StoryBrand](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Building%20a%20StoryBrand%20Donald%20Miller%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Donald Miller* > Brands that help customers avoid some kind of negativity in life (and let their customers know what that negativity is) engage customers for the same reason good stories captivate an audience: they define what’s at ### [Business Adventures](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Business%20Adventures%20John%20Brooks%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Brooks* > Generally speaking, both represented efforts by grasping rulers to mulct their subjects. ### [The Business of Venture Capital](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Business%20of%20Venture%20Capital%20Mahendra%20Ramsinghani%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mahendra Ramsinghani* > The primary goal for any venture capitalist is to create value —for their entrepreneurs and their fund investors. “We are in the business of helping a company achieve critical path milestones. Being able to determine what is critical path is a matter of survival — our job is to be insanely rigorous about what the critical path is.” A definitive characteristic about a venture capitalist is being analytical about these milestones, says James Bryer, former chairman, National Venture Capital Association. ### [The Checklist Manifesto](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Checklist%20Manifesto%20Atul%20Gawande%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Atul Gawande* > Reznick had never heard about the demise of Master Builders, but he had gravitated intuitively toward the skyscraper solution—a mix of task and communication checks to manage the problem of proliferating complexity ### [The Cold Start Problem](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Cold%20Start%20Problem%20Andrew%20Chen%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Andrew Chen* > How do you build network effects in your product? How do you know when network effects are kicking in, and if they are strong enough to create defensibility? How do you pick the right metrics to optimize to achieve viral growth, reengagement, defensibility, and other desired effects? What product features do you build to amplify network effects? ### [Creativity, Inc.](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Creativity%2C%20Inc.%20Ed%20Catmull%20and%20Amy%20Wallace%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace* > Who better to teach than the most capable among us? And I’m not just talking about seminars or formal settings. Our actions and behaviors, for better or worse, teach those who admire and look up to us how to govern their own lives. Are we thoughtful about how people learn and grow? As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the whole. Do we think of most activities as teaching opportunities and experiences as ways of learning? One of the most crucial responsibilities of leadership is creating a culture that rewards those who lift not just our stock prices but our aspirations as well. ### [The Effective Executive](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Effective%20Executive%20Peter%20F.%20Drucker%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Peter F. Drucker* > This should be elementary prudence. Contrary to popular legend, subordinates do not, as a rule, rise to position and prominence over the prostrate bodies of incompetent bosses. If their boss is not promoted, they will tend to be bottled up behind him. And if their boss is relieved for incompetence or failure, the successor is rarely the bright, young man next in line. He usually is brought in from the outside and brings with him his own bright, young men. Conversely, there is nothing quite as conducive to success, as a successful and rapidly promoted superior. ### [Fundraising](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fundraising%20Ryan%20Breslow%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ryan Breslow* > The Process: Momentum is Everything Fundraising is purely a matter of momentum. If there’s one thing you take away from this book, this is the one. The principle of momentum applies to all stages of fundraising, and arguably to anything related to getting people to take action (including sales, recruiting, and more). Therefore, it’s important to design a fundraising process around maximizing momentum. In order to do so, there are three recommended steps to a fundraising process: Lay the soil (build a network of champions) Plant the seeds (start casually meeting investors) SEND IT (you’re fundraising!) Following these steps will reliably create the best outcomes. Skipping steps introduces risk. ### [Give and Take](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Give%20and%20Take%20Adam%20M.%20Grant%20Ph.D.%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Adam M. Grant Ph.D.* > To explain why uncommon commonalities are so transformative, the psychologist Marilynn Brewer developed an influential theory. On the one hand, we want to fit in: we strive for connection, cohesiveness, community, belonging, inclusion, and affiliation with others. On the other hand, we want to stand out: we search for uniqueness, differentiation, and individuality. As we navigate the social world, these two motives are often in conflict. The more strongly we affiliate with a group, the greater our risk of losing our sense of uniqueness. The more we work to distinguish ourselves from others, the greater our risk of losing our sense of belongingness. ### [The Goal](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Goal%20Eliyahu%20M.%20Goldratt%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox, and David Whitford* > And he’s saying, “Alex, I have come to the conclusion that productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive. Do you follow me?” ### [Good Strategy Bad Strategy](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Good%20Strategy%20Bad%20Strategy%20Richard%20Rumelt%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Richard Rumelt* > And strategy, responsive to innovation and ambition, selects the path, identifying how, why, and where leadership and determination are to be applied. ### [The Great CEO Within](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Great%20CEO%20Within%20Matt%20Mochary%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Matt Mochary, Alex MacCaw, and Misha Talavera* > Until PMF is achieved, the company must have an appropriate morale to be able to adapt to negative customer feedback and potentially pivot the company. ### [High Output Management](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=High%20Output%20Management%20Andrew%20S.%20Grove%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Andrew S. Grove* > Thus I will assert again that a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. ### [Inspired](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Inspired%20Marty%20Cagan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Marty Cagan* > The vast majority of times I meet a team that has been working hard to create an MVP I am able to convince them that they could have achieved the same learning in a fraction of the time and effort. They have spent literally months building an MVP when they could have had this same learning in days or, sometimes, even in hours. The other unhappy consequence is that very often the rest of the company—especially key leadership in sales and marketing—is confused and embarrassed by what the product team is trying to get customers to buy and use. While this is partly a result of the way most people have learned this concept, I think the root of the issue is that while the P in MVP stands for product, an MVP should never be an actual product (where product is defined as something that your developers can release with confidence, that your customers can run their business on, and that you can sell and support). The MVP should be a prototype, not a product. Building an actual product‐quality deliverable to learn, even if that deliverable has minimal functionality, leads to substantial waste of time and money, which of course is the antithesis of Lean. ### [Invent and Wander](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Invent%20and%20Wander%20Walter%20Isaacson%20and%20Jeff%20Bezos%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Walter Isaacson and Jeff Bezos* > I’m interested in the question “How do you fend off Day 2?” What are the techniques and tactics? How do you keep the vitality of Day 1, even inside a large organization? Such a question can’t have a simple answer. There will be many elements, multiple paths, and many traps. I don’t know the whole answer, but I may know bits of it. Here’s a starter pack of essentials for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making. ### [The Lean Startup](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lean%20Startup%20Eric%20Ries%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Eric Ries* > What traditional business strategy excels at is helping managers identify clearly what assumptions are being made in a particular business. The first challenge for an entrepreneur is to build an organization that can test these assumptions systematically. The second challenge, as in all entrepreneurial situations, is to perform that rigorous testing without losing sight of the company’s overall vision. ### [The Making of a Manager](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Making%20of%20a%20Manager%20Julie%20Zhuo%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Julie Zhuo* > Remember what I said before: great managers are made, not born. But there is one caveat, and that caveat is this: you have to enjoy the day-to-day of management and want to do it. ### [The Messy Middle](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Messy%20Middle%20Scott%20Belsky%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Scott Belsky* > As you craft your team’s culture, lower the bar for how you define a “win.” Celebrate anything you can, from gaining a new customer to solving a particularly vexing problem. ### [The Minimalist Entrepreneur](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Minimalist%20Entrepreneur%20Sahil%20Lavingia%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sahil Lavingia* > Building a minimalist business does not mean settling for second best. Instead, it’s about creating sustainable companies that have the flexibility to take risks to serve the greater good, all while empowering others to do the same. Being profitable, hopefully from the very beginning, means being able to focus and to stay focused on the reason you started a business in the first place: to help others. ### [My Years With General Motors](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=My%20Years%20With%20General%20Motors%20Alfred%20P%20Sloan%20Jr.%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Alfred P Sloan Jr.* > I see three simultaneous patterns in the way Mr. Durant set up General Motors. The first was variety in cars for a variety of tastes and economic levels in the market. That is evident in Buick, Olds, Oakland, Cadillac, and, later, Chevrolet. The second pattern was diversification, calculated, it seems, to cover the many possibilities in the engineering future of the automobile, in search of a high average result instead of an all-or-none proposition. Among the non-survivors in General Motors, there was, for example, the Cartercar, which had a “friction drive” that was then considered a potential rival of the sliding-gear transmission; and also the Elmore Manufacturing Company, an outgrowth of a bicycle-manufacturing enterprise, which had a two-cycle motor that looked as if it might have a chance for a demand of some kind. There were a number of other random gambles which I shall only name: the Marquette Motor Company, the Ewing Automobile Company, the Randolph Motor Car Company, the Welch Motor Car Company, the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, and the Reliance Motor Truck Company. The last two were combined and named Rapid Truck, which was absorbed by the General Motors Truck Company, organized on July 22, 1911. The third pattern in Mr. Durant’s arrangements was his effort, mentioned in connection with Buick, to increase integration through the manufacture of the parts and accessories that make up the anatomy of the motorcar. ### [Never Split the Difference](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Never%20Split%20the%20Difference%20Chris%20Voss%20and%20Tahl%20Raz%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Chris Voss and Tahl Raz* > It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. They’re allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change you’re proposing is more advantageous than the status quo. ### [The New Strategic Selling](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20New%20Strategic%20Selling%20Robert%20B.%20Miller%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert B. Miller, Stephen E. Heiman, Tad Tuleja* > Fully understanding your current position means knowing who all your key players are, how they feel about you, how they feel about your proposal, what questions they want to have answered, and how they see your proposal vis-à-vis their other options. It means in short having a reliable fix on all of your strong and weak points before each selling encounter even begins. ### [No Rules Rules](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=No%20Rules%20Rules%20Reed%20Hastings%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer* > Like most French people, I build an argument the way we are trained in school. I introduce the principle, build up the theory, address any challenges to the argument, then come to my conclusions. Introduction, thesis, antithesis, synthesis, that’s how we French learn to analyze over many years in school. Americans often learn “get to the point and stick to the point.” To the French person it’s like, “How can you come to the point when you haven’t explained your argument?!” Netflix is of course an American company by origin. I have an American boss, and most of my teammates are American. Unbeknownst to me, my communication approach wasn’t working for them as intended. It was November 2016 and my boss led a live 360 event for the team. We were in a private room at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Amsterdam for a four-course dinner. It was literally a “dark and stormy night,” and we were in an ornate medieval style room where the only light was a big crystal chandelier hanging over a big wood rectangular table. I was nervous but had soothed myself by thinking about all I had accomplished in my short time at Netflix. I believed I was clearly a “stunning colleague.” When it was my turn to receive feedback, my colleague Joelle began by telling me that I need to improve my communication skills. She said I lose the listener’s attention and take too long to get to the point. I was like, “Me? A poor communicator? I am a communications specialist! My greatest skill is my ability to communicate!” That feedback made no sense to me, so I prepared to discard it. But then my other American colleagues, one after another, went around the room giving me feedback: a lot of nice things, but also “You’re too theoretical,” “Your messages aren’t crisp enough,” “Your writing loses the reader’s attention.” After the fifth person I was like, “Okay, I get it! No need to gang up on me.” By the seventh person I started to feel defensive. I felt like saying, “Hey American dude, try working in a French company and see how they like your writing style!” But even for Sophie receiving the feedback was worth the discomfort of the evening: That dinner happened two years ago and was the most important developmental moment for me in the past decade. I’ve made enormous strides with my adaptability. I’ve mastered moving back and forth between the American and French communication patterns, which is incredibly challenging, but my colleagues have congratulated me in more recent live 360 sessions. I hated that evening at the Waldorf, but without it eventually I would have failed the Keeper Test. I don’t think I’d be at Netflix.” ### [The Nvidia Way](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Nvidia%20Way%20Tae%20Kim%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tae Kim* > SGI was, understandably, unhappy about losing Montrym and feared losing even more talent to Nvidia. In April 1998, SGI sued Nvidia for patent infringement, alleging that the RIVA family of processors infringed on the company’s high-speed texture-mapping technology. While some Nvidia employees were initially worried about the lawsuit, Andrew Logan, Nvidia’s director of corporate marketing, was excited. “I got a call from the Wall Street Journal right now on my voicemail,” he told his colleagues after the lawsuit was announced. “This is perfect. We’re on the map!” Jensen agreed. He walked around from office to office, shaking everyone’s hand and saying, “Congratulations! We just got sued by the most important graphics company in the world. We’re somebody.” ### [Pitching and Closing](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Pitching%20and%20Closing%20Alexander%20Taub%20and%20Ellen%20DaSilva%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Alexander Taub and Ellen DaSilva* > The goal of a business development professional is to identify growth opportunities for the business, test and implement them, reproduce the deals, and then develop a standard process (which ultimately leads to building a sales team). This tenet is at the heart of BD, and it is what separates the legendary deal makers from the amateurish ones. ### [Retail Disruptors](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Retail%20Disruptors%20Jan-Benedict%20Steenkamp%20and%20Laurens%20Sloot%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jan-Benedict Steenkamp and Laurens Sloot* > Full dual trackers combine the core competencies and the mindsets of two very different types of company. This can – and often does – create tension between image-oriented brand managers in their nice offices and down-to-earth private-label sellers in their austere offices. Who is the swan? Who the ugly duckling? ### [Scaling Innovation](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Scaling%20Innovation%20Madhavan%20Ramanujam%20and%20Eddie%20Hartman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Madhavan Ramanujam and Eddie Hartman* > The Free Farm Axiom If you give away the farm in your entry‐level offer, you leave nothing else to sell. ### [Scaling People](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Scaling%20People%20Claire%20Hughes%20Johnson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Claire Hughes Johnson* > Every part of the stack—the team, the division, and the company—should have a mission. A team’s mission should ladder up to the division’s mission, and the division’s mission should ladder up to the company’s mission. ### [The Score Takes Care of Itself](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Score%20Takes%20Care%20of%20Itself%20Bill%20Walsh%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh* > While the media eventually and inappropriately labeled me “the Genius,” the 49ers’ subsequent turnaround—from a 2-14 record my first season to Super Bowl champions twenty-four months later (becoming the first and only team in NFL history to go from the worst to the best in two seasons), from organizational chaos to praise from the Harvard Business Review for organizational excellence—was due in large part to many quantifiable, even nuts-and-bolts, skills available to you or anyone with drive and intelligence. There was innovation and expertise, yes; force of will, certainly; and occasional good fortune, of course. But my organizational and managerial starting point was something else. I came to the San Francisco 49ers with an overriding priority and specific goal—to implement what I call the Standard of Performance. It was a way of doing things, a leadership philosophy that has as much to do with core values, principles, and ideals as with blocking, tackling, and passing; more to do with the mental than with the physical. While I prized preparation, planning, precision, and poise, I also knew that organizational ethics were crucial to ultimate and ongoing success. It began with this fundamental leadership assertion: Regardless of your specific job, it is vital to our team that you do that job at the highest possible level in all its various aspects, both mental and physical (i.e., good talent with bad attitude equals bad talent). ### [The Strategist's Toolkit](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Strategist%27s%20Toolkit%20Jared%20Harris%20and%20Michael%20Lenox%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jared Harris and Michael Lenox* > Together, this triad of mission, intent, and actions defines an organization’s strategy. ### [The Success Equation](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Success%20Equation%20Michael%20J.