2024

The Wisdom of Uncertainty - Alan Watts

Having listened to Alan Watts’ Listen/Dream guided meditation dozens of time, The Wisdom of Uncertainty was the first book of his that I read. Like the guided meditation, I adored this non-fiction work, which felt like it was written by a kindred spirit and it provided confidence on the beauty of the present moment as well as the preciousness of the gift of “conscious” “life”. I anticipate I will be reading much more Alan Watts!

Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut

To my great surprise (I kept waiting for time travel or space aliens), Mother Night is not science fiction! This was a dark book that I had to get several hundred pages into to feel hooked. Memorable ending and a well-written book, for sure, but not my favorite Vonnegut work.

The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

I first read this book in 2007 or 2008 when I borrowed it from the Magdalen College library in Oxford. It was either recommended by the librarian or my old man. Whoever made the recommendation, I’m terrifically grateful because The Sirens of Titan was my gateway drug to Vonnegut, who became my favorite fiction author. Re-reading it a dozen years later, I’m shocked to have forgotten nearly all of the book, but I absolutely loved the wildly creative adventure upon re-reading it… and can’t wait for the third time around!

2023

Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut

This is Vonnegut's first novel (1952), which I read first as I begin a chronological journey through his works. I had no idea what was in store for me: Player Piano ended up being startingly relevant our current AI revolution; it couldn’t be a more interesting time to read the book. The novel depicts a world where machines have eliminated most human jobs that require manual labor, creating a divide between tech elites (scientists, engineers and managers) and everyone else… and there are a few moments where the tech elites ignore how they could soon be replaced by cognitively impressive machines such as one the excels at backgammon. This was eerily predictive of the current “ChatGPT” moment.

2022

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

This is my all-time favorite fiction work. I love Vonnegut’s dry, dark satire in general, but this novel — with its definition of terms like foma (harmless untruths), karass (people linked in life purpose), granfalloon (false, superficial karass, e.g., nationality), and wampeter (central purpose of a karass) from within the sacred calypsos of its contrived and cynically clever religion, Bokononism — has stuck with me deeply since I first read it 15 years ago. I was surprised how many of the details of the plot I’d completely forgotten (including having manufactured a false memory of the climax), making the re-read equally as enjoyable as the first time. I am a Bokononist and I am busy, busy, busy.

2019

The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday

M’eh, not my favourite book. As prescribed, I read a page of this book featuring Stoic philosophy every day for 365 days. While I learned a bit about Stoicism, I found the book haphazard, boring, and by the final few months I was desperate to reach the terminus of the 365-day cycle. The insightful quotes from Marcus Aurelius were the highlight for me. I disagreed with many of the other Stoics’ viewpoints, including — critically — that we have any “control” over our mind; I ascribe instead to the oppositional Buddhist concept that “I am not my thoughts, I am not my actions”.

Atomic Habits - James Clear

When I met James — by serendipitously sitting next to him on a bus in Switzerland in 2013 — he described to me his “process-oriented” approach to attaining results. At the time, for example, he identified as a travel-tips entrepreneur who was committed to the process of writing a blog post on evidence-based approaches to living a better life every single Monday and Thursday. That experience, and my subsequent avid subscription to James’ blog, contributed to me shifting:

from a goal-oriented mindset to a process-oriented one
toward focusing on small, easy shifts that compound (“atomic” habits)
to adopting many of the techniques recommended by James in his posts, including maintaining a habit journal, stacking habits together, arranging environmental cues to maximize good habits, and various approaches for minimizing distractions to stay focused on the most fulfilling tasks
to the identify of a person more interested in peace than accomplishment

All of the above concepts were elaborated upon in Atomic Habits and tied together neatly around four research-backed and captivating narrative-centered themes:

The Cue: Make It Obvious
The Craving: Make It Attractive
The Behavioral Response: Make It Easy
The Reward: Make It Satisfying

I’m tremendously grateful for our serendipitous meeting, and for the friendship and advice that James continues to make the time to provide today. With my first book launching in September 2019, he’s provided me with a detailed guide to the marketing approach he used for Atomic Habits — given that AH has been an instant global bestseller, topping the charts from its release through to today (approaching a year), it is most welcome advice! James’ first book was a delight to read and has markedly impacted my perception of my own behaviors all over again, and so it’s unsurprising that it’s found such a broad, engaged audience. He followed the process to write a best-selling book and he couldn’t be more deserving of the home-run result.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Adams’ classic was delightfully amusing to read while he managed to evocatively bring home his serious core themes of human adaptation to technological change (automation) and the futility of the search for meaning. The novel provided me with the background on various cultural memes (e.g., the Babel fish; the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything that “42” answers; “so long, and thanks for all the fish”). Some quotes particularly resonated with me, including:

“[Ford] started to count to ten. He was desperately worried that one day sentient life forms would forget how to do this. Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence from computers.”
Zaphod: “I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.”
Slartibartfast: “Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide: “The history of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?”

