My Favorite Books

Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way

by Lao Tzu, Ursula K. Le Guin

Rating: 10/10

One of my favorite translations of the timeless wisdom of Laozi (Lao Tzu). This is one of the few books that I carry a paperback copy with me wherever I go and read almost daily.

Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

Rating: 10/10

This is one of the few books that I had read almost every single translation available, been re-reading at least every couple of months for a few years now, and still keep finding new gems every time I do.

Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

by Derek Sivers

Rating: 10/10

This is a very short book, but it’s the one that can easily change your entire perspective on how you do business and live your life (it has certainly changed mine).

The Tao of Pooh & The Te of Piglet

by Benjamin Hoff

Rating: 10/10

Probably the best introduction to Taoism through the eyes of Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

Rating: 10/10

The book that changed my perspective on being an introvert, helped me to embrace it instead of trying to become an extravert and leverage all the benefits.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

by Greg McKeown

Rating: 10/10

This book helped me make a life-altering decision, changed how I live, and the way I make short, medium, and long-term decisions.

Rationality: From AI to Zombies

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Rating: 10/10

This is a collection of essays by Eliezer Yudkowsky that were originally published on Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias, which have since given birth to an incredible community of rationalists. 

In Eliezer’s own words, “These essays are fumbling attempts to put into words lessons better taught by experience. But at least there’s underlying math, plus experimental evidence from cognitive psychology on how humans actually think. Maybe that will be enough to cross the stratospherically high threshold required for a discipline that lets you actually get it right, instead of just constraining you into interesting new mistakes.”

What does it actually mean to be rational? Why is that a good idea to act rationally? What prevents us from making optimal decisions? How can we fix ourselves? Do we even need fixing if we feel happy? These are just some of the questions that are being explored in the book.

It will help you understand a broad set of principles, including evolution, foundations of science, the human brain, quantum mechanics, BayesCraft, clear thinking, probability theory, and much much more.

This is a must-read for those who want to see and understand this world a bit more accurately and learn a set of tools to see everything around them in a new light.

Stillness Is the Key

by Ryan Holiday

Rating: 8/10

A book about stillness – a virtue that is the key to being better at everything you do. This time (it’s the third book in the trilogy), Ryan goes beyond Stoicism and shows that inner peace is the highest good in virtually any religion and philosophical school. “And when basically all the wisdom of the ancient world agrees on something, only a fool would decline to listen.”

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

by Ben Horowitz

Rating: 9/10

Ben Horowitz’s new book is a great blend of storytelling, anecdotes, and examples on understanding, building, and eventually changing the organization’s culture. It’s an excellent and thoughtfully prepared read that should be on the reading list of any founder/CEO.

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

Rating: 7.5/10

“Why We Sleep” has probably been one of the most important instruments to raise general awareness on the importance of sleep in recent years.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

by Michael E. Gerber

Rating: 7/10

An updated edition of a timeless bestseller about the importance of working on your business instead of working in your business. Gerber believes that entrepreneurs – typically brimming with good but distracting ideas – make poor businesspeople. He argues that everybody who goes into business is actually three people in one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. Each of them gets in the way of two others. It was recommended to me by a friend who, after reading this book, was finally able to break free from working 12 hours a day in his business and who now travels all the time while the business continues to grow.

Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals

by Tyler Cowen

Rating: 8.5/10

This book is packed with big ideas and questions, interesting thought experiments, and fascinating theories. It represents the best of multi-disciplinary thinking and has something for everyone. Cowen delves into economics, philosophy, philanthropy, sociology, geopolitics, history, and even pop culture.

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It

by Kamal Ravikant

Rating: 8/10

When you love yourself, life loves you back.

The first version of this book was self-published in 2012 and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Kamal worked on this expanded version (the first one was 8,000 words, this one is over 50,000) for over a year, and it’s basically a completely new book.

One of the key points that stood out for me in the book is asking yourself: “If I loved myself truly and deeply, what would I do?” before making a decision.

As A Man Thinketh

by James Allen

Rating: 9/10

Your internal environment creates your external reality. Your thoughts and beliefs create the world around you. This is true in all of life, and this short book that you can read in less than an hour is a great reminder of just how important your thoughts are. Everything starts with a thought, and therefore if you want to improve any area of your life, you should start with your thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts are like seeds – if you plant beautiful seeds, beautiful things will grow, and vice versa.

How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy

by Massimo Pigliucci, Skye Cleary, and Daniel Kaufman

Rating: 7.5/10

This book is a collection of essays by fifteen philosophers presenting an introductory guide to choosing a philosophy for living an examined and meaningful life. Each author is explaining their philosophical view on life: from ancient Eastern approaches such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Daoism to Western ones such as Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism; from venerable religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to modern ones such as Ethical Culture, existentialism, effective altruism, pragmatism, and secular humanism.