%20Mauboussin%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael J. Mauboussin* > Peeking out from underneath a huge desk was a trash can bearing the logo of the Washington Redskins, a professional football team. As a sports fan who had just spent four years in Washington, D.C., and had attended a game or two, I complimented the executive on his taste in trash cans. He beamed, and that led to a ten-minute interview that stretched to fifteen minutes, during which I listened and nodded intently as he talked about sports, his time in Washington, and the virtues of athletics. His response to my opening was purely emotional. Our discussion was not intellectual. It was about a shared passion. I got the job. My experience in the training program at Drexel Burnham was critical in setting the trajectory of my career. But after a few months in the program, one of the leaders couldn't resist pulling me aside. “Just to let you know,” he whispered, “on balance, the six interviewers voted against hiring you.” I was stunned. How could I have gotten the job? He went on: “But the head guy overrode their assessment and insisted we bring you in. I don't know what you said to him, but it sure worked.” My career was launched by a trash can. That was pure luck, and I wouldn't be writing this if I hadn't benefited from it. ### [What You Do Is Who You Are](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=What%20You%20Do%20Is%20Who%20You%20Are%20Ben%20Horowitz%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ben Horowitz* > sell, you had have 1) the competence—expert knowledge of the product you were selling and the process to demonstrate it (qualifying the buyer by validating their need and budget; helping define what their buying criteria are while setting traps for the competition; getting sign-off from the technical and the economic buyer at the customer, and so forth) so that you could have 2) the confidence to state your point of view, which would give you 3) the courage to have 4) the conviction not to be sold by the customer on why she wasn’t going to buy your product. Cranney was obsessed with training every salesperson, testing them, and holding them accountable on the four C’s. ### [Working Backwards](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Working%20Backwards%20Colin%20Bryar%20and%20Bill%20Carr%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Colin Bryar and Bill Carr* > The team writing the narrative toils over the topic, writes its first draft, circulates and reviews and iterates and repeats, then finally takes the vulnerable step of saying to their management and their peers, “Here’s our best effort. Tell us where we fell short.” ### [Zero to IPO](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Zero%20to%20IPO%20Frederic%20Kerrest%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Frederic Kerrest* > Your company has four pillars that make it work: people, systems, processes, and data. No matter your size, no matter the challenges or opportunities you’re facing, these are what you will need to upgrade as you grow. A system that supported your team when you had just a handful of customers probably won’t be the same system you’ll use when you have thousands. A process that worked fine when there were 30 of you—the way you managed expense reports, say, or kept track of paid time off—won’t work when there are 1,000. Plus, as you get bigger, you need ever more granular and precise data to run the complex machinery. ## Economics & Finance ### [A Brief History of Equality](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Equality%20Thomas%20Piketty%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas Piketty* > In concrete terms, a state that levies taxes amounting to only 1 percent of the national income has very little power and capacity to mobilize society. Roughly speaking, it can put 1 percent of the population in its service to perform functions that it considers useful.5 Such states are often barely able to guarantee the security of goods and persons on their territory, and must rely for that on multiple local elites. ### [Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Deaths%20of%20Despair%20and%20the%20Future%20of%20Capitalism%20Anne%20Case%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Anne Case, Angus Deaton* > if any group is treated badly enough for long enough, it is susceptible to suffering social breakdown of one kind or another. ### [Debt](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Debt%20David%20Graeber%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Graeber* > Still, the author is actually making a rather clever synthesis here. Human nature does not drive us to “truck and barter.” Rather, it ensures that we are always creating symbols—such as money itself. This is how we come to see ourselves in a cosmos surrounded by invisible forces; as in debt to the universe. ### [The Economic Consequences of Peace](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Economic%20Consequences%20of%20Peace%20John%20Maynard%20Keynes%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Maynard Keynes* > and little has been overlooked which might impoverish Germany now or obstruct her development in future. ### [The Great Transformation](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Great%20Transformation%20Karl%20Polanyi%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Karl Polanyi* > However, it is all too easily assumed by economic liberals that economic rulers tend to be beneficial, while political rulers do not. ### [The Infinite Machine](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Infinite%20Machine%20Camila%20Russo%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Camila Russo* > Instead they were getting ready to roll out Ethereum’s third post-launch stage, called Metropolis—the first two were Frontier and Homestead. Metropolis would be composed of two separate updates via hard forks. The first one was called Byzantium, set for October 16, and the second one, Constantinople, would be implemented at a later date. Byzantium would pave the way for proof of stake by reducing miners’ block rewards to gradually wean them off proof-of-work. There were also plans to increase mining difficulty to incentivize miners to switch to proof of stake, the so-called difficulty bomb. ### [Lying for Money](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lying%20for%20Money%20Dan%20Davies%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dan Davies* > The simple answer here is that the failure of the Silk Road escrow system was a specific instance of a general problem in computer security—that if something is a pain in the ass, it will not provide any protection because people will not use it. ### [The Millionaire Next Door](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Millionaire%20Next%20Door%20Thomas%20J.%20Stanley%20Ph.D.%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D.* > Interestingly, the millionaires I interviewed in Oklahoma and Texas, for example, had the same set of traditional American values as those whom I interviewed in New York City and Chicago. The large majority was keenly interested in being financially independent. That’s why they lived below their means. ### [More Money Than God](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=More%20Money%20Than%20God%20Sebastian%20Mallaby%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sebastian Mallaby* > Asness freely recognized his debt to Jones’s improvisation. His hedge funds, like just about all hedge funds, embraced four features that Jones had combined to spectacular effect. To begin with, there was a performance fee: Jones kept one fifth of the fund’s investment profits for himself and his team, a formula that sharpened the incentives of his lieutenants. Next, Jones made a conscious effort to avoid regulatory red tape, preserving the flexibility to shape-shift from one investment method to the next as market opportunities mutated. But most important, from Asness’s perspective, were two ideas that had framed Jones’s investment portfolio. Jones had balanced purchases of promising shares with “short selling” of unpromising ones, meaning that he borrowed and sold them, betting that they would fall in value. By being “long” some stocks and “short” others, he insulated his fund at least partially from general market swings; and having hedged out market risk in this fashion, he felt safe in magnifying, or “leveraging,” his bets with borrowed money. As we will see in the next chapter, this combination of hedging and leverage had a magical effect on Jones’s portfolio of stocks. But its true genius was the one that Asness emphasized later: The same combination could be applied to bonds, futures, swaps, and options—and indeed to any mixture of these instruments. More by luck than by design, Jones had invented a platform for strategies more complex than he himself could dream of. ### [Payments Systems in the U.S.](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Payments%20Systems%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Carol%20Coye%20Benson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Carol Coye Benson, Scott Loftesness, Russ Jones* > Processors serving smaller banks developed “on-we” check-clearing capabilities that mimicked, to some extent, the multi-state check processing capabilities of national banks. ### [The Power Law](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Power%20Law%20Sebastian%20Mallaby%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sebastian Mallaby* > “We all suffer from the desire not to be embarrassed,” Jim Goetz reflected. “But we’re in the business of being embarrassed, and we need to be comfortable enough to say out loud what might be possible.”[22] ### [Progress and Poverty](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Progress%20and%20Poverty%20Henry%20George%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Henry George* > The "tramp" comes with the locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are as surely the marks of "material progress" as are costly dwellings, rich warehouses, and magnificent churches. ### [The Psychology of Money](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Psychology%20of%20Money%20Morgan%20Housel%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Morgan Housel* > Perhaps 99% of the works someone like Berggruen acquired in his life turned out to be of little value. But that doesn’t particularly matter if the other 1% turn out to be the work of someone like Picasso. Berggruen could be wrong most of the time and still end up stupendously right. A lot of things in business and investing work this way. Long tails—the farthest ends of a distribution of outcomes—have tremendous influence in finance, where a small number of events can account for the majority of outcomes. That can be hard to deal with, even if you understand the math. It is not intuitive that an investor can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune. It means we underestimate how normal it is for a lot of things to fail. Which causes us to overreact when they do. ### [The Rise and Fall of American Growth](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20American%20Growth%20Robert%20J.%20Gordon%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert J. Gordon* > Between 1940 and 1945, the federal government purchased productive equipment that amounted to roughly 50 percent of the stock of privately owned equipment that existed before the war in 1941.60 ### [Stubborn Attachments](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Stubborn%20Attachments%20Tyler%20Cowen%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tyler Cowen* > when the future comes, it will be as real as the present is right now. ## Fiction (Literary) ### [Atlas Shrugged](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Atlas%20Shrugged%20Ayn%20Rand%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ayn Rand* > “I don’t ask people to take greater chances on my ventures than I take myself. If it’s a gamble, I’ll match anybody’s gambling. Didn’t you say that that track was my first showcase?” She inclined her head and said gravely. “All right. Thank you.” “Incidentally, I don’t expect to lose this money. I am aware of the conditions under which these bonds can be converted into stock at my option. I therefore expect to make an inordinate profit—and you’re going to earn it for me.” She laughed. “God, Hank, I’ve spoken to so many yellow fools that they’ve almost infected me into thinking of the Line as of a hopeless loss! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I think I’ll earn your inordinate profit for you.” ### [The Beautiful and Damned](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Beautiful%20and%20Damned%20F.%20Scott%20Fitzgerald%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *F. Scott Fitzgerald* > amid much fuss, fume, applause, and ill will he gathered to himself some seventy-five million dollars. This occupied his energies until he was fifty-seven years old. It was then that he determined, after a severe attack of sclerosis, to consecrate the remainder of his life to the moral regeneration of the world. ### [Britt-Marie Was Here](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Britt-Marie%20Was%20Here%20Fredrik%20Backman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Fredrik Backman* > That is the reason why passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands that we risk. Our dignity. The puzzlement of others and their condescending, shaking heads. ### [Commonwealth](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Commonwealth%20Ann%20Patchett%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ann Patchett* > If her mother hadn’t been so pretty none of it would have happened, but being pretty was nothing to blame her for. ### [The Complete Sherlock Holmes](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Complete%20Sherlock%20Holmes%20Sir%20Arthur%20Conan%20Doyle%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sir Arthur Conan Doyle* > writing might be known, or come to be known, by you. Again, you will observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line, but that some are much higher than others. ‘Life,’ for example is quite out of its proper place. That may point to carelessness or it may point to agitation and hurry upon the part of the cutter. On the whole I incline to the latter view, since the matter was evidently important, and it is unlikely that the composer of such a letter would be careless. If he were in a hurry it opens up the interesting question why he should be in a hurry, since any letter posted up to early morning would reach Sir Henry before he would leave his hotel. Did the composer fear an interruption — and from whom?” “We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,” said Dr. Mortimer. “Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation. Now, you would call it a guess, no doubt, but I am almost certain that this address has been written in a hotel.” “How in the world can you say that?” “If you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the ink have given the writer trouble. The pen has spluttered twice in a single word, and has run dry three times in a short address, showing that there was very little ink in the bottle. Now, a private pen or ink-bottle is seldom allowed to be in such a state, and the combination of the two must be quite rare. But you know the hotel ink and the hotel pen, where it is rare to get anything else. Yes, I have very little hesitation in saying that could we examine the waste-paper baskets of the hotels around Charing Cross until we found the remains of the mutilated Times leader we could lay our hands straight upon the person who sent this singular message. Halloa! Halloa! What’s this?” He was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words were pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes. “Well?” “Nothing,” said he, throwing it down. “It is a blank ### [The Complete Works of Mark Twain](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Complete%20Works%20of%20Mark%20Twain%20Mark%20Twain%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mark Twain* > “O, splendid!” said Washington. “Let’s commence right away — let’s — — ” “ — — 1,000,000 bottles in the United States — profit at least $350,000 — and then it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the real idea of the business.” “The real idea of it! Ain’t $350,000 a year a pretty real — — ” “Stuff! Why what an infant you are, Washington — what a guileless, short-sighted, easily-contented innocent you are, my poor little country-bred know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for the poor crumbs a body might pick up in this country? Now do I look like a man who — — does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the common herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? Now you know that that is not me — couldn’t be me. You ought to know that if I throw my time and abilities into a patent medicine, it’s a patent medicine whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an eye-water country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you’ve got to cross to get to the true eye-water market! Why, Washington, in the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every square mile of ground upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling human creatures — and every separate and individual devil of them’s got the ophthalmia! It’s as natural to them as noses are — and sin. It’s born with them, it stays with them, it’s all that some of them have left when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the orient and what will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in Constantinople and our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and warehouses in Cairo, Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking, Bangkok, Delhi, Bombay — and Calcutta! Annual income — well, God only knows how many millions and millions apiece!” ### [A Confederacy of Dunces](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Confederacy%20of%20Dunces%20John%20Kennedy%20Toole%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Kennedy Toole* > “Do you know Mr. Reilly well?” “Ever since he was a kid. His momma was sure proud of him. All the sisters at school loved him, he was so precious. Look how he ended up, laying in a gutter. Well, they better start thinking about moving off my block. I can’t take it no more. They’ll really be arguing now.” “Let me ask you something. You know Mr. Reilly well. Do you think he’s very irresponsible or maybe even dangerous?” “What you want with him?” Miss Annie’s bleary eyes narrowed. “He’s in some other kinda trouble?” “I’m Gus Levy. He used to work for me.” “Yeah? You don’t say. That crazy Idnatius was sure proud of that job he had at that place. I useta hear him telling his momma how he was really making good. Yeah, he made good. A few weeks and he was fired. Well, if he worked for you, you really know him good.” Had that poor Reilly kook really been proud of Levy Pants? He had always said that he was. That was one good sign of his insanity. “Tell me. Hasn’t he been in trouble with the police? Doesn’t he have some kind of police record?” “His momma had a policeman coming around her. A regular undercover agent. But not that Idnatius. For one thing his momma likes her little nip. I don’t see her drunk much lately, but for a while there she was really going good. One day I look out in the backyard and she had herself all tangled up in a wet sheet hanging off the