~/books
Book Rankings
80 books ranked by Goodreads rating, volume & cultural relevance
Out From The Library
Due Jun 10
·
Living Well in a Down Economy
Barcode 39083109779042
·
AI Investing for Dummies
Paul Mladjenovic · Barcode 39083109840547
·
Agentic AI for Dummies
Pam Baker · Barcode 39083111198827
1 hold
·
Machine Learning for Dummies
Barcode 39083111089075
·
Sobriety for Dummies
Lane Kennedy · Barcode 39083111287620
·
IBS for Dummies
Kristina Campbell · Barcode 39083110405082
Top Picks
01
Zero to One
: Silicon Valley essential, most reviewed in the collection (4.17, 400k ratings)
02
The Demon-Haunted World
: Timeless skepticism classic (4.38, 131k ratings)
03
Bad Blood
: Best modern nonfiction (4.32, 140k ratings)
04
The New Jim Crow
: Landmark social justice work (4.36, 100k ratings)
05
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
: New entry, instant essential (4.33, 110k ratings)
All Rankings
01
Zero to One
Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
4.17/5
400k+ ratings
Most reviewed
Notes on startups and how to build the future. Silicon Valley essential.
02
The Demon-Haunted World
Carl Sagan
4.38/5
131k+ ratings
Science as a candle in the dark. Definitive case for skepticism and critical thinking.
03
Bad Blood
John Carreyrou
4.32/5
140k+ ratings
Very popular
Inside the Theranos fraud. Best investigative nonfiction of the decade.
04
The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander
4.36/5
100k+ ratings
Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Landmark social justice work.
05
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Lindsay C. Gibson
4.33/5
109k+ ratings
Very popular
How to heal from distant, rejecting, or self-involved parents. The definitive book on the subject.
06
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
4.20/5
111k+ ratings
Very popular
Building a business when there are no easy answers. The most honest startup book ever written.
07
The Black Swan
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
3.93/5
200k+ ratings
The impact of the highly improbable. Changed how people think about risk.
08
The Big Short
Michael Lewis
4.30/5
171k+ ratings
Inside the financial crisis. Lewis at his best.
09
How to Change Your Mind
Michael Pollan
4.27/5
84,602 ratings
Very popular
Psychedelics and consciousness exploration.
10
Liar's Poker
Michael Lewis
4.15/5
112k+ ratings
Wall Street in the 1980s. The book that launched Lewis's career.
11
The Rape of Nanking
Iris Chang
4.25/5
54,176 ratings
Important historical work on Japanese atrocities.
12
The Myth of Normal
Gabor Maté & Daniel Maté
4.30/5
37,769 ratings
Trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture. Maté's most comprehensive work.
13
Leonardo da Vinci
Walter Isaacson
4.19/5
55,000 ratings
Biography of the ultimate Renaissance man. Isaacson at his best.
14
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes
4.38/5
20,258 ratings
Comprehensive, authoritative history. Pulitzer Prize winner.
15
Killing the Rising Sun
Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard
4.35/5
20,658 ratings
Popular history of America's victory over Japan in WWII.
16
Unmasking Autism
Devon Price
4.31/5
22,428 ratings
Discovering the new faces of neurodiversity. Validating and thorough.
17
Chip War
Chris Miller
4.29/5
20,000 ratings
The fight for the world's most critical technology. FT Business Book of the Year.
18
God Is Not Great
Christopher Hitchens
3.94/5
101k+ ratings
Anti-religion polemic.
19
The Undoing Project
Michael Lewis
3.99/5
64,344 ratings
Kahneman and Tversky's partnership that changed how we think.
20
The Third Reich at War
Richard J. Evans
4.40/5
6,420 ratings
The final volume of Evans's landmark trilogy. Hailed a masterpiece by the NYT.
21
Dark Money
Jane Mayer
4.20/5
15,000 ratings
The hidden history of the billionaires behind the radical right.