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict

by The Arbinger Institute

Rating: 9.5/10

“What if conflicts at home, conflicts at work, and conflicts in the world stem from the same root cause? What if we systematically misunderstand that cause? And what if, as a result, we systematically perpetuate the very problems we think we are trying to solve?” This is arguably one of the best ‘personal development’ books that I’ve read. It’s thought-provoking but doesn’t pressure you into thinking that your life is a mess and they have the solution. It simply suggests, encourages, and recognizes that we all stumble and fail sometimes. The key is to get up, open our hearts, and keep on trying.

Japonisme: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-Sabi and More

by Erin Niimi Longhurst

Rating: 7.5/10

In this gorgeous book, half British, half Japanese lifestyle blogger Erin Niimi Longhurst exploring the Japanese art of living a happier, healthier, more thoughtful life. In her own words, she “wants to inspire and provide guidance on ways to enrich and complement your lifestyle through a new lens.”

It’s broken down into three sections:
— Kokoro 心 – the heart and the mind, which includes the concepts of Ikigai (our purpose, what drives us to do what we do), Wabi-Sabi (the beauty of impermanence), and Kintsugi (finding beauty in imperfection);
— Karada 体 – the body, how we nourish it, how we engage with our surroundings, and how we stimulate our minds. It includes the concepts of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), Ikebana, Tabemono, Ocha, Onsen, Caligraphy, and the Japanese home.
— Shukanka 習慣化 — developing the habit.

The book is filled with gorgeous illustrations by Ryo Takemasa, pictures by the author, and beautifully designed Japanese proverbs, making it one of the most aesthetically pleasing books I’ve ever owned.

Your Music and People

by Derek Sivers

Rating: 9/10

“A philosophy of getting your work to the world by being creative, considerate, resourceful, and connected.”

Like all other Derek’s books, this is a very short, highly digestible, and immediately actionable read.

Even though it’s written with musicians in mind, the advice and lessons are highly relevant and applicable for pretty much anyone.

Hell Yeah or No

by Derek Sivers

Rating: 10/10

“Thoughts around what’s worth doing, fixing faulty thinking, and making things happen.”

This is one of those extremely rare books with zero fluff and full of great points that you want to highlight entire chapters of.

Some of my favorite chapters (on parenting/excitement in finding things/what matters most) need to be read in full, so I highly recommend reading the entire book (it’s a very short read and can be completed in less than 2 hours).

Greenlights

by Matthew McConaughey

Rating: 10/10

Wildly entertaining, remarkably wise, and candid, this memoir brings you on a philosophical and inspiring journey of McConaughey’s life.

As McConaughey says at the end of the book, “I hope it can be useful and lend a hand if you need it, that it might teach you something, inspire you, make you laugh, remind you, help you forget, and arm you with some life tools to better march forward as more of yourself.” – and I can confirm that it does all that and more.

The Psychology of Money

by Morgan Housel

Rating: 10/10

This book’s premise is that doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave.

A genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster, while ordinary people with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.

It’s short—only 19 straight-to-the-point chapters—but a very enjoyable read with lots of stories and examples illustrating just how weird and complicated our relationships with money are, and practical advice to make it easier.

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

by Jordan B. Peterson

Rating: 6/10

12 practical rules for life.

Even though I like to listen to Jordan Peterson’s interviews, and some of his world views even resonate with me, I’m still not quite sure that this book needs to be 416 pages long, hence lower than average rating.

File under “the books that should’ve been a blog post.”

The Case for Space

by Robert Zubrin

Rating: 10/10

An updated edition of a brilliant book “Entering Space” from the author of “The Case for Mars” that inspired Elon Musk’s ambition to settle the Red Planet.

Part 1 of the book shows how we can conquer space, and part 2 gives reasons why we must. The Case for Space offers insights into what awaits us near Jupiter and Saturn, the strengths and weaknesses of SpaceX, and why we need a new frontier to drive innovation and prevent cultural and intellectual stagnation.

Incredibly well written and enlightening, this is an absolute must-read for all space and science enthusiasts.

How to Live

by Derek Sivers

Rating: 10/10

Another brilliant work by Derek Sivers. Completing the series (“Your Music and People” and “Hell Yeah or No“) this book offers you 27 answers to one of the most important questions: How to Live?

The brilliance is in giving you different, often contradicting perspectives on the same subject, which helps you to see the whole picture.

Charlie Munger once said, “I never allow myself to hold an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” And “How to Live” makes it much easier to form your own opinion by giving you arguments for both sides without sounding prescriptive.