line. Mister, it’s already took ten years off my life living next to them people. Noise! Banjos and trumpets and screaming and hollering and the TV. Them Reillys oughta go move out in the country somewheres on a farm. Every day I gotta take six, seven aspirin.” Miss Annie reached inside the neckline of her housedress to find some strap that had slipped from her shoulder. “Lemme tell you something. I gotta be fair. That Idnatius was okay until that big dog of his died. He had this big dog useta bark right under my window. That’s when my nerves first started to go. Then the dog dies. Well, I think, now maybe I’ll get me some peace and quiet. But no. Idnatius is got the dog laid out in his momma’s front parlor with some flowers stuck in its paw. That’s when him and his momma first started all that fighting. To tell you the truth, I think that’s when she started drinking. So Idnatius goes over to the priest and ax him to come say something over the dog. Idnatius was planning on some kinda funeral. You know? The priest says no, of course, and I think that’s when Idnatius left the Church. So big Idnatius puts on his own funeral. A big fat high school boy oughta know better. You see that cross?” Mr. Levy looked hopelessly at the rotting Celtic cross in the front yard. “That where it all happened. He had about two dozen little kids standing around in that yard watching him. And Idnatius had on a big cape like Superman and they was candles burning all over. The whole time his momma was screaming out the front door for him to throw the dog in the garbage can and get in the house. Well, that’s when things… ### [The Frozen River](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Frozen%20River%20Ariel%20Lawhon%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ariel Lawhon* > “The first thing, the most important thing in a birthing room, is to ask the woman’s name. ### [A Gentleman in Moscow](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Gentleman%20in%20Moscow%20Amor%20Towles%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Amor Towles* > “The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.” ### [Gentlemen Prefer Blondes](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gentlemen%20Prefer%20Blondes%20Anita%20Loos%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Anita Loos* > So I gave Harry ten pounds of English money and I told him to go to the most expensive florist and to buy some very very expensive orchids for 10 pounds and to bring them to our sitting room at fifteen minutes past five and not to say a word but to say they were for me. So Piggie came to tea and we were having tea when Harry came in and he did not say a word but he gave me a quite large box and he said it was for me. So I opened the box and sure enough they were a dozen very very beautiful orchids. So I looked for a card, but of course there was no card so I grabbed Piggie and I said I would have to give him quite a large hug because it must have been him. But he said it was not him. But I said it must be him because I said that there was only one gentleman in London who was so sweet and generous and had such a large heart to send a girl one dozen orchids like him. So he still said it was not him. But I said I knew it was him, because there was not a gentleman in London so really marvelous and so wonderful and such a marvelous gentleman to send a girl one dozen orchids every day as him. So I really had to apologize for giving him such a large hug but I told him I was so full of impulses that when I knew he was going to send me one dozen orchids every day I became so impulsive I could not help it! So then Dorothy and Gerald came in and I told them all about what a wonderful gentleman Piggie turned out to be and I told them when a gentleman sent a girl one dozen orchids every day he really reminded me of a prince. So Piggie blushed quite a lot and he was really very very pleased and he did not say any more that it was not him. So then I started to make a fuss over him and I told him he would have to look out because he was really so good looking and I was so full of impulses that I might even lose my mind some time and give him a kiss. So Piggie really felt very very good to be such a good looking gentleman. So he could not help blushing all the time and he could not help grinning all the time from one ear to another. So he asked us all to dinner and then he and Gerald went to change their clothes for dinner. ### [Gilead](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gilead%20Marilynne%20Robinson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Marilynne Robinson* > Well, anyway, I told him it was an honor to bless him. And that was also absolutely true. In fact I’d have gone through seminary and ordination and all the years intervening for that one moment. He just studied me, in that way he has. Then the bus came. ### [Heart of Darkness](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Heart%20of%20Darkness%20Joseph%20Conrad%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Joseph Conrad* > We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. ### [The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Heaven%20%26%20Earth%20Grocery%20Store%20James%20McBride%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *James McBride* > Chona wasn’t one of them. She was the one among them who ruined his hate for them, and for that he resented her. ### [Housekeeping](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Housekeeping%20Marilynne%20Robinson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Marilynne Robinson* > For we had to leave. I could not stay, and Sylvie would not stay without me. Now truly we were cast out to wander, and there was an end to housekeeping. ### [How Green Was My Valley](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20Green%20Was%20My%20Valley%20Richard%20Llewellyn%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Richard Llewellyn* > “It was hurting me to have to do it. I am proud of my family, and I am proud to think that you are prepared to make sacrifice for what you think is right. It is good to suffer in order that men should be better off, but take care that what you are doing is right and not half-right. ### [I Capture the Castle](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=I%20Capture%20the%20Castle%20Dodie%20Smith%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dodie Smith* > miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other. Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. ### [Inferno](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Inferno%20Dan%20Brown%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dan Brown* > Bullets continued to slam against the heavy ### [Infinite Jest](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Infinite%20Jest%20David%20Foster%20Wallace%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Foster Wallace* > Hal likes to get high in secret, but a bigger secret is that he’s as attached to the secrecy as he is to getting high. ### [The Known World](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Known%20World%20Edward%20P.%20Jones%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edward P. Jones* > Skiffington had learned from his father how much solace there was in separating God’s law from Caesar’s law. ### [The Lincoln Highway](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lincoln%20Highway%20Amor%20Towles%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Amor Towles* > I’d felt pretty good when I settled the scores with the cowboy and Ackerly, knowing that I was playing some small role in balancing the scales of justice. But those feelings were nothing compared to the satisfaction I felt after letting Townhouse settle his score with me. ### [Lincoln in the Bardo](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lincoln%20in%20the%20Bardo%20George%20Saunders%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *George Saunders* > In there, held so tight, I was now partly also in Father And could know exactly what he was Could feel the way his long legs lay How it is to have a beard Taste coffee in the mouth and, though not thinking in words exactly, knew that the feel of him in my arms has done me good. It has. Is this wrong? Unholy? No, no, he is mine, he is ours, and therefore I must be, in that sense, a god in this; where he is concerned I may decide what is best. And I believe this has done me good. I remember him. Again. Who he was. I had forgotten somewhat already. But here: his exact proportions, his suit smelling of him still, his forelock between my fingers, the heft of him familiar from when he would fall asleep in the parlor and I would carry him up to— It has done me good. I believe it has. It is secret. A bit of secret weakness, that shores me up; in shoring me up, it makes it more likely that I shall do my duty in other matters; it hastens the end of this period of weakness; it harms no one; therefore, it is not wrong, and I shall take away from here this resolve: I may return as often as I like, telling no one, accepting whatever help it may bring me, until it helps me no more. ### [Little Fires Everywhere](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Little%20Fires%20Everywhere%20Celeste%20Ng%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Celeste Ng* > One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on. He had always admired his wife’s idealism, her belief that the world could be made better, could be made orderly, could perhaps even be made perfect. For the first time, he wondered if the same held true for him. ### [Lonesome Dove](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lonesome%20Dove%20Larry%20McMurtry%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Larry McMurtry* > In the night, sweating heavily, he awoke to a familiar step. W. F. Call stepped into the room and set a lantern on the bureau. “Well, slow but sure,” Augustus said, feeling relieved. “Not too dern slow,” Call said. “We just found Pea Eye yesterday.” He turned back the covers and looked at Augustus’s leg. Dr. Mobley was also in the room. Call stood looking at the black leg a minute. Its meaning was clear enough. “I did plead with him, Captain,” Dr. Mobley said. “I told him it should come off. I regret now that I didn’t take it when we took the other.” “You should have,” Call said bluntly. “I would have known to do that, and I ain’t a medical man.” “Don’t berate the man, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “If I had waked up with no legs, I would have shot the first man I saw, and Dr. Joseph C. Mobley was the first man I saw.” “Leaving you a gun was another mistake,” Call said. “But I guess he didn’t know you as well as I do.” He looked at the leg again, and at the doctor. “We could try it now,” he said. “He’s always been strong. He might still live.” Augustus immediately cocked the pistol. “You don’t boss me, Woodrow,” he said. “I’m the one man you don’t boss. You also don’t boss most of the women, but that don’t concern us now.” “I wouldn’t think you’d shoot me for trying to save your life,” Call said quietly. Augustus looked sweaty and unsteady, but the range was short. “Not to kill,” Augustus said. “But I’ll promise to disable you if you don’t let me be about this leg.” “I never took you for a suicide, Gus,” Call said. “Men have gotten by without legs. Lots of ’em lost legs in the war. You don’t like to do nothing but sit on the porch and drink whiskey anyway. It don’t take legs to do that.” “No, I also like to walk around to the springhouse once in a while, to see if my jug’s cooled proper,” Augustus said. “Or I might want to kick a pig if one aggravates me.” Call saw that it was pointless unless he wanted to risk a fight. Gus had not uncocked the pistol either. Call looked at the doctor to see what he thought. ### [Looking Backward 2000-1887](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Looking%20Backward%202000-1887%20Edward%20Bellamy%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edward Bellamy* > It would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful title to it. ### [The Lost Symbol](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lost%20Symbol%20Dan%20Brown%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dan Brown* > not possibly have been pointing to ### [Love Among the Chickens](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Love%20Among%20the%20Chickens%20P.%20G.%20Wodehouse%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *P. G. Wodehouse* > His whole career, as long as I had known him, had been dotted with little eccentricities of a type which an unfeeling world generally stigmatises as shady. ### [The Midnight Library](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Midnight%20Library%20Matt%20Haig%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Matt Haig* > There are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe. So it gets very messy. And there is no right way to play; there are many ways. In chess, as in life, possibility is the basis of everything. ### [Moby-Dick](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Moby-Dick%20Herman%20Melville%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Herman Melville* > In short, like many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the farmers’ meadows armed with their own scythes—though in no wise obliged to furnish them—even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. ### [The Monkey Wrench Gang](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Monkey%20Wrench%20Gang%20Edward%20Abbey%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edward Abbey* > the true quality of our lives, which sinks in inverse ratio to the growth of the Gross National Product. ### [The Morning Star](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Morning%20Star%20Karl%20Ove%20Knausgaard%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Karl Ove Knausgaard* > She was cynical too, and I liked that combination, the idea of her working with illusions without illusion. Sometimes, I could see myself doing the same thing, but that was definitely an illusion, my own job being concerned with emotions and relations, and about being near to something none of us really knew anything about, though all, or at least many of us, perceived. ### [The Morningside](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Morningside%20T%C3%A9a%20Obreht%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Téa Obreht* > But you know something?” She reached out and squeezed my temples. “Your kids won’t find peace or happiness in the things you had, either. The things you had, the things you saw will probably be gone by the time they’re born. ### [My Man Jeeves](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=My%20Man%20Jeeves%20P.%20G.%20Wodehouse%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *P. G. Wodehouse* > The light from the big window fell right on the picture. I took a good look at it. Then I shifted a bit nearer and took another look. Then I went back to where I had been at first, because it hadn't seemed quite so bad from there. "Well?" said Corky, anxiously. I hesitated a bit. "Of course, old man, I only saw the kid once, and then only for a moment, but—but it was an ugly sort of kid, wasn't it, if I remember rightly?" "As ugly as that?" I looked again, and honesty compelled me to be frank. "I don't see how it could have been, old chap." Poor old Corky ran his fingers through his hair in a temperamental sort of way. He groaned. "You're right quite, Bertie. Something's gone wrong with the darned thing. My private impression is that, without knowing it, I've worked that stunt that Sargent and those fellows pull—painting the soul of the sitter. I've got through the mere outward appearance, and have put the child's soul on canvas." "But could a child of that age have a soul like that? I don't see how he could have managed it in the time. What do you think, Jeeves?" "I doubt it, sir." "It—it sorts of leers at you, doesn't it?" "You've noticed that, too?" said Corky. "I don't see how one could help noticing." "All I tried to do was to give the little brute a cheerful expression. But, as it worked out, he looks positively dissipated." "Just what I was going to suggest, old man. He looks as if he were in the middle of a colossal spree, and enjoying every minute of it. Don't you think so, Jeeves?" "He has a decidedly inebriated air, sir." ### [Nectar in a Sieve](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Nectar%20in%20a%20Sieve%20Kamala%20Markandaya%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Kamala Markandaya* > Once a human being is dead there are people enough to provide the last decencies; perhaps it is so because only then can there be no question of further or recurring assistance being sought. ### [The Pale King](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Pale%20King%20David%20Foster%20Wallace%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Foster Wallace* > What if there was something essentially wrong with Claude Sylvanshine that wasn’t wrong with other people? What if he was simply ill-suited, the way some people are born without limbs or certain organs? The neurology of failure. What if he was simply born and destined to live in the shadow of Total Fear and Despair, and all his so-called activities were pathetic attempts to distract him from the inevitable? Discuss important differences between reserve accounting and charge-off accounting in the tax treatment of bad debts. Surely fear is a type of stress. Tedium is like stress but its own Category of Woe. Sylvanshine’s father, whenever something professionally bad happened—which was a lot—had a habit of saying ‘Woe to Sylvanshine.’ ### [The Poisonwood Bible](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Poisonwood%20Bible%20Barbara%20Kingsolver%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Barbara Kingsolver* > Father stared at the trees, giving no indication he’d heard his poor frightened wife, or any of this news. Father would sooner watch us all perish one by one than listen to anybody but himself. ### [The Red Badge of Courage](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Red%20Badge%20of%20Courage%20Stephen%20Crane%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Stephen Crane* > And if he himself could believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be small trouble in convincing all others. ### [The Road](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Road%20Cormac%20McCarthy%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Cormac McCarthy* > She watched him across the small flame. We used to talk about death, she said. We dont any more. Why is that? I dont know. It’s because it’s here. There’s nothing left to talk about. ### [The Scarlet Letter](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Scarlet%20Letter%20Nathaniel%20Hawthorne%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Nathaniel Hawthorne* > the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast--at ### [Siddhartha](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Siddhartha%20Hermann%20Hesse%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Hermann Hesse* > "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day." ### [Sister Carrie](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sister%20Carrie%20Theodore%20Dreiser%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Theodore Dreiser* > As a consequence, she was resentful and suspicious. The jealousy that prompted her to observe every falling away from the little amenities of the married relation on his part served to give her notice of the airy grace with which he still took the world. She could see from the scrupulous care which he exercised in the matter of his personal appearance that his interest in life had abated not a jot. Every motion, every glance had something in it of the pleasure he felt in Carrie, of the zest this new pursuit of pleasure lent to his days. Mrs. Hurstwood felt something, sniffing change, as animals do danger, afar off. ### [Small Things Like These](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Small%20Things%20Like%20These%20Claire%20Keegan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Claire Keegan* > The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the next door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been – which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life. ### [The Sun Also Rises](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Sun%20Also%20Rises%20Ernest%20Hemingway%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ernest Hemingway* > paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. ### [Tenth of December](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tenth%20of%20December%20George%20Saunders%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *George Saunders* > But seriously! Is life fun or scary? Are people good or bad? On the one hand, that clip of those gauntish pale bodies being steamrolled while fat German ladies looked on chomping gum. On the other hand, sometimes rural folks, even if their particular farms were on hills, stayed up late filling sandbags. ### [Thalia](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Thalia%20Larry%20McMurtry%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Larry McMurtry* > He worried about it for two weeks, and it turned out his worries were fully justified. Joe Bob had to preach the last sermon in the first go-round of preachers, which meant that he had to preach on a Thursday night, the worst possible night to preach. The first wave of revival spirit had had time to ebb, and the second wave had not yet begun to gather. The revival was held in the local baseball park under the lights, and when Joe Bob got up to preach there was just a sprinkle of a crowd, old faithfuls from all the churches in town, people so habituated to churchgoing that they never missed a sermon, no matter how dull. ### [The Walking Drum](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Walking%20Drum%20Louis%20L%27Amour%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Louis L'Amour* > discovery made too soon is no better than a discovery not made at all. ## Fiction (Science Fiction & Fantasy) ### [Artifact](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Artifact%20Dennis%20Vanderkerken%20and%20Dakota%20Krout%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dennis Vanderkerken and Dakota Krout* > Humans were everywhere! Or they appeared like it, as some of the ears gave the truth away. That the locals were humanized animals didn’t bother him. He had either been told directly, or had the hunch that the lack of Cores meant creatures needed to be people. ### [Corsair](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Corsair%20Henrik%20Sorensen%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Henrik Sorensen* > Do not mistake my occasional embrace of nuance for a lack of conviction. ### [The Crimson Campaign](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Crimson%20Campaign%20Brian%20McClellan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brian McClellan* > West Pillar. He yelled for a scout to check ### [The Dragonbone Chair](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Dragonbone%20Chair%20Tad%20Williams%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tad Williams* > smell of greenery, to drive the last of the tallow-soap stench from ### [Dune](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Dune%20Frank%20Herbert%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Frank Herbert* > “I observed you in pain, lad. Pain’s merely the axis of the test. Your mother’s told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation.” ### [The Earth Awakens](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Earth%20Awakens%20D.K.%20Holmberg%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *D.K. Holmberg* > bonds and the way we can draw power ### [Ender's Shadow](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ender%27s%20Shadow%20Orson%20Scott%20Card%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Orson Scott Card* > couple of girls—looking down at him. ### [Fantastic Voyage](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fantastic%20Voyage%20Isaac%20Asimov%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Isaac Asimov* > captain. Our agent, Grant, is good as I’ve said, but ### [The Fifth Elephant](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Fifth%20Elephant%20Terry%20Pratchett%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Terry Pratchett* > I’m sure that if Your Grace would prefer the more genuine Ankh-Morpork taste, Igor could make up some side dishes of stale bread and sawdust.” “Thank you for that patriotic comment,” said Vimes. ### [Forging Divinity](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Forging%20Divinity%20Andrew%20Rowe%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Andrew Rowe* ### [The Hobbit](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Hobbit%20J.R.R.%20Tolkien%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *J.R.R. Tolkien* > for the night was bitter and miserable. Shelters could be contrived for few (the Master had one) and there was little food (even the Master went short). Many took ill of wet and cold and sorrow that night, and ### [Hollow Core](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Hollow%20Core%20Gage%20Lee%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gage Lee* > “Physically, I mean.” Clem gestured at her ### [Oathbringer](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Oathbringer%20Brandon%20Sanderson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brandon Sanderson* ### [On the Shoulders of Titans](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=On%20the%20Shoulders%20of%20Titans%20Andrew%20Rowe%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Andrew Rowe* > it.” I bowed my head in thanks and relief. “Of course, sir.” ### [Parable of the Sower](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Parable%20of%20the%20Sower%20Octavia%20E.%20Butler%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Octavia E. Butler* > All successful life is Adaptable, Opportunistic, Tenacious, Interconnected, and Fecund. ### [Ready Player One](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ready%20Player%20One%20Ernest%20Cline%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ernest Cline* > “But that’s where the bad news comes in. Our global civilization came at a huge cost. We needed a whole bunch of energy to build it, and we got that energy by burning fossil fuels, which came from dead plants and animals buried deep in the ground. We used up most of this fuel before you got here, and now it’s pretty much all gone. This means that we no longer have enough energy to keep our civilization running like it was before. So we’ve had to cut back. Big-time. We call this the Global Energy Crisis, and it’s been going on for a while now. “Also, it turns out that burning all of those fossil fuels had some nasty side effects, like raising the temperature of our planet and screwing up the environment. So now the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and the weather is all messed up. Plants and animals are dying off in record numbers, and lots of people are starving and homeless. And we’re still fighting wars with each other, mostly over the few resources we have left. ### [A Short Stay in Hell](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Short%20Stay%20in%20Hell%20Steven%20L.%20Peck%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Steven L. Peck* > But here, deep in Hell, there was nothing to match such a wonder. Such splashes of variegation were denied us. Our attempts at music were nothing but a shadow of what we enjoyed on earth, but even more than music, we missed the natural sounds. The woosh of wind through the yellowing leaves of an oak on a cool day late in fall. The splashing of water over smooth stone in a tiny creek as it made its way down a steep mountain. Even the whistle of a train, or the screaming of a truck down the highway would have seemed like a symphony. ### [Small Gods](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Small%20Gods%20Terry%20Pratchett%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Terry Pratchett* > “Chain letters,” said the Tyrant. “The Chain Letter to the Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn to Fear. Do not break the chain—the last people who did woke up one morning to find fifty thousand armed men on their lawn.” ### [The Way of Kings](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Way%20of%20Kings%20Brandon%20Sanderson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brandon Sanderson* > something to do with the long troughs of ### [The Way of Shadows](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Way%20of%20Shadows%20Brent%20Weeks%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brent Weeks* > lifted his hands from his sides and touched her back. He tasted salt on his lips. A tear, his tear. His chest convulsed uncontrollably, and suddenly he was sobbing. He grabbed ## Fiction (Young Adult & Children's) ### [Artemis Fowl](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Artemis%20Fowl%20Eoin%20Colfer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Eoin Colfer* > the unconscious elf’s wristband. He then ### [Better Than the Movies](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Better%20Than%20the%20Movies%20Lynn%20Painter%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lynn Painter* > losing them terrifies the man.” ### [The Book of Dragons](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Book%20of%20Dragons%20E.%20Nesbit%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *E. Nesbit* ### [The Boxcar Children Mysteries](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Boxcar%20Children%20Mysteries%20Gertrude%20Chandler%20Warner%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gertrude Chandler Warner* > He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. ### [The Complete Adventures of Curious George](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Complete%20Adventures%20of%20Curious%20George%20H.%20A.%20Rey%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *H. A. Rey* > belated honeymoon trip to Europe, and ### [The Complete Wizard of Oz Collection](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Complete%20Wizard%20of%20Oz%20Collection%20L.%20Frank%20Baum%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *L. Frank Baum* > the sun was shining brightly in a clear sky. She had been dreaming that she was back in Kansas again, and playing in the old barn-yard with the calves and pigs and chickens all around her; and at first, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she really imagined she was there. "Kut-kut-kut, ka-daw-kut! Kut-kut-kut, ka-daw-kut!" Ah; here again was the strange noise that had awakened her. Surely it was a hen cackling! But her wide-open eyes first saw, through the slats of the coop, the blue waves of the ocean, now calm and placid, and her thoughts flew back to the past night, so full of danger and discomfort. Also she began to remember that she was a waif of the storm, adrift upon a treacherous and unknown sea. "Kut-kut-kut, ka-daw-w-w—kut!" "What's that?" cried Dorothy, starting to her feet. "Why, I've just laid an egg, that's all," replied a small, but sharp and distinct voice, and looking around her the little girl discovered a yellow hen squatting in the opposite corner of the coop. "Dear me!" she exclaimed, in surprise; "have YOU been here all night, too?" "Of course," answered the hen, fluttering her wings and yawning. "When the coop blew away from the ship I clung fast to this corner, with claws and beak, for I knew if I fell into the water I'd surely be drowned. Indeed, I nearly drowned, as it was, with all that water washing over me. I never was so wet before in my life!" "Yes," agreed Dorothy, "it was pretty wet, for a time, I know. But do you feel comfor'ble now?" "Not very. The sun has helped to dry my feathers, as it has your dress, and I feel better since I laid my morning egg. But what's to become of us, I should like to know, afloat on this big pond?" "I'd like to know that, too," said Dorothy. "But, tell me; how does it happen that you are able to talk? I thought hens could only cluck and cackle." "Why, as for that," answered the yellow hen thoughtfully, "I've clucked and cackled all my life, and never spoken a word before this morning, that I can remember. But when you asked a question, a minute ago, it seemed ### [Crooked Kingdom](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Crooked%20Kingdom%20Leigh%20Bardugo%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Leigh Bardugo* > that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.” The wind rose. The boughs of the willows whispered, a sly, gossiping sound. ### [The Dark Talent](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Dark%20Talent%20Brandon%20Sanderson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brandon Sanderson* > our enemies. I let him die because I was too much of a ### [Eldest](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Eldest%20Christopher%20Paolini%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Christopher Paolini* > “but I was afraid you might insist on killing her, and I didn’t ### [Ella Enchanted](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ella%20Enchanted%20Gail%20Carson%20Levine%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gail Carson Levine* > mounted his horse, and Char lifted me behind him. ### [Eragon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Eragon%20Christopher%20Paolini%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Christopher Paolini* > by the Ninor River.” He gestured at the Anora, which streamed away from them to the north. “Our only supply of water is here. ### [Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fairy%20Tales%20Every%20Child%20Should%20Know%20Hamilton%20Wright%20Mabie%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Hamilton Wright Mabie* > good mother, as if you were in your own cell: I ### [Gregor the Overlander](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gregor%20the%20Overlander%20Suzanne%20Collins%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Suzanne Collins* > It was enacted in August 1932, and it held that any gleaning—any removal of leftover grain from collective-farm fields that had been harvested—was henceforward punishable by imprisonment for at least ten years, or by death, with executions performed on the spot. ### [Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Harry%20Potter%20and%20the%20Sorcerer%27s%20Stone%20J.K.%20Rowling%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *J.K. Rowling* ### [If You Have a Hat](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=If%20You%20Have%20a%20Hat%20Gerald%20Hawksley%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gerald Hawksley* ### [If You're Reading This, It's Too Late](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=If%20You%27re%20Reading%20This%2C%20It%27s%20Too%20Late%20Pseudonymous%20Bosch%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Pseudonymous Bosch* > glass shards had cut through; she didn’t ### [The Iron Giant](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Iron%20Giant%20Ted%20Hughes%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ted Hughes* > while the whole earth watched … Slowly he covered the distance, getting smaller and smaller as he went. At last he landed, ### [James and the Giant Peach](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=James%20and%20the%20Giant%20Peach%20Roald%20Dahl%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Roald Dahl* ### [The Last Olympian](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Last%20Olympian%20Rick%20Riordan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rick Riordan* > and Apollo cabins. Some Apollo campers armed with firebombs flew over the Ares cabin in a chariot pulled by two pegasi. I’d never seen the chariot before, but it looked like a pretty sweet ### [The Lightning Thief](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lightning%20Thief%20Rick%20Riordan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rick Riordan* ### [The Lost Heroes of Olympus](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lost%20Heroes%20of%20Olympus%20Patrick%20Collumb%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Patrick Collumb* > had Jason dreamt of seeing a form so wondrous. Not very near did he come, but he thought he knew that the woman smiled upon ### [The Misadventures of Maude March](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Misadventures%20of%20Maude%20March%20Audrey%20Couloumbis%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Audrey Couloumbis* > Reading those dime novels, I had always figured there was something different in people who did wrong. That they had changed somehow, along the way, and it didn’t hurt them to do wrong. Now I saw it did hurt them. But it didn’t change something deep inside them, necessarily. ### [The Name of This Book Is Secret](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Name%20of%20This%20Book%20Is%20Secret%20Pseudonymous%20Bosch%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Pseudonymous Bosch* > coincidence, Cass and Max-Ernest both had study ### [Night of the Ninjas](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Night%20of%20the%20Ninjas%20Mary%20Pope%20Osborne%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mary Pope Osborne* ### [Peter and the Shadow Thieves](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Peter%20and%20the%20Shadow%20Thieves%20Ridley%20Pearson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ridley Pearson, Dave Barry* ### [Peter Pan](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Peter%20Pan%20J.%20M.%20Barrie%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *J. M. Barrie* > because Tink was flying with them, and in her light they could distinguish each other. Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the ### [Redwall](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Redwall%20Brian%20Jacques%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brian Jacques* > Many time ago, before my mother was egg, King named Bloodfeather. He steal sword from northpoint. Sword make Sparra folk proud, brave fighters, strong eggchicks, much wormfood to eat. Sword hang in court of Sparra. Bloodfeather die, who know how? Bull Sparra become King. My husband Greytail tell me this ’fore he die. Bull Sparra wear warrior sword. Case be too heavy. Leave case behind in room backa chair. Carry sword in clawfeet. King Bull he much showoff. Dig worm with sword. My husband go longa with him. One day they hunt in Mossflower trees, giantworm come, one with poisonteeth. Alla time say ‘Asmodeussss’, like that. Bull Sparra drop big sword. Even he scared of poisonteeth. Giantworm curl round swordhandle. Bull Sparra, he order my husband, Greytail, get sword back. Greytail try, but worm bite with poisonteeth. He hurt bad, but fly back to court with Bull Sparra. They leave sword in Mossflower with giantworm. My husband die. Bull Sparra say hurt in starling fight. Not true. Greytail tell me all ’fore he die. Warbeak still egg; not know how father die.” Matthias watched sympathetically as Dunwing fought back her tears. Gently he patted the widowed sparrow. “Greytail be mighty warrior to face poisonteeth alone. You glad Warbeak be his eggchick.” Dunwing smiled through her tears. “Matthias be good mouse.” There followed an embarrassed silence. Matthias spoke half aloud. “So, it seems my quest has been in vain. But what of the scabbard?” “Scabbard mean sword case?” Dunwing inquired. Matthias nodded. “Me tella ’bout sword case,” Dunwing said bitterly. “King Bull Sparra be frighten to tella rest of Sparra that he lose sword. Huh, he not know Greytail tell me, but I watch King, Dunwing know. Bull Sparra still pretend sword in case. That way he stay King. If I tella, he killee me and Warbeak, this I know. Someday Warbeak my eggchick be Queen. She have royal blood, then Sparra folk be better, be happy. ### [The Rithmatist](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Rithmatist%20Brandon%20Sanderson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brandon Sanderson* > or more, springrail lines crisscrossing between them. Jamestown, her home for all sixteen years of her life. I am going to die, she thought. Desperation pushed through her terror. She shoved aside the rocking chair in the middle of the room, then hurriedly rolled up the rug so that she could get to the wooden floor. She reached into the pouch tied ### [The Scorpio Races](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Scorpio%20Races%20Maggie%20Stiefvater%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Maggie Stiefvater* ### [The Son of Sobek](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Son%20of%20Sobek%20Rick%20Riordan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rick Riordan* ### [Stargirl](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Stargirl%20Jerry%20Spinelli%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jerry Spinelli* > Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.” “That’s bad?” I said. “It’s bad if we want to know what’s going on outside ourselves.” ### [Steelheart](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Steelheart%20Brandon%20Sanderson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brandon Sanderson* > didn’t want to look, but I had to. ### [The Story of Doctor Dolittle](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Story%20of%20Doctor%20Dolittle%20Hugh%20Lofting%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Hugh Lofting* > come at last. But the King's men, who were still following, had heard the noise of the monkeys cheering; and they at last knew where the Doctor was, and hastened on to catch him. The big monkey carrying Gub-Gub was coming along behind slowly, and he saw the Captain of the army sneaking through the trees. So he hurried after the Doctor and told him to run. Then they all ran harder than they had ever run in their lives; and the King's men, coming after them, began to run too; and the Captain ran hardest of all. Then the Doctor tripped over his medicine-bag and fell down in the mud, and the Captain thought he would surely catch him this time. But the Captain had very long ears—though his hair was very short. And as he sprang forward to take hold of the Doctor, one of his ears caught fast in ### [Stuart Little](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Stuart%20Little%20E.