22
Basic Economics
Thomas Sowell
4.27/5
10,000 ratings
Economics without jargon. The definitive introductory economics text.
23
Cracking the Coding Interview
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
4.33/5
6,919 ratings
189 programming questions and solutions. Essential prep for technical interviews.
24
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer
4.32/5
7,078 ratings
Classic comprehensive Nazi Germany history.
25
The True Believer
Eric Hoffer
4.19/5
11,987 ratings
Mass movements and fanaticism analysis.
26
Too Big to Fail
Andrew Ross Sorkin
4.09/5
20,000 ratings
Inside the 2008 financial crisis. Best account of how Wall Street nearly collapsed.
27
AI Superpowers
Kai-Fu Lee
4.09/5
20,000 ratings
China, Silicon Valley, and the new world order. Still relevant.
28
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
Rashid Khalidi
4.22/5
10,000 ratings
History of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917–2017.
29
The Battle of Midway
Craig L. Symonds
4.39/5
3,670 ratings
Masterful account of the pivotal WWII Pacific battle.
30
Phenomenology of Spirit
G.W.F. Hegel
3.93/5
37,626 ratings
Dense philosophy classic.
31
American Prometheus
Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin
4.32/5
4,856 ratings
Oppenheimer biography. Pulitzer Prize winner.
32
Empire of AI
Karen Hao
4.21/5
5,000 ratings
Dreams and nightmares inside Sam Altman's OpenAI. NYT Bestseller.
33
Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes
3.70/5
53,226 ratings
Political philosophy classic (1651).
34
The Thinking Machine
Stephen Witt
4.27/5
2,322 ratings
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, and the world's most coveted microchip. The definitive Huang biography.
35
The Wright Brothers
David McCullough
4.21/5
40,000 ratings
The story of Orville and Wilbur Wright. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.
36
The Snowball
Alice Schroeder
4.15/5
50,285 ratings
Warren Buffett biography.
37
Breath
James Nestor
4.05/5
60,000 ratings
The new science of a lost art. Surprisingly compelling.
38
The Power of Geography
Tim Marshall
4.19/5
23,828 ratings
How geography shapes nations.
39
The 33 Strategies of War
Robert Greene
4.23/5
19,163 ratings
Strategic thinking guide.
40
The Making of a Manager
Julie Zhuo
4.10/5
20,000 ratings
What to do when everyone looks to you. Practical management guide.
41
The Infinity Machine
Sebastian Mallaby
4.47/5
207 ratings
Limited sample
Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the quest for superintelligence. Definitive AI biography.
42
Subliminal
Leonard Mlodinow
4.06/5
13,494 ratings
Unconscious mind science.
43
Hidden Potential
Adam Grant
3.90/5
30,000 ratings
The science of achieving greater things.
44
This Is Your Mind on Plants
Michael Pollan
3.87/5
34,090 ratings
Opium, caffeine, mescaline: our relationship with psychoactive plants.
45
Stop Walking on Eggshells
Paul T. Mason & Randi Kreger
4.02/5
13,383 ratings
Taking your life back when someone you care about has borderline personality disorder.
46
The Ascent of Money
Niall Ferguson
3.91/5
20,000 ratings
A financial history of the world. 10th anniversary edition.
47
How to Become a Straight-A Student
Cal Newport
4.02/5
10,333 ratings
The unconventional strategies real college students use to score high while studying less.
48
Million Dollar Weekend
Noah Kagan
4.12/5
5,684 ratings
The surprisingly simple way to launch a 7-figure business in 48 hours.
49
The Holy Grail of Investing
Tony Robbins & Christopher Zook
4.14/5
5,000 ratings
The world's greatest investors reveal their ultimate strategies.
50
The Inevitable
Kevin Kelly
3.89/5
11,967 ratings
Technology futures.
51
Steve Jobs in Exile
Geoffrey Cain
4.10/5
300 ratings
New release
The untold story of NeXT and the remaking of an American visionary.
