Bookshelf
Non-fiction I've read, distilled to its core argument and key ideas. 81 books.
Economics
D Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist Kate Raworth A new picture of the economy: meet everyone's needs without blowing past the planet's limits. 📈 Economics E Economics: A Very Short Introduction Partha Dasgupta Two ten-year-old girls, one in Illinois and one in Ethiopia, used to explain what economics is actually for. 📈 Economics E Economics: The User's Guide Ha-Joon Chang There is no single economics — there are nine schools of it, and you're allowed to pick. 📈 Economics M Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics Richard H. Thaler The story of how a stubborn economist made his field admit that people are not Econs. 📈 Economics P Post Growth: Life After Capitalism Tim Jackson A philosophical case that prosperity was never really about growth in the first place. 📈 Economics T Talking to My Daughter About the Economy Yanis Varoufakis Capitalism explained to a teenager, without a single graph — and better for it. 📈 Economics U Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There Rutger Bregman Basic income, a fifteen-hour week and open borders — argued as policy, not daydream. 📈 Economics W Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson Rich countries aren't lucky with geography or culture — they're lucky with institutions. 📈 Economics
Politics & Society
A A Promised Land Barack Obama The first volume of Obama's presidential memoir, ending in the compound at Abbottabad. 🏛️ Politics & Policy B Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging Afua Hirsch Memoir and history braided together to ask why Britain finds it so hard to talk about race. 🏛️ Politics & Policy F Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It Sam Freedman A former government adviser argues Britain's decay is structural, not just a run of bad ministers. 🏛️ Politics & Policy H Hope in Hell: A Decade to Confront the Climate Emergency Jonathon Porritt Fifty years of environmental insider work, ending in a call for mass civil disobedience. 🏛️ Politics & Policy H Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities Rebecca Solnit An argument that hope is not optimism but a refusal to assume you already know how things end. 🏛️ Politics & Policy I Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference David Halpern The man who ran Britain's Behavioural Insights Team on what happens when psychology meets Whitehall. 🏛️ Politics & Policy L Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain's Poorest Towns Kerry Hudson A novelist goes back to the towns she was poor in, to ask what has actually changed. 🏛️ Politics & Policy M Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World Layla F. Saad A 28-day guided workbook asking white readers to audit their own complicity in racism. 🏛️ Politics & Policy S Social Class in the 21st Century Mike Savage The sociologist behind the Great British Class Survey argues class never went away — it just changed shape. 🏛️ Politics & Policy S Social Mobility: And Its Enemies Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin Two researchers on why Britain's ladder has stopped moving — and who benefits from keeping it still. 🏛️ Politics & Policy T The Mother of All Questions: Further Feminisms Rebecca Solnit Essays on who gets to speak, who gets listened to, and how silence is enforced. 🏛️ Politics & Policy T The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction David Garland A short, bracing case that the welfare state is not charity for the poor but the operating system of modern capitalism. 🏛️ Politics & Policy W We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie A short, disarming case that feminism is simply the belief that things should be fairer than this. 🏛️ Politics & Policy
History & Big Picture
H Humankind: A Hopeful History Rutger Bregman A sustained case that most people are decent, and that assuming otherwise is self-fulfilling. 📜 History M Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future Ed Conway Six raw materials quietly hold up everything, and almost nobody is watching them. 📈 Economics S Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari How one unremarkable ape talked itself into running the planet. 📜 History S Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World Parmy Olson Two idealists set out to build safe superintelligence and ended up working for Microsoft and Google. 💻 Computer Science T The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World Tim Marshall Ten places where mountains, coastlines and choke points still quietly set the limits of politics. 📜 History T The Silk Roads: A New History of the World Peter Frankopan World history retold with Central Asia, not Europe, at the centre of the map. 📜 History
Systems & Strategy
A Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense Rory Sutherland An adman's case that the most valuable ideas are precisely the ones logic would never find. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking R Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness Frederic Laloux A colour-coded theory of management evolution, with genuinely useful case studies bolted to a shaky frame. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking T The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right Atul Gawande A surgeon's case that the largest gains in complex work come from a dumb piece of paper. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking T The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How the World Lost Its Mind Dan Davies Big organisations destroy accountability by design, and this is the machinery that lets them. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking T Thinking in Systems: A Primer Donella H. Meadows Why stubborn problems live in the structure of a system, not in the people working inside it. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking
Money & Business
L Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead Sheryl Sandberg It put women's workplace ambition on the agenda — and started an argument about whose problem it is. M Money: A User's Guide Laura Whateley The plain-English UK manual for everything about money that school never covered. S Side Hustle: Build a Side Business and Make Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job Chris Guillebeau A 27-day, one-task-a-day plan for getting a small business to its first paying customer. T The $100 Startup Chris Guillebeau Fifty microbusinesses that started on almost no money, reverse-engineered into a method. T The 5 Types of Wealth Sahil Bloom Money is one of five accounts you are drawing down — and the other four have no statements. T The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness Eric Jorgenson A decade of one investor's aphorisms on leverage, judgement and happiness, curated into a book. T The Millionaire Fastlane M.J. DeMarco A loud, angry attack on save-and-wait retirement advice, and a case for building systems instead. T The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness Morgan Housel Doing well with money has less to do with what you know than with how you behave. 📈 Economics