%20B.%20White%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *E. B. White* > “Following a broken telephone line north, I have come upon some wonderful places,” continued the repairman. “Swamps where cedars grow and turtles wait on logs but not for anything in particular; fields bordered by crooked fences broken by years of standing still; orchards so old they have forgotten where the farmhouse is. In the north I have eaten my lunch in pastures rank with ferns and junipers, all under fair skies with a wind blowing. My business has taken me into spruce woods on winter nights where the snow lay deep and soft, a perfect place for a carnival of rabbits. I have sat at peace on the freight platforms of railroad junctions in the north, in the warm hours and with the warm smells. I know fresh lakes in the north, undisturbed except by fish and hawk and, of course, by the Telephone Company, which has to follow its nose. I know all these places well. They are a long way from here—don’t forget that. And a person who is looking for something doesn’t travel very fast.” ### [Titan's Curse](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Titan%27s%20Curse%20Rick%20Riordan%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rick Riordan* > ambition. The nature god had gone missing two thousand years ago. He was rumored to have died, but the satyrs didn’t believe that. They were determined to find him. They’d been searching in vain for centuries, and Grover was convinced he’d be the one to succeed. This year, with Chiron putting all the satyrs on emergency duty to find half-bloods, Grover hadn’t ### [Unwind](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Unwind%20Neal%20Shusterman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Neal Shusterman* > worse. Just as the airplane graveyard was Heaven disguised as Hell, harvest camp is Hell masquerading as Heaven. “You seem to be in good physical ## Health & Nutrition ### [Bigger Leaner Stronger](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Bigger%20Leaner%20Stronger%20Michael%20Matthews%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Matthews* > Some people say it’s 70 percent of the game, while others say it’s 80 or even 90 percent. Well, I say it’s 100 percent. And lifting heavy, overloading your muscles…that’s also 100 percent of the game. Being properly hydrated is also 100 percent. Having the right attitude is 100 percent too. (Yeah, we’re at 400 percent so far…) My point is this: the building blocks of a great body are more like pillars than puzzle pieces. Weaken one enough, and the whole structure collapses. ### [Can Fasting Save Your Life](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Can%20Fasting%20Save%20Your%20Life%20Toshia%20Myers%20and%20Alan%20Goldhamer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Toshia Myers and Alan Goldhamer* > But during prolonged water-only fasting, only very low-intensity physical activity is recommended. ### [Complete Guide to Fasting](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Complete%20Guide%20to%20Fasting%20Jimmy%20Moore%20and%20Jason%20Fung%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jimmy Moore and Jason Fung* > The quickest and most efficient way to lower insulin and insulin resistance is fasting. ### [The Diabetes Code](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Diabetes%20Code%20Jason%20Fung%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jason Fung* > Removing fat from the organs leads to rapid metabolic improvement. ### [Dopamine Nation](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Dopamine%20Nation%20Anna%20Lembke%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Anna Lembke* > “Stricter churches” achieve a larger following and are generally more successful than freewheeling ones because they ferret out free riders and offer more robust club goods. ### [The F-Factor Diet](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20F-Factor%20Diet%20Tanya%20Zuckerbrot%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tanya Zuckerbrot* > Snacking contributes to one-fourth of Americans’ daily caloric intake. ### [Fast Like a Girl](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fast%20Like%20a%20Girl%20Mindy%20Pelz%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mindy Pelz* > I do not, however, recommend working out while doing a three-day water fast. ### [Food Fix](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Food%20Fix%20Dr.%20Mark%20Hyman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dr. Mark Hyman* > Nutrition epidemiologists are notorious for squeezing trivial findings out of observational data sets and then transforming them into splashy and sensational research papers that attract headlines. It’s the very opposite of the scientific method. ### [Good Energy](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Good%20Energy%20Casey%20Means%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Casey Means* > An immune cell can’t stop you from drinking a soda, filter your water, turn off the stress-inducing notifications on your phone, prevent you from eating hormone-disrupting pesticides and microplastics, or get you to go to sleep earlier. ### [Healthy Vegan, Happy Body](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Healthy%20Vegan%2C%20Happy%20Body%20Tess%20Challis%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tess Challis* ### [How Not to Age](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20Not%20to%20Age%20Michael%20Greger%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Greger, M.D.* > had short-chain fatty acid levels that were comparable to vegans, despite not being totally plant-based all the time. ### [How Not to Die](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20Not%20to%20Die%20Michael%20Greger%20MD%20and%20Gene%20Stone%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Greger MD and Gene Stone* > found that those who increased their bean consumption by even less than one-quarter cup a day appeared to cut their odds of precancerous colorectal polyp recurrence by up to 65 percent. ### [The How Not to Die Cookbook](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20How%20Not%20to%20Die%20Cookbook%20Michael%20Greger%20M.D.%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Greger M.D., Gene Stone* > It matters little what healthy folks eat on their birthday, holidays, and special occasions. It’s the day-to-day stuff that adds up. ### [How Not to Diet](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20Not%20to%20Diet%20Michael%20Greger%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Greger* > Losing just around a pound a year over a span of a decade may decrease the odds of developing osteoarthritis by more than 50 percent. ### [How to Get Strong and How to Stay So](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20to%20Get%20Strong%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20So%20William%20Blaikie%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *William Blaikie* > The moment it is conceded that a delicate body can be made a robust one, that moment it is equally plain that there can be an almost incalculable gain in the comfort and usefulness of the possessor of that body, not only during all the last half of her life, but through the first half as well. And yet, to persons familiar with what judicious, daily physical exercise has done, and can do, for a delicate body, there is no more doubt but that this later strength, and even sturdiness, can be acquired than that the algebra or geometry, which at first seems impenetrable, can be gradually mastered. ### [Life in the Fasting Lane](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Life%20in%20the%20Fasting%20Lane%20Jason%20Fung%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jason Fung, Eve Mayer, Megan Ramos* > During holidays, my major piece of advice is to avoid grazing as much as possible. ### [Lift](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lift%20Anne%20Marie%20Chaker%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Anne Marie Chaker* > Significant improvement in strength often occurs with a few twenty- or thirty-minute weight-training sessions a week. ### [Metabolical](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Metabolical%20Robert%20H.%20Lustig%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert H. Lustig* > By depriving your liver of calories for fourteen to sixteen hours per day, IF gives it a chance to activate AMP-kinase, suppress mTOR, increase autophagy, chew up some of the liver fat that’s been stored, improve insulin resistance, and lower your insulin—the same outcomes that low-carb and ketogenic diets achieve. ### [More Than a Body](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=More%20Than%20a%20Body%20Lexie%20Kite%20and%20Lindsay%20Kite%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite* > When women start working toward action-oriented fitness goals or start participating in a sport after previously measuring their fitness according to their appearance, they often feel a sense of empowerment and recharged confidence in their physical abilities. ### [Outlive](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Outlive%20Peter%20Attia%20MD%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Peter Attia MD* > What started out as an exercise to help the biggest banks in the United States jump through some regulatory hoops uncovered a brewing disaster in what was considered to be one of their least risky, most stable portfolios: prime mortgages. By the late summer of 2007, we had arrived at the horrifying but inescapable conclusion that the big banks were about to lose more money on mortgages in the next two years than they had made in the previous decade. ### [Why We Get Sick](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Why%20We%20Get%20Sick%20Benjamin%20Bikman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Benjamin Bikman* > even when a person becomes mobile again, the insulin resistance persists for weeks at around double what it would be in a person who maintained physical activity. ## History ### [Against the Modern World](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Against%20the%20Modern%20World%20Mark%20Sedgwick%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mark Sedgwick* > By leaving the life of the spirit wholly out of account, the protagonists of the modem world may well be organizing a world of wretchedness in their efforts to abolish the effects of wretchedness 69 ### [All the Rage](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=All%20the%20Rage%20Virginia%20Nicholson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Virginia Nicholson* > Sporty women had to cope with the constant dilemma of how to compete without offending, while continuing to look feminine and not dowdy or ‘manly’. ### [Black Lamb and Grey Falcon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Black%20Lamb%20and%20Grey%20Falcon%20Rebecca%20West%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rebecca West* > Luccheni and Mussolini would never have come to be in a just economic system. ### [Blitzed](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Blitzed%20Norman%20Ohler%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Norman Ohler* > A general rule of thumb in military strategy is that an attacker must be superior by 3:1 to be able to carry out a successful invasion. No wonder then that the Wehrmacht High Command struggled to devise a successful plan. Hitler refused to acknowledge these realities and was convinced the Aryan warrior’s soul would achieve dominance against the odds. Again and again, mistakenly inspired by the military’s doped performance on the Polish campaign, he spoke of “miracles of courage of the German soldier.” ### [The Boys in the Boat](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Boys%20in%20the%20Boat%20Daniel%20James%20Brown%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Daniel James Brown* > “Every man in the boat had absolute confidence in every one of his mates. . . . Why they won cannot be attributed to individuals, not even to stroke Don Hume. Heartfelt cooperation all spring was responsible for the victory.” ### [The Breaks of the Game](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Breaks%20of%20the%20Game%20David%20Halberstam%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Halberstam* > In his twenty-five years in bigtime sports the American myths of black capability (and incapability) had gradually become more sophisticated. The early ones had been remarkably crude. In the forties, whites, having legally excluded blacks from professional competition, went to bigtime sports events and, failing to see any blacks, concluded that this proved them inferior athletes. (Track and field was of course different—being amateur instead of professional, it was open to blacks and everyone always knew they could run fast.) As segregation in sports broke down the myth refined itself. Soon there was a more subtle one, proclaiming that blacks lacked guts and were never tough in the clutch. That particular myth had fallen a little more slowly (in part because a great black pitcher named Don Newcombe, having pitched an otherwise superb game against the Yankees in the World Series, gave up a late-inning home run and lost) but gradually in the mid-sixties a generation of black cleanup hitters, sure-handed pass catchers and basketball players who always seemed to hit the last-second shot had gradually dispelled it. The latest incarnation of the black incapability myth was far more insidious. It acknowledged that blacks were superb natural athletes—if anything, some mythologists whispered, they might even be better than whites—but they were supposed to lack the capacity to think and make instantaneous judgments in the heat of battle. This was especially true, it was said, in football. Some twenty years after great black athletes like Jim Brown had helped break down stereotypes about black skills and black courage, that sport, a greater bastion of myth and superstition than either baseball or basketball, demonstrated its superstition by reserving the position of quarterback for whites. The implication was clear: blacks might have great natural ability and speed and balance, and even perhaps strong throwing arms, but they lacked the intelligence which that most sacred position demanded. Yet, in basketball, ironically, in terms of on-court performance, that particular myth had already fallen precisely because of the performances, starting early in the sixties, of men like Wilkens and Oscar Robertson who, in effect, played the role of quarterbacks. They ran their teams, controlled the action, and made under intense pressure the split-second decisions necessary to hold a team together. Often, with the clock running out, they took the last shot themselves. Leading a basketball team required no less skill or intelligence than leading a football team. The idea that Oscar Robertson could not, had he so chosen, become a great professional quarterback, was laughable, but in football the myth held. ### [A Cruising Voyage Around the World](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Cruising%20Voyage%20Around%20the%20World%20Woodes%20Rogers%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Woodes Rogers* > The secret of his success was that he found and made work for all. ### [The Ecclesiastical History of the English People](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Ecclesiastical%20History%20of%20the%20English%20People%20Bede%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bede* > the beginning and progress of whose reign have been so filled with many and great commotions and conflicts, that it cannot yet be known what is to be said concerning them, or what end they will have. ### [Empire of Things](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Empire%20of%20Things%20Frank%20Trentmann%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Frank Trentmann* > A 1906 survey by a Paris hospital found that the majority of labourers disliked sweet things: sugar spoiled one’s appetite and weakened one’s vigour. Sweets and pastries were something for leisured elites, not workers, who turned to red meat, cheese and wine for physical strength. ### [Fear Itself](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fear%20Itself%20Ira%20Katznelson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ira Katznelson* > “We Southerners are as hostile to democracy as Hitler is,” ### [The Fifties](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Fifties%20David%20Halberstam%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Halberstam* > Communism was seen as a monolith, and therefore it was assumed the invasion was something that Stalin had decided on. The question therefore was what would the Communists do next, not in Korea, but in the world. ### [Freedom's Dominion](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Freedom%27s%20Dominion%20Jefferson%20Cowie%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jefferson Cowie* > African American voter enrollment was still 181,315 in 1900. By 1903, it had been beaten down to a mere 2,980—a reduction of over 98 percent. ### [Gangsters vs. Nazis](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gangsters%20vs.%20Nazis%20Michael%20Benson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Benson* > To put it simply, fascism is the belief that a dictatorial leader is preferable to an elected one because many voters are enemies of the people and need to be oppressed. ### [History Comes Alive](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=History%20Comes%20Alive%20M.%20J.