52
More Everything Forever
Adam Becker
4.26/5
1,616 ratings
AI optimism and the case for abundance.
53
Legacy of Ashes
Tim Weiner
4.03/5
5,000 ratings
The history of the CIA. Pulitzer Prize winner.
54
Big Debt Crises
Ray Dalio
4.05/5
4,000 ratings
Template for understanding debt cycles. Dalio's most rigorous work.
55
AI 2041
Kai-Fu Lee & Chen Qiufan
3.82/5
5,808 ratings
Ten visions for our future. Fiction-nonfiction hybrid on how AI will reshape the world.
56
Palo Alto
Malcolm Harris
3.91/5
2,575 ratings
Silicon Valley history and critique.
57
The Contrarian
Max Chafkin
3.88/5
3,000 ratings
Peter Thiel and the rise of the Silicon Valley oligarchs.
58
Supremacy
Parmy Olson
3.83/5
3,000 ratings
AI, ChatGPT, and the race that will change the world.
59
The Loudest Voice in the Room
Gabriel Sherman
3.88/5
1,913 ratings
Roger Ailes and the rise of Fox News.
60
Enshittification
Cory Doctorow
3.78/5
2,000 ratings
Why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it.
61
How to Rule the World
Theo Baker
3.81/5
852 ratings
An education in power at Stanford University. The culture of ascendancy exposed.
62
The Philosopher in the Valley
Michael Steinberger
3.69/5
1,107 ratings
Alex Karp, Palantir, and the rise of the surveillance state.
63
The Mind-Gut Connection
Emeran Mayer
3.76/5
9,092 ratings
Digestive health and brain connection.
64
The LEGO Story
Jens Andersen
3.85/5
3,024 ratings
Behind the brick empire. Family drama and business reinvention.
65
Bonfire of the Murdochs
Gabriel Sherman
3.80/5
200 ratings
Limited sample
How the epic fight to control the last great media dynasty broke a family and the world.
66
Emotional
Leonard Mlodinow
3.80/5
1,340 ratings
Neuroscience of emotions.
67
Sneaker Wars
Barbara Smit
3.86/5
836 ratings
Adidas vs Puma family feud.
68
The Law of Attraction
Esther & Jerry Hicks
4.13/5
175 ratings
Limited sample
Foundational LOA text.
69
The Simulation Hypothesis
Rizwan Virk
3.73/5
1,203 ratings
An MIT computer scientist shows why AI, quantum physics, and Eastern mystics agree we are in a video game.
70
What Went Wrong with Capitalism
Ruchir Sharma
3.87/5
569 ratings
Economic critique. Recent release (2024).
71
Life After Google
George Gilder
3.55/5
2,361 ratings
Cryptocurrency advocacy.
72
Make It, Don't Fake It
Sabrina Horn
4.34/5
38 ratings
Limited sample
Business authenticity guide.
73
The Book of Help
Megan Griswold
3.62/5
1,377 ratings
Self-help memoir.
74
Epic Disruptions
Scott D. Anthony
4.05/5
73 ratings
Limited sample
Lessons from disruption and innovation strategy.
75
Hell to Pay
Michael Lind
3.94/5
81 ratings
Limited sample
How the suppression of wages is destroying America.
76
Hubris Maximus
Faiz Siddiqui
3.62/5
374 ratings
Elon Musk's quest for power: from Tesla to Twitter to government.
77
Every Screen on the Planet
Emily Baker-White
3.47/5
129 ratings
The war over TikTok. Tech, politics, and national security collide.
78
The Shopify Story
Larry MacDonald
3.55/5
38 ratings
Limited sample
How a startup rocketed to e-commerce giant by empowering millions of entrepreneurs.
79
The Secret History of the World
Mark Booth
3.44/5
617 ratings
Occult/esoteric history.
80
Entrepreneurship for Dummies
Kathleen Allen
3.65/5
34 ratings
Limited sample
Basic business startup guide.