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

It seems that my whole life people have been recommending this book to me so I was excited to read it. A terrifically easy read, in simple language with plenty of repetition, the tale follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd to find treasure at the pyramids of Egypt, and becomes increasingly fantastical — for my taste, to a fault — along the way. Some of Coelho’s core themes — the primacy of love, the interconnectedness of everything including to God — reminded me of the Gita.

All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Two precocious children — a blind French girl and an electromagnetism-obsessed German boy — grow up as national socialism scorches the societies around them. In this rich, tense work of fiction, the vivid accounts of visual, auditory and tactile phenomena are interweaved with engrossing scientific, mathematical and historical details. Doerr’s deeply imaginative development of characters and scenes, as well as his reflections upon the complexities of human thoughts and behaviours, spun a vivid and harrowing tale that closes in Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, which I visited while reading the book.

Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari

The content covered by YNH — anthropological, historical, scientific and philosophical, with occasional emphases on Buddhism and mindfulness — delved into countless topics I reflect on day in and day out. His writing was clear, concise and playful, and the book left me feeling centred and optimistic about projections involving our species (war, automation, biotechnological augmentation) and planet (climate change, ecological destruction, gene editing) that prominent aspects of my consciousness have found troubling for years. I couldn’t shut up about the facts and ideas I distilled from the text as I read it; Sapiens is my favourite work of non-fiction.

Mastery - Robert Greene

I didn’t love Robert Greene’s writing style — I found it dry and pedantic — and so I waded slowly through Mastery over nine months or so. I kept making my through the book, however, because I found Greene’s biographies of masters — classical and contemporary; across the sciences, arts, and commerce — fascinating, practically informative, and inspiring. The lessons Greene learned from intensively studying the masters were grouped into themes (spread over three life phases: apprentice, creative-active, and ultimately, master) that inform one’s own personal strategy to attaining an innovative and productive life. I’d recommend checking out the “concise” version of the book — if I could go back in time, it’d be the edition that I’d read.

2018

Bhagavad Gita - Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (Trans.)

Aldous Huxley's coverage -- within the introduction -- of the four fundamental doctrines at the core of Perennial Philosophy (i.e., universal religious concepts) resonated well with me, bringing perspective and extra weight to the main text. In contrast with the inflexible, versed Nikhilananda translation of the Gita, Prabhavananda and Isherwood took more liberties, often writing prose and selecting straightforward, modern English. Perhaps because it was a second reading or because the opening chapter of Ram Dass' Paths to God provided literary context within the broader Hindu epic Mahabharata, I found this translation more relatable, leading to a more persistent impact on my perceptions and actions.

Logicomix - Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou

Beautiful illustrated visual imagery; turn a page and pow -- new theme! At a high level, learned a about the British logician Bertrand Russell's fascinating family, his transformative academic work, as well as the mathematical philosophies of his contemporaries, e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism. Provided a list of classic philosophy topics to delve more deeply into.

Yoga Anatomy, 2nd Edition - Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews

Deepened my understanding of the mechanisms of inhalation and expiration, enhancing my conscious experience of breath day-to-day. I didn't love the writing style though I appreciated their rigorous, technical approach to anatomy and physiology. The second half of the book -- detailing individual asanas -- will serve as a practical reference for years to come.

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Delightful book, heaving with economic psychology studies as well as Kahneman's own informed intuitions on the magnificent strengths as well as the related blindspots of our fast (System 1) and laborious (System 2) thinking approaches. The summary wrapped up more quickly than I was anticipating, so am hoping we have much more to learn from the Nobel prize-winning economist. The distinction between the two often-adversarial selves that constitutes each of us -- the remembering self and the experiencing self -- has remained with me in particular, generating recurrent pause for further reflection.