%20Rymsza-Pawlowska%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska* > What began in the mid-1960s as a plan for an international exposition celebrating the present and future of the nation had become, by the mid-1970s, a decentralized array of history-based commemoration projects undertaken by states, communities, and individuals. ### [In the Garden of Beasts](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=In%20the%20Garden%20of%20Beasts%20Erik%20Larson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Erik Larson* > provided that despairing patriots are not branded as traitors.” ### [Land](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Land%20Simon%20Winchester%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Simon Winchester* > It was enacted in August 1932, and it held that any gleaning—any removal of leftover grain from collective-farm fields that had been harvested—was henceforward punishable by imprisonment for at least ten years, or by death, with executions performed on the spot. ### [Liberty Is Sweet](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Liberty%20Is%20Sweet%20Woody%20Holton%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Woody Holton* > a draft version of its declaration of rights, the convention made the extraordinary claim that: An enormous Proportion of Property vested in a few Individuals is dangerous to the Rights, and destructive of the Common Happiness, of Mankind; and therefore every free State hath a Right by its Laws to discourage the Possession of such Property. ### [The Modern Mind](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Modern%20Mind%20Peter%20Watson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Peter Watson* > it is one of the more remarkable coincidences of history that most of these fundamental concepts – the electron, the gene, the quantum, and the unconscious – were identified either in or around 1900. ### [Postwar](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Postwar%20Tony%20Judt%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Tony Judt* > By 1953 a total of five and a half million Soviet nationals had been repatriated. One in five of them ended up shot or dispatched to the Gulag. Many ### [The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Professor%2C%20the%20Banker%2C%20and%20the%20Suicide%20King%20Michael%20Craig%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael Craig* > For some reason, Barry Greenstein received a disproportionate share of the blame for the decisions made on the evening of May 11. Lederer, who recognized that the decision to raise the stakes was a close call and was not part of the debate, thought they got outnegotiated. “We let him get me out of the mix. We gave him everything. I know Barry was always arguing for ‘Let him get his way. We should just gamble with him.’ And that’s a reasonable sentiment. But a lot of people were more like, ‘What kind of idiots were we? We’re the only game in town.’” ### [The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20the%20Neoliberal%20Order%20Gary%20Gerstle%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gary Gerstle* > But the deeper issue was the growing conviction among American workers that the freedom promised to them by the American Revolution and reaffirmed by the Civil War had produced only counterfeit liberty ### [The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20the%20Third%20Reich%20William%20L.%20Shirer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *William L. Shirer* > And was not the democratic Republic, which had surrendered to the enemy and accepted the burden of reparations, to blame for the disaster? Unfortunately for its survival, the Republic did bear a responsibility. The inflation could have been halted by merely balancing the budget—a difficult but not impossible feat. Adequate taxation might have achieved this, but the new government did not dare to tax adequately. After all, the cost of the war—164 billion marks—had been met not even in part by direct taxation but 93 billions of it by war loans, 29 billions out of Treasury bills and the rest by increasing the issue of paper money. Instead of drastically raising taxes on those who could pay, the republican government actually reduced them in 1921. ### [Secondhand Time](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Secondhand%20Time%20Svetlana%20Alexievich%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Svetlana Alexievich* > We lived in our kitchens…The whole country lived in their kitchens. You’d go to somebody’s house, drink wine, listen to songs, talk about poetry. There’s an open tin can, slices of black bread. Everyone’s happy. We had our own rituals: kayaks, tents, hikes. Songs by the campfire. There were common symbols by which we recognized one another. We had our own fashions, our own jokes. Those secret kitchen societies are long gone. And gone with them is our friendship, which we had thought was eternal. Yes…Our minds were tuned to the eternal…and there was nothing holier than friendship. That amazing glue was holding everything together… ### [The Show That Never Ends](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Show%20That%20Never%20Ends%20David%20Weigel%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Weigel* > Abrahams wondered whether rock was tumbling down a rabbit hole. “Rock music isn’t and never has meant to be an intellectual exercise,” Abrahams said at the end of 1971. “There are performers who adopt a very cynical attitude and they would never dream of thinking of themselves as entertainers. I think in a lot of ways rock is going the same way as jazz did. Jazz was a happy music originally until a few people started intellectualizing it and after that the musicians thought to themselves, ‘yeah, we’re on to a good thing here,’ and started playing up to it.”23 ### [Slavery's Capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Slavery%27s%20Capitalism%20Various%20Authors%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Various Authors* > power of the local to create strong spurs to economic development. ### [They Thought They Were Free](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=They%20Thought%20They%20Were%20Free%20Milton%20Mayer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Milton Mayer* > Men who are going to protest or take even stronger forms of action, in a dictatorship more so than in a democracy, want to be sure. ### [Villages on Wheels](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Villages%20on%20Wheels%20Stanley%20B.%20Kimball%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Stanley B. Kimball, Violet T. Kimball* > Immigrants were frequently advised, rather decorously, to remember the “Law of Moses,” meaning the restriction decreed in Deuteronomy 23:13: “And thou shalt have a paddle . . . when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee.” ### [War in a Time of Peace](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=War%20in%20a%20Time%20of%20Peace%20David%20Halberstam%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Halberstam* > But he wanted to raise Christopher’s name for secretary of state. It was speak now or forever hold your ambition. “Do you want the fucking job?” Jordan asked. Yes, Christopher answered, but it would be a conflict of interest because as head of the transition team he had taken himself out of the running for any key job. Jordan told him that was not exactly a conflict of interest and went to the governor’s mansion that night to talk to Clinton. ### [White Trash](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=White%20Trash%20Nancy%20Isenberg%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Nancy Isenberg* > Desertion to them was part of the daily resistance to upper-class rule. ## Philosophy & Self-Help ### [The 5 A.M. Miracle](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%205%20A.M.%20Miracle%20Jeff%20Sanders%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jeff Sanders* > The cool part is that whatever mistakes, problems, or blunders you have experienced any time in the past don’t have to follow you through tomorrow morning. When the rooster crows again at 5:00 a.m. you can literally choose a whole new life path. You’ve gotta love that! ### [The Anatomy of Peace](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Anatomy%20of%20Peace%20The%20Arbinger%20Institute%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *The Arbinger Institute* > A heart at war needs enemies to justify its warring. It needs enemies and mistreatment more than it wants peace.” ### [The Artist's Way](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Artist%27s%20Way%20Julia%20Cameron%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Julia Cameron* > So you see, imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. BRENDA UELAND ### [Atomic Habits](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Atomic%20Habits%20James%20Clear%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *James Clear* > my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed. ### [The Courage to Be Disliked](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Courage%20to%20Be%20Disliked%20Ichiro%20Kishimi%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga* > And Adler, having stated that “life in general has no meaning,” then continues, “Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.” ### [Designing Your Life](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Designing%20Your%20Life%20Bill%20Burnett%20and%20Dave%20Evans%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bill Burnett and Dave Evans* > there are many versions of you, and they are all “right.” ### [Digital Minimalism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Digital%20Minimalism%20Cal%20Newport%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Cal Newport* > They downloaded the apps and set up accounts for good reasons, only to discover, with grim irony, that these services were beginning to undermine the very values that made them appealing in the first place: they joined Facebook to stay in touch with friends across the country, and then ended up unable to maintain an uninterrupted conversation with the friend sitting across the table. ### [Effortless](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Effortless%20Greg%20McKeown%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Greg McKeown* > If your job is to keep the fires burning for an indefinite period of time, you can’t throw all the fuel on the flames at the beginning. ### [Ego Is the Enemy](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ego%20Is%20the%20Enemy%20Ryan%20Holiday%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ryan Holiday* > Writing, like so many creative acts, is hard. Sitting there, staring, mad at yourself, mad at the material because it doesn’t seem good enough and you don’t seem good enough. In fact, many valuable endeavors we undertake are painfully difficult, whether it’s coding a new startup or mastering a craft. But talking, talking is always easy. We seem to think that silence is a sign of weakness. That being ignored is tantamount to death (and for the ego, this is true). So we talk, talk, talk as though our life depends on it. In actuality, silence is strength—particularly early on in any journey. As the philosopher (and as it happens, a hater of newspapers and their chatter) Kierkegaard warned, “Mere gossip anticipates real talk, and to express what is still in thought weakens action by forestalling it.” And that’s what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong. ### [Essentialism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Essentialism%20Greg%20McKeown%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Greg McKeown* > going to pass on this” is far better than not getting back to someone or stringing them along with some noncommittal answer like “I will try to make this work” or “I might be able to” when you know you can’t. ### [Flow](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Flow%20Mihaly%20Csikszentmihalyi%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi* > Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful. But in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery—or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life—that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine. ### [The Four Agreements](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Four%20Agreements%20Don%20Miguel%20Ruiz%20and%20Janet%20Mills%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills* > Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. ### [Four Thousand Weeks](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Four%20Thousand%20Weeks%20Oliver%20Burkeman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Oliver Burkeman* > “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up,” Herzen says. “But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment … Life’s bounty is in its flow. Later is too late.” ### [From Strength to Strength](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=From%20Strength%20to%20Strength%20Arthur%20C.%20Brooks%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Arthur C. Brooks* > Creating an isolated self is dangerous and damaging because it is unnatural. ### [Gift From the Sea](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gift%20From%20the%20Sea%20Anne%20Morrow%20Lindbergh%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Anne Morrow Lindbergh* > We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world; to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The interrelatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. ### [Grit](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Grit%20Angela%20Duckworth%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Angela Duckworth* > For now, what I hope to convey is that experts and beginners have different motivational needs. At the start of an endeavor, we need encouragement and freedom to figure out what we enjoy. We need small wins. We need applause. Yes, we can handle a tincture of criticism and corrective feedback. Yes, we need to practice. But not too much and not too soon. Rush a beginner and you’ll bludgeon their budding interest. It’s very, very hard to get that back once you do. ### [Handmade](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Handmade%20Gary%20Rogowski%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gary Rogowski* > I might as well have called myself a handyman or a carpenter for all that most people would understand what I was trying to do. I wanted to be a furniture maker. To me that meant that I would be a builder, a designer, a thinker. ### [Letters From a Stoic](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Letters%20From%20a%20Stoic%20Lucius%20Annaeus%20Seneca%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lucius Annaeus Seneca* > We veer from plan to plan. None of our wishes is free, none is unqualified, none is lasting. "But it is the fool," you say, "who is inconsistent; nothing suits him for long." But how or when can we tear ourselves away from this folly? No man by himself has sufficient strength to rise above it; he needs a helping hand, and someone to extricate him. ### [A Mind for Numbers](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Mind%20for%20Numbers%20Barbara%20Oakley%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Barbara Oakley* > Some instructors do not like to give students extra worked-out problems or old tests, as they think it makes matters too easy. But there is bountiful evidence that having these kinds of resources available helps students learn much more deeply.5 The one concern about using worked-out examples to form chunks is that it can be all too easy to focus too much on why an individual step works and not on the connection between steps—that is, on why this particular step is the next thing you should do. ### [Money Does Grow on Trees](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Money%20Does%20Grow%20on%20Trees%20Esra%20B.%20Ogut%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Esra B. Ogut* > By keeping myself financially limited, I’m thinking I’m being fair to the rest of the world. ### [The Obstacle Is the Way](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Obstacle%20Is%20the%20Way%20Ryan%20Holiday%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ryan Holiday* > Like: I refuse to acknowledge that. I don’t agree to be intimidated. I resist the temptation to declare this a failure. But nerve is also a matter of acceptance: Well, I guess it’s on me then. I don’t have the luxury of being shaken up about this or replaying close calls in my head. I’m too busy and too many people are counting on me. ### [The Power of Fun](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Power%20of%20Fun%20Catherine%20Price%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Catherine Price* > In general, interests are subjects that we enjoy learning about, and hobbies are things that we like to do. ### [The Power of Habit](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Power%20of%20Habit%20Charles%20Duhigg%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Charles Duhigg* > This explains why habits are so powerful: They create neurological cravings. Most of the time, these cravings emerge so gradually that we’re not really aware they exist, so we’re often blind to their influence. But as we associate cues with certain rewards, a subconscious craving emerges in our brains that starts the habit loop spinning. ### [The Practice of Groundedness](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Practice%20of%20Groundedness%20Brad%20Stulberg%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brad Stulberg* > As you practice surfing waves of distraction, there will be moments in which you succumb. You’ll check your phone. Dive into the rabbit hole of email or social media. Get caught up in thinking about the past or worrying about the future. That’s fine. Just pay close attention to how you feel during and after this happens. Odds are you’ll feel good for a bit, but then, as with eating too many chocolates, you may begin to feel lousy. The more deeply you feel the dissatisfaction that comes with a day spent in distraction, or even briefly interrupting moments of full presence, the easier it becomes to ride the next wave of distraction without getting swallowed by it. In essence, you are training your brain to identify distractions as meaningless noise—not meaningful signals. ### [The Quest of the Simple Life](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Quest%20of%20the%20Simple%20Life%20William%20J.%20Dawson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *William J. Dawson* ### [Range](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Range%20David%20Epstein%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Epstein* > Research on thousands of adults in six industrializing nations found that exposure to modern work with self-directed problem solving and nonrepetitive challenges was correlated with being “cognitively flexible.” As Flynn makes sure to point out, this does not mean that brains now have more inherent potential than a generation ago, but rather that utilitarian spectacles have been swapped for spectacles through which the world is classified by concepts.* Even recently, within some very traditional or orthodox religious communities that have modernized but that still block women from engaging in modern work, the Flynn effect has proceeded more slowly for women than for men in the same community. Exposure to the modern world has made us better adapted for complexity, and that has manifested as flexibility, with profound implications for the breadth of our intellectual world. ### [The Republic](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Republic%20Plato%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Plato* > The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another. ### [Same as Ever](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Same%20as%20Ever%20Morgan%20Housel%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Morgan Housel* > Actor Will Smith wrote in his biography that: • Becoming famous is amazing. • Being famous is a mixed bag. • Losing fame is miserable. ### [Shop Class as Soulcraft](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Shop%20Class%20as%20Soulcraft%20Matthew%20B.