Mind & Psychology
1 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Brianna Wiest A hugely popular collection of short self-help pieces that mostly restates the same handful of ideas. F Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It Oliver Burkeman An anti-productivity book: you will never get on top of everything, and that is the good news. H Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine Derren Brown A magician turns philosopher, arguing that the happiness industry sells the one thing that reliably makes us miserable. L Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life Marcus Buckingham Stop trying to fix your weaknesses and start tracking the activities that quietly energise you. N Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It Chris Voss and Tahl Raz An FBI hostage negotiator's case against splitting the difference — and for listening as a tactical weapon. N Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein Bias gets all the attention, but the bigger error in human judgment is sheer inconsistency. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking P Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth Steve Pavlina A blogger's attempt to reduce all self-improvement advice to seven principles you can reason from. S Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention Johann Hari Your collapsing attention span isn't a personal failing — it's the product of systems designed to fracture it. T The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science Jonathan Haidt Ten ideas about the good life from Buddha, Plato and Jesus, cross-examined by modern psychology. T The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others Tali Sharot Facts are the worst tool for changing a mind, and a neuroscientist explains what actually works instead. T Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman A Nobel laureate's tour of the two systems running your mind, and why one of them keeps lying to you. ♟️ Strategy & Systems Thinking
Habits & Productivity
A Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones James Clear Behaviour change is an engineering problem: fix the system, and the willpower takes care of itself. C Come Up for Air: How Teams Can Leverage Systems and Tools to Stop Drowning in Work Nick Sonnenberg Most teams are drowning not in work but in work about work — and the fix is which tool goes where. D Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Cal Newport Concentration is becoming rare exactly as it becomes valuable — so treat it as a trainable skill. G Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen Your head is a terrible office: get every commitment out of it and into a system you actually trust. H High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way Brendon Burchard Six deliberate habits that Burchard argues separate sustained high performers from the merely busy. I Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life Nir Eyal Distraction doesn't start with the notification — it starts with the feeling you're trying to escape. T The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer Steven Kotler A four-part stack — motivation, learning, creativity, flow — pitched as the recipe for outsized achievement. T The Lazy Project Manager Peter Taylor Productive laziness: work hard where it counts, coast where it doesn't, and go home on time. T The Miracle Morning: The 6 Habits That Will Transform Your Life Before 8AM Hal Elrod One structured hour before the day starts, built from six ordinary practices stacked into a ritual. T The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results Gary Keller and Jay Papasan A single good question about priorities, stretched across two hundred pages of self-help scaffolding.
Philosophy & Practice
E Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Mark Manson Why the richest, safest era in history feels hopeless — and why hope may be the wrong fix. H Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill Matthieu Ricard A monk and former geneticist argues that lasting well-being is a trainable skill, not luck. 🧘 Buddhism & Yoga H How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy Julian Baggini A tour of the world's philosophical traditions that treats Western thought as one option among many. 🧘 Buddhism & Yoga M Man's Search for Meaning Viktor E. Frankl A psychiatrist's testimony from the Nazi camps, paired with the theory of meaning he built afterwards. S Stillness Is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life Ryan Holiday The case that slowing down is not a retreat from achievement but the precondition for it. T The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom Don Miguel Ruiz Four blunt rules for speech and attention, framed as ancient wisdom and best judged on their own merits. T The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy and Liberation Thich Nhat Hanh A Zen teacher's plain-spoken map of core Buddhist doctrine, written to be practised rather than admired. 🧘 Buddhism & Yoga T The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage Ryan Holiday A Stoic playbook built on one Marcus Aurelius line: what blocks the path becomes the path. T The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose Matthew Kelly A case that the point of life is becoming a better version of yourself, and that busyness is what stops you. T The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Mark Manson You have a limited supply of caring. The whole game is choosing what to spend it on. W Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion Sam Harris A neuroscientist argues that the contemplative payoff of religion survives the loss of its metaphysics. 🧘 Buddhism & Yoga
Science & Nature
G Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Under-Rated Organ Giulia Enders A cheerful, unembarrassed tour of the organ most of us would rather not discuss. M Marine Biology: A Very Short Introduction Philip V. Mladenov The ocean as a working system — physics, plankton, reefs and fisheries in 150 pages. T The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch Lewis Dartnell A thought experiment disguised as a manual: which knowledge would actually restart civilisation?
Essays & Memoir
C Consider the Lobster and Other Essays David Foster Wallace Ten pieces of reporting and criticism, each one worrying at a question nobody asked it to. L Letters to a Young Contrarian Christopher Hitchens A short manual on dissent, written as letters to an imagined student unwilling to fall in line. T The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships Neil Strauss The author of The Game enters rehab for sex addiction and tries to work out what he actually wants. V Venus Envy: Power Games, Teenage Vixens, and Million-Dollar Egos on the Women's Tennis Tour L. Jon Wertheim A season inside women's tennis at the exact moment the Williams era arrived. W When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi A neurosurgeon in his final year of training receives the diagnosis he has delivered to others.