Island - Aldous Huxley

The prolific English writer’s ultimate major work, I read this novel slowly from April through October — an emotional, transformative period in which I struggled to complete my own first book manuscript, culminating in the discovery of a somewhat more compassionate (karuna), present and softer (sukha) iteration on myself. In parallel, Huxley’s protagonist Will Farnaby progressed from sarcastic, cynical and inward-looking to aware of the quotes around “I”, the ubiquity of Self, and the aesthetic bliss of the material world (as in “physical substance”, not as in consumer culture) — largely via dialogue with a sagacious cast of characters and, in the final chapter, exposure to psychedelic mushrooms. A deliberate counter to Huxley’s better-known anti-utopian Brave New World, the Island setting of Pala was his vision for an ideal that blends together eastern philosophy (Hinduism, Buddhism) and mindfulness with western science and technology.

2017

Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future - Tim Urban

In his characteristic, inimitable style that blends technical content with humour and memorable illustrations, Tim at long last publishes his introductory neuroscience piece. To mind-bending effect, he carefully applies this foundational material to contemporary brain-machine interfaces, persuasively drawing a line of trajectory from the Gutenberg printing press to the society-upending "wizard hats" of coming decades.

Born to Run - Christopher McDougall

Pulling disparate strands of research together -- e.g., physiological, anatomical, anthropological -- Christopher develops a compelling overarching hypothesis that humans evolved to fit a novel predatory niche: hunting prey to death by chasing them slowly over many hours. While he butchers some of the science, the tales he recounts are gripping and the practical content galvanised, lightened, and enlightened my existing endurance-running practice.

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron

As a secular scientist, I harboured initial reservation over Julia's incorporation of terms like spiritual and God into the text, but she later assuaged my concerns. There's no hyperbole in the statement that the weekly readings, questions and activities in this guide dramatically transformed my life for the better. The daily-pages and creativity-date habits that this book ingrained in me facilitated a rapid metamorphosis from an efficient-executor-alone into a dreamer as well.

An Open Heart - Tenzin Gyatso, edited by Nicholas Vreeland

In straightforward language that renders subtle material readily tangible, Nicholas Vreeland summarises three days of lectures given by the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, in New York in 1997. This summary covered Buddhist doctrine and rituals, meditation best-practices, and the personal and societal benefits of right thought and right action. The concepts resonated well with me, particularly the emphasis on creating knowledge for oneself through experience and reflection.

The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

This book is a classic -- perhaps the must-read classic -- in the contemporary start-up world. In common with most modern business books, it is light on content and long on real-world analogies in offensively simplistic English. While drawn out unnecessarily, the topic is nevertheless valuable, describing Ries' agile system for iteratively scaling a data-driven enterprise, product, or service.

Bhagavad Gita - Swami Nikhilananda (Trans.)

Alongside the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita is a text I regularly hear quotes from during the dharma talks that begin yoga classes. Knowing embarrassingly little about Hindu culture and wading through sometimes repetitive verses, I moved rather slowly through the first chapters of this 1944 translation by Swami Nikhilananda, which largely consists of the deity Krishna imparting advice to the warrior Arjuna as he weighs battle. The occasional thought-provoking verse in those early chapters gave way to a banquet of profound and practical life philosophy later on. I particularly profited from the detailed distinction between the three Gunas (roughly speaking, personality types), that is

rajas: attachment, overzealous action, greed, desire for the fruit of one's labour
tamas: ignorance, arrogance, deceitfulness, lack of regard for consequences
and the ideal of sattva: knowledge-seeking, lack of attachment, freedom from longing and action

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

This engrossing novel rekindled my love of fiction. I did little else on the days I was reading it. I recommend this Pulitzer prize-winner time and again to folks who, like me, thought they might not enjoy leisure reading anymore. I borrowed this book from Judy Pastushchyn.

Deep Work - Cal Newport

The first half of Cam's practical guide is concerned with making the case for deep work -- uninterrupted focus on a single task for up to hours at a time -- in a world that welcomes persistent distraction. The second half heaves with practical tips for gradually filling one's life with concentration. I have implemented many of Cam's suggestions and am looking forward to continue integrating more into my life because little brings me more fulfilment and bliss now than the the state of flow evoked by deep work.

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

The stream-of-consciousness style that Kerouac employs for his semi-autobiographical journey back and forth across the United States was not as riveting as I expected it would be. While the real-world Beatnik movement characters and their tales -- immortalised in the Greenwich Village landmarks around my home -- are memorable, I experienced long stretches of the book without feeling hooked to any palpable plot points. I struggled to get through to the end but after several months of effort trudged through the Mexican finale.

All-Time Favourites

Waking Up - Sam Harris

Three sentences appearing here soon.

Watchmen - Alan Moore

Three sentences appearing here soon.

Zero to One - Peter Thiel

Three sentences appearing here soon.