%20Crawford%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Matthew B. Crawford* > The idea of opportunity costs presumes the fungibility of human experience: all our activities are equivalent or interchangeable once they are reduced to the abstract currency of clock time, and its wage correlate. But, against the ever-expanding imperium of economics, we do well to insist on what we know firsthand, namely, the concrete heterogeneity of human experience—its apples-versus-oranges character. ### [Slow Productivity](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Slow%20Productivity%20Cal%20Newport%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Cal Newport* > The philosophy I developed is meant primarily for those who engage in skilled labor with significant amounts of autonomy. ### [Sophist](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sophist%20Plato%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Plato* > The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilation of all reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one another do we attain to discourse of reason. ### [Supercommunicators](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Supercommunicators%20Charles%20Duhigg%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Charles Duhigg* > decision-making conversation from an emotional conversation from a social conversation. We need to understand which kinds of questions and vulnerabilities are powerful, and how to make our own feelings more visible and easier to read. We need to prove to others that we are listening closely. ### [This Could Be Our Future](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=This%20Could%20Be%20Our%20Future%20Yancey%20Strickler%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Yancey Strickler* > This is what financial maximization has done to society on a mass scale. It has convinced us that in any decision, the correct choice is whatever option makes the most money, with no concept of “good” or “bad” beyond that. ### [Tools of Titans](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tools%20of%20Titans%20Timothy%20Ferriss%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Timothy Ferriss* > Every single season I set a goal . . . it’s usually two goals. It’s something very serious and something funny, something stupid.” TIM: “Like what? What would be an example of each?” SHAUN: “You’re going to [laugh]—it’s ridiculous. One of them was to win the Olympics, and then one of them was to see how many cars I could win. Because, at the time, the automotive industries were just handing out cars. I was on a roll, and I think by the end of the run I had nine cars. There was a Suzuki Sidekick and this Volvo, and a Jeep, and these random cars. . . . I ended up donating them at the end, because I would’ve had to pay taxes on them and all these things.” TIM: “Do you still set goals like that?” SHAUN: “I do, yeah. They’re always random, man. The Vancouver Olympics—I can’t believe I’m telling you this—my goals were, again, to win the Olympics, and then the other goal was to wear [some] pants, and the pants that I had made were American flag pants. Just follow me . . . I saw this photo of Axl Rose wearing something similar. They were probably a little snugger and shorter. I was like, ‘I can’t pull that off, but I can make some pants like that.’ It was just this stupid goal, like, ‘Man, if I won, maybe I can get on the cover of Rolling Stone or something like that. . . .’ “But that’s what’s fun, as it takes a lot of the pressure off. Winning the Olympics is a very big goal, it’s a very stressful goal to have. So it’s nice to have something else to offset it. Everything was so serious at the time and that was just my way of dealing with it.” TF: Shaun got the Rolling Stone cover wearing the American flag pants. ### [The Upside of Stress](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Upside%20of%20Stress%20Kelly%20McGonigal%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Kelly McGonigal* > Fear, stigma, self-criticism, shame—all of these are believed, by many health professionals, to be powerfully motivating messages that help people improve their well-being. And yet, when put to the scientific test, these messages push people toward the very behaviors the health professionals hope to change. Over the years, I’ve seen the same dynamic play out: Well-intentioned doctors and psychologists convey a message they think will help; instead, the recipients end up overwhelmed, depressed, and driven to self-destructive coping behaviors. ### [Why We Drive](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Why%20We%20Drive%20Matthew%20B.%20Crawford%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Matthew B. Crawford* > The twentieth-century political philosopher Michael Oakeshott wrote that we are “ready to drop the bone we have for its reflection magnified in the mirror of the future. Nothing is made to outlast probable improvement in a world where everything is undergoing incessant improvement . . . . The pace of change warns against too deep attachments.”7 The cultural maladjustment of the old car enthusiast lies in just this, a “too deep attachment.” ### [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Zen%20and%20the%20Art%20of%20Motorcycle%20Maintenance%20Robert%20M.%20Pirsig%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert M. Pirsig* > When one isn’t dominated by feelings of separateness from what he’s working on, then one can be said to “care” about what he’s doing. ## Poetry & Essays ### [The Anthropocene Reviewed](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Anthropocene%20Reviewed%20John%20Green%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Green* > After my kids’ school closed, and after I’d found a mask that I’d bought years earlier to minimize sawdust inhalation while building their tree house, but long before I understood the scope of the pandemic, I called my brother, Hank, and told him I was feeling frightened. Hank is the levelheaded one, the sane one, the calm one. He always has been. We have never let the fact of my being older get in the way of Hank being the wise older brother. Ever since we were little, one of the ways I’ve managed my anxiety is by looking to him. My brain cannot reliably report to me whether a perceived threat is really real, and so I look at Hank, and I see that he’s not panicked, and I tell myself that I’m okay. If anything were truly wrong, Hank wouldn’t be able to portray such calm confidence. ### [The Eclogues of Virgil](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Eclogues%20of%20Virgil%20Virgil%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Virgil* > “Ever the same,” he said. “Love cares for no one. The bees never seem to have enough of clover, The goats never seem to have enough of leaves, The meadows never enough of freshening water; Love never seems to have enough of tears.” ### [Inadvertent](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Inadvertent%20Karl%20Ove%20Knausgaard%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Karl Ove Knausgaard* > A Wizard of Earthsea is a children’s book, but the feelings it evoked in me are not exclusive to childhood, for unlike our thoughts, our emotions do not change in the course of a life, at least not in a fundamental way: joy is the same to a ten-year-old as to a seventy-year-old, as are grief, anger, jealousy, loathing, and enthusiasm. All the books I read as a child brought out feelings in me, but they dealt with a world out there, which I left as soon as I closed the covers. This book related to feelings that concerned me, the person I was and the world I lived in. It opened the way for a kind of unreflecting, emotion-driven thoughts, something I had never experienced before; they were new to me and almost shockingly powerful. ### [The Lost Tools of Learning](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Lost%20Tools%20of%20Learning%20Dorothy%20L.%20Sayers%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Dorothy L. Sayers* > Any child that already shows a disposition to specialise should be given his head: for, when the use of the tools has been well and truly learned it is available for any study whatever. It ### [Narrow Road to the Interior](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Narrow%20Road%20to%20the%20Interior%20Bash%C5%8D%20Matsuo%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bashō Matsuo* > Achieving artistic excellence, each holds one attribute in common: each remains attuned to nature throughout the four seasons. Whatever is seen by such a heart and mind is a flower, whatever is dreamed is a moon. Only a barbarian mind could fail to see the flower; only an animal mind could fail to dream a moon. The first task for each artist is to overcome the barbarian or animal heart and mind, to become one with nature. ### [North of Boston](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=North%20of%20Boston%20Robert%20Frost%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert Frost* > The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all. No, from the time when one is sick to death, One is alone, and he dies more alone. Friends make pretence of following to the grave, But before one is in it, their minds are turned And making the best of their way back to life And living people, and things they understand. ### [Spoon River Anthology](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Spoon%20River%20Anthology%20Edgar%20Lee%20Masters%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edgar Lee Masters* > Griffy the Cooper   THE cooper should know about tubs.   But I learned about life as well,   And you who loiter around these graves   Think you know life.   You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,   In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.   You cannot lift yourself to its rim   And see the outer world of things,   And at the same time see yourself.   You are submerged in the tub of yourself—   Taboos and rules and appearances,   Are the staves of your tub.   Break them and dispel the witchcraft   Of thinking your tub is life   And that you know life. ### [Steep Trails](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Steep%20Trails%20John%20Muir%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Muir* > None may wholly escape the good of Nature, however imperfectly exposed to her blessings. ### [A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Supposedly%20Fun%20Thing%20I%27ll%20Never%20Do%20Again%20David%20Foster%20Wallace%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Foster Wallace* > The many things on the Nadir that were wood-grain but not real wood were such marvelous and painstaking imitations of wood that a lot of times it seemed like it would have been simpler and less expensive simply to have used real wood. ### [A Swim in a Pond in the Rain](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Swim%20in%20a%20Pond%20in%20the%20Rain%20George%20Saunders%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *George Saunders* > We might think of structure as simply: an organizational scheme that allows the story to answer a question it has caused its reader to ask. Me, at the end of the first page: “Poor Marya. I already sort of care about her. How did she get here?” Story, in the first paragraph of its second page: “Well, she had some bad luck.” We might imagine structure as a form of call-and-response. A question arises organically from the story and then the story, very considerately, answers it. If we want to make good structure, we just have to be aware of what question we are causing the reader to ask, then answer that question. ### [Wake-Robin](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Wake-Robin%20John%20Burroughs%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Burroughs* > A friend of mine, now an old man, who spent his youth in the woods of northern Ohio, and who has written many books, says, "I never thought of writing a book, till my self-exile, and then only to reproduce my old-time life to myself." The writing probably cured or alleviated a sort of homesickness. ## Politics & Social Science ### [$2.00 a Day](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%242.00%20a%20Day%20Kathryn%20Edin%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Kathryn Edin, H. Luke Shaefer* > may have actually played a role in diminishing the quality of the average low-wage job in America. ### [Abundance](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Abundance%20Ezra%20Klein%20and%20Derek%20Thompson%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson* > The difference between an economy that grows and an economy that stagnates is change. When you grow an economy, you hasten a future that is different. The more growth there is, the more radically the future diverges from the past. We have settled on a metaphor for growth that erases its most important characteristic. ### [Agrarian Justice](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Agrarian%20Justice%20Thomas%20Paine%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas Paine* > It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we, discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own. I have entitled this tract “Agrarian Justice” to distinguish it from “Agrarian Law.” ### [The Anxious Generation](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Anxious%20Generation%20Jonathan%20Haidt%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jonathan Haidt* > It feels like the only way to remove social media and the smartphone from her life is to move to a deserted island. She attended summer camp for six weeks each summer where no phones were permitted—no electronics at all. Whenever we picked her up from camp she was her normal self. But as soon as she started using her phone again it was back to the same agitation and glumness. Last year I took her phone away for two months and gave her a flip phone and she returned to her normal self. When I hear such stories about boys, they usually involve video games (and sometimes pornography) rather than social media, particularly when a boy makes the transition from being a casual gamer to a heavy gamer. I met a carpenter who told me about his 14-year-old son, James, who has mild autism. James had been making good progress in school before COVID arrived, and also in the martial art of judo. But once schools were shut down, when James was eleven, his parents bought him a PlayStation, because they had to find something for him to do at home. ### [The Big Myth](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Big%20Myth%20Naomi%20Oreskes%20and%20Erik%20M.%20Conway%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway* > Government can be more or less efficient, but it will certainly be inefficient if it lacks the wherewithal to act, and if it is hobbled by people who see it as their role to restrict government power at all times, rather than use it judiciously and appropriately. ### [The Coddling of the American Mind](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Coddling%20of%20the%20American%20Mind%20Greg%20Lukianoff%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt* > “Safety” trumps everything else, no matter how unlikely or trivial the potential danger. ### [The Coming of Neo-Feudalism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Coming%20of%20Neo-Feudalism%20Joel%20Kotkin%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Joel Kotkin* > Allowing a small number of technologists and financiers to dominate a huge portion of the economy and the information pipelines, and to monetize every aspect of human behavior, seems incompatible with democratic self-determination. ### [Doppelganger](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Doppelganger%20Naomi%20Klein%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Naomi Klein* > It bears remembering that many of the technologies that form the building blocks of modern tech giants were first developed in the public sector, with public dollars, whether by government agencies or public research universities. ### [Enlightenment Now](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Enlightenment%20Now%20Steven%20Pinker%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Steven Pinker* > In many colleges and universities, science is presented not as the pursuit of true explanations but as just another narrative or myth. Science is commonly blamed for racism, imperialism, world wars, and the Holocaust. And it is accused of robbing life of its enchantment and stripping humans of freedom and dignity. ### [Fear](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fear%20Bob%20Woodward%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Bob Woodward* > “This is the president’s vision,” Navarro publicly said. “My function really as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.” ### [Fear of Falling](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Fear%20of%20Falling%20Barbara%20Ehrenreich%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Barbara Ehrenreich* > health had become a nebulous metaphor for other distinctions, and disguised a growing disdain for the white working class. ### [The Federalist Papers](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Federalist%20Papers%20Alexander%20Hamilton%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison* > And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. ### [Hostile Environment](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Hostile%20Environment%20Maya%20Goodfellow%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Maya Goodfellow* > Decolonisation and anti-colonial movements had challenged the supposed wisdom of the racial hierarchy, producing anxiety that the UK’s mythical superiority was going to be exposed for what it was. ### [It Was All a Lie](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=It%20Was%20All%20a%20Lie%20Stuart%20Stevens%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Stuart Stevens* > These are the new segregationists, who have convinced themselves they are fighting a just war to defend the values of “our way of life.” ### [Let Us Now Praise Famous Men](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Let%20Us%20Now%20Praise%20Famous%20Men%20Walker%20Evans%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Walker Evans, James Agee* > has the doubleness that all jobs have by which one stays alive and in which one’s life is made a cheated ruin, ### [The New Possible](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20New%20Possible%20Philip%20Clayton%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Philip Clayton, Kelli M. Archie, Jonah Sachs, and Evan Steiner* > We must move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to one based on the health of living systems: an ecological civilization. ### [Poverty, by America](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Poverty%2C%20by%20America%20Matthew%20Desmond%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Matthew Desmond* > Exclusionary zoning laws metastasized across the nation after Congress passed federal legislation abolishing housing discrimination in 1968.[21] We went from banning certain kinds of people from our communities to banning the kinds of housing in which those people lived—namely, ### [Reflections on the Revolution in France](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Reflections%20on%20the%20Revolution%20in%20France%20Edmund%20Burke%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Edmund Burke* > To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. ### [The Republican Reversal](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Republican%20Reversal%20James%20Morton%20Turner%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *James Morton Turner* > Media requests to speak with government scientists were carefully reviewed, with Cooney’s staff weighing in on whether the scientists would be “on message.” ### [Revolutions in Reverse](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Revolutions%20in%20Reverse%20David%20Graeber%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Graeber* > Freedom has become the right to share in the proceeds of one’s own permanent enslavement. ### [The Road to Wigan Pier](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Road%20to%20Wigan%20Pier%20George%20Orwell%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *George Orwell* > private ownership is only tolerable when every individual (or family or other unit) is at least moderately self-supporting; ### [Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sex%2C%20Economy%2C%20Freedom%2C%20%26%20Community%20Wendell%20Berry%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Wendell Berry* > It cannot be the present colonial economy in which only “raw materials” are exported and all necessities and pleasures are imported. ### [The Shock Doctrine](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Shock%20Doctrine%20Naomi%20Klein%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Naomi Klein* > That is how the shock doctrine works: the original disaster—the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane—puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect. ### [A Small Farm Future](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Small%20Farm%20Future%20Chris%20Smaje%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Chris Smaje* > In view of the other crises we face, the only convincing way I can see of transcending this crisis is to start making ourselves as individuals in less materialised ways that are more engaged with the Creation, the non-symbolic world, around us. ### [The Sum of Us](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Sum%20of%20Us%20Heather%20McGhee%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Heather McGhee* > in the legal system—when you fear someone, no matter how objectively real the threat, you can be justified in doing them harm. ### [The Undeserving Poor](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Undeserving%20Poor%20Michael%20B.%20Katz%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Michael B. Katz* > by the 1970s the culture of poverty had become a conservative concept, thought of as a justification for mean and punitive policies, ### [The Unsettling of America](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Unsettling%20of%20America%20Wendell%20Berry%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Wendell Berry* > we cannot live as we do and be as we would like to be. There is nothing more absurd, to give an example that is only apparently trivial, than the millions who wish to live in luxury and idleness and yet be slender and good-looking. We have millions, too, whose livelihoods, amusements, and comforts are all destructive, who nevertheless wish to live in a healthy environment; they want to run their recreational engines in clean, fresh air. ### [The Upswing](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Upswing%20Robert%20D.%20Putnam%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Robert D. Putnam* > And yet, still today, nearly 50 percent of all workers would have to reshuffle occupational categories in order to achieve gender parity by profession. ### [Utopia](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Utopia%20Thomas%20More%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas More* > ‘“It’s perfectly obvious that, unless you cure these evils, it’s futile to boast of the justice you display in punishing theft, since it’s more specious than equitable or effective. If you permit the young to be viciously brought up and their characters steadily corrupted from early years, and then at length punish them for doing as adults what they have been destined for since childhood, what else is this but turning people into thieves and then punishing them for being such?” ### [Utopia for Realists](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Utopia%20for%20Realists%20Rutger%20Bregman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rutger Bregman* > According to Baumol, the main impediment to allocating our resources toward such noble ends is “the illusion that we cannot afford them.” As illusions go, this one is pretty stubborn. When you’re obsessed with efficiency and productivity, it’s difficult to see the real value of education and care. Which is why so many politicians and taxpayers alike see only costs. ### [Why We're Polarized](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Why%20We%27re%20Polarized%20Ezra%20Klein%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Ezra Klein* > it’s used to diminish and discredit the concerns of weaker groups by making them look like self-interested, special pleading in order to clear the agenda for the concerns of stronger groups, ## Reference & How-To ### [52 Series](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=52%20Series%20Lynn%20Gordon%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lynn Gordon* > Bandana Cut a piggy bank slot in the side of a paper cup, where the side meets the bottom. Drop a dime into the paper cup. Shake it, so the audience can hear it rattling. Put a bandana over the cup, and slip the dime out the slot. Transfer the cup to the other hand. While the audience is watching the cup, hide the dime in your pocket. Remove the bandana. Turn the cup upside down, hiding the slot with your hand. The dime has vanished! ### [Everyday Foods in War Time](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Everyday%20Foods%20in%20War%20Time%20Mary%20Swartz%20Rose%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mary Swartz Rose* > Anything that is worth while costs something; money, thought, labor--perhaps all three. To salvage kitchen fat may not be economical in time and labor (though it generally is more so than one might think), but there is more time and labor than food available today. ### [Get Thee to a Punnery](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Get%20Thee%20to%20a%20Punnery%20Richard%20Lederer%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Richard Lederer* > • What’s the difference between a pursued deer and an undersized witch? One is a hunted stag; the other is a stunted hag. ### [Hands-on Smart Contract Development With Solidity and Ethereum](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Hands-on%20Smart%20Contract%20Development%20With%20Solidity%20and%20Ethereum%20Kevin%20Solorio%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Kevin Solorio, Randall Kanna, and David H. Hoover* > As we implement features for our contracts, we will use TDD to take advantage of the short feedback loop it provides. If you are not familiar with TDD, it is a way of writing software where we first start with a failing test and then write the code required to make the test pass. Once everything is working, we can then refactor the code to make it more maintainable. ### [How to Take Smart Notes](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20to%20Take%20Smart%20Notes%20S%C3%B6nke%20Ahrens%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sönke Ahrens* > What we can take from Allen as an important insight is that the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective. Everything needs to be taken care of, otherwise the neglected bits will nag us until the unimportant tasks become urgent. Even the best tools won’t make much of a difference if they are used in isolation. Only if they are embedded in a well-conceived working process can the tools play out their strengths. There is no point in having great tools if they don’t fit together. ### [Kawaii Crochet](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Kawaii%20Crochet%20Melissa%20Bradley%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Melissa Bradley* > Rnd 10: (sc 6, 2 sc in next st) 6 times ### [Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Mickey%20Baker%27s%20Complete%20Course%20in%20Jazz%20Guitar%20Mickey%20Baker%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Mickey Baker* > It is very important that everything in the book be transposed to all of the other keys. You should be able to play any song in any key by the time you finish this book, and learning to transpose is the only thing that can help you to do this. ### [Minecraft Redstone Guide](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Minecraft%20Redstone%20Guide%20SPC%20Books%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *SPC Books* ### [Organizing From the Inside Out](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Organizing%20From%20the%20Inside%20Out%20Julie%20Morgenstern%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Julie Morgenstern* > Creating this “Arts & Crafts Center” was a way of celebrating Carrie’s need for abundance, rather than criticizing it. For the first time, she felt good about the volume she had amassed instead of ashamed of it. And with everything now accessible, she and her kids were able to make use of most of it. Ironically, once everything was consolidated, it became much easier for Carrie to part with those items that went unused. ### [Our Best Homeschool Activities EVER!](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Our%20Best%20Homeschool%20Activities%20EVER%21%20Jim%20Erskine%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jim Erskine* > the "Young Eagles Flying Program". ### [Project-Based Homeschooling](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Project-Based%20Homeschooling%20Lori%20McWilliam%20Pickert%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lori McWilliam Pickert* > setting an example of what it means to be an alert, curious, interested human being. It means setting an example of doing, making, creating, and sharing. ### [Rick Steves Paris 2016](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Rick%20Steves%20Paris%202016%20Rick%20Steves%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rick Steves, Steve Smith, and Gene Openshaw* ### [A Soil Owner's Manual](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A%20Soil%20Owner%27s%20Manual%20Jon%20Stika%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jon Stika* > Living plants are the only practical and economical way to restore the soil ### [Teaching From Rest](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Teaching%20From%20Rest%20Sarah%20Mackenzie%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Sarah Mackenzie* > Of course, we must remember: Rest is not the opposite of work, but rather work of a different order. ## Religion & Spirituality ### [The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, Volume 2](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Book%20of%20Mormon%20for%20the%20Least%20of%20These%2C%20Volume%202%20Fatimah%20Salleh%20and%20Margaret%20Olsen%20Hemming%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming* > Justice and truth walk together because we work for justice when we understand the truth that all we have comes from God, not because we earn or deserve it. Accepting that truth allows us to let go of our own privileges and embrace community. ### [David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=David%20O.%20McKay%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Modern%20Mormonism%20Gregory%20A%20Prince%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Gregory A Prince, Wm Robert Wright* > In large part, this was due to his distaste for bureaucracy. He told his secretary, “Men must learn that in presiding over the Church we are dealing with human hearts, that individual rights are sacred, and the human soul is tender. We cannot run the Church as we would a business.” ### [Ether](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ether%20Rosalynde%20Frandsen%20Welch%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Rosalynde Frandsen Welch* > Without the covenants of Abraham and Moses promising salvation to Israel’s scattered branches, how can the Gentiles repent and claim their salvation in Christ? He finds his answer in the experience of the brother of Jared, whose faith prepares him for an individual encounter with Christ equal in its saving power to the Lord’s ministry among the Nephites. ### [Jesus the Christ](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Jesus%20the%20Christ%20James%20E.%20Talmage%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *James E. Talmage* > According to Talmudic record, the organization consisted of one hundred and twenty eminent scholars. The scope of their labors, according to the admonition traditionally perpetuated by themselves, is thus expressed: Be careful in judgment; set up many scholars, and make a hedge about the law. They followed this behest by much study and careful consideration of all traditional details in administration; by multiplying scribes and rabbis unto themselves; and, as some of them interpreted the requirement of setting up many scholars, by writing many books and tractates; moreover, they made a fence or hedge about the law by adding numerous rules, which prescribed with great exactness the officially established proprieties for every occasion. ### [Joseph Smith](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Joseph%20Smith%20Richard%20L.%20Bushman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Richard L. Bushman* > Lucy had no premonitions of such a future for her son. She remembered him as a “remarkably quiet, well disposed child,” “much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.”19 ### [The Journal of John Woolman, Quaker](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Journal%20of%20John%20Woolman%2C%20Quaker%20John%20Woolman%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *John Woolman* > I saw that an humble man, with the blessing of the Lord, might live on a little, and that where the heart was set on greatness, success in business did not satisfy the craving; but that commonly with an increase of wealth the desire of wealth increased. ### [Mormonism in Transition](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Mormonism%20in%20Transition%20Thomas%20G.%20Alexander%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Thomas G. Alexander* > the Western States Mission decided to experiment with allowing elders to work during the day to earn the money necessary to support themselves and do missionary work at night. ### [Reflections of a Scientist](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Reflections%20of%20a%20Scientist%20Henry%20J.%20Eyring%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Henry J. Eyring* > I think I gave the right answer. I said, "In this Church, you only have to believe the truth. Find out what the truth is!" ### [Religion of a Different Color](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Religion%20of%20a%20Different%20Color%20W.%20Paul%20Reeve%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *W. Paul Reeve* ## Science & Technology ### [The Alignment Problem](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Alignment%20Problem%20Brian%20Christian%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Brian Christian* > “Today computers aren’t very good at understanding human language,” it began. “While state-of-the-art technology is still a ways from this goal, we’re making significant progress using the latest machine learning and natural language processing techniques.” ### [Androids](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Androids%20Chet%20Haase%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Chet Haase* > Android was just one of many projects that Google invested in. Google’s bet on Android wasn’t about Google putting its full weight behind it, but about the company sponsoring a team to see what was possible. ### [Code](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Code%20Charles%20Petzold%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Charles Petzold* > What should be interesting to us at this point is that the dots are binary. A particular dot is either flat or raised. That means we can apply what we’ve learned about Morse code and combinatorial analysis to Braille. We know that there are 6 dots and that each dot can be either flat or raised, so the total number of combinations of 6 flat and raised dots is 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, or 26, or 64. ### [How Emotions Are Made](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=How%20Emotions%20Are%20Made%20Lisa%20Feldman%20Barrett%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Lisa Feldman Barrett* > When you experience affect without knowing the cause, you are more likely to treat affect as information about the world, rather than your experience of the world. ### [Human Compatible](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Human%20Compatible%20Stuart%20Russell%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Stuart Russell* > Just to rub it in, a version of AlphaGo called AlphaZero recently learned to trounce AlphaGo at Go, and also to trounce Stockfish (the world’s best chess program, far better than any human) and Elmo (the world’s best shogi program, also better than any human). AlphaZero did all this in one day. ### [Pathogenesis](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Pathogenesis%20Jonathan%20Kennedy%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Jonathan Kennedy* > But once Black Africans had become inextricably linked with slavery in the European imagination, modern ideas about race were developed in order to justify this iniquitous situation. ### [The Shallows](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Shallows%20Nicholas%20Carr%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Nicholas Carr* > As our ancestors imbued their minds with the discipline to follow a line of argument or narrative through a succession of printed pages, they became more contemplative, reflective, and imaginative. ### [The Sports Gene](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%20Sports%20Gene%20David%20Epstein%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *David Epstein* > It is entirely clear that the dopamine system responds to physical activity. This is one reason that exercise can be used as part of treatment for depression and as a method to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, an illness that involves the destruction of brain cells that make dopamine. And there is evidence that the reverse is true as well, that physical activity levels respond to the dopamine system. Several lines of scientific evidence have begun to implicate genes that control dopamine. Particular versions of dopamine receptor genes have been associated with higher physical activity and lower body mass index. Multiple studies—including a meta-analysis of all published studies—have also replicated the finding that one of those variants, the 7R version of the DRD4 gene, increases an individual’s risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Tim Lightfoot, director of the Sydney and J. L. Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance at Texas A&M, has authored papers on voluntary physical activity in rodents and humans, and he sees a connection between ADHD, exercise, and dopamine genes. “The high active mice we bred in the lab,” Lightfoot says, “they mimic ADHD kids, at least as far as the dopamine system goes. . . . They’re low on [a particular kind of] dopamine receptors, and if you can drive the amount of dopamine up, their physical activity decreases.” ### [Superintelligence](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Superintelligence%20Nick%20Bostrom%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Nick Bostrom* > We can, however, discern some general features of the kind of system that would be required. It now seems clear that a capacity to learn would be an integral feature of the core design of a system intended to attain general intelligence, not something to be tacked on later as an extension or an afterthought. The same holds for the ability to deal effectively with uncertainty and probabilistic information. Some faculty for extracting useful concepts from sensory data and internal states, and for leveraging acquired concepts into flexible combinatorial representations for use in logical and intuitive reasoning, also likely belong among the core design features in a modern AI intended to attain general intelligence. ### [Token Economy](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Token%20Economy%20Shermin%20Voshmgir%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Shermin Voshmgir* > Blockchain is not the only technology needed to decentralize the Web. A multitude of other protocols are required to create a decentralized application. However, the term “blockchain” seems to be used as a synonym for many Web31 protocols or the Web3 itself, at least by some journalists and the general public. Apart from computation we need file storage, messaging, identities, external data (oracles) and many other decentralized services. A blockchain network is simply the processor for decentralized applications that operate on top of the Web3. It serves as a distributed accounting machine recording all token transactions and performing computation. ### [What If](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=What%20If%20Randall%20Munroe%20Kindle&i=digital-text) *Randall Munroe* > shoots, only to see them wither as the blight takes hold. Someday, before too long, the