Books

Lots of insight into how to make events more meaningful. I used some of this at work when designing events for customers.

A multitude of examples of how modern democracies fail; not so much via direct violence as from gradual rule breaking. Chile, Indonesia, etc. are covered.

Academic-level research into how open source actually works, the incentives for the participants, and the history. Nadia spent ~2-3 years working at Github to do this research. I found it fascinating, with lots of insights that could be applicable to other areas of society, not just open source software. Very thoughtful book.

One of the best near-future Science Fiction novels I've read in the last few years. Basically about the first asteroid mining mission. Most of the tech mentioned exists or could plausibly exist with just a bit more R&D. Reminded me a bit of The Martian in that I learned as I read the story.

Ted Chiang writes some of the most beautiful & mind-bending short stories. Not classic science fiction, but highly worth reading. Hard to describe. One of the short stories, "Stories of Your Life" was adapted into the movie "Arrival".

This collection is better than "Stories of Your Life and Others". I'd read it first.

"Exhalation" is perhaps my favorite story by Ted Chiang.

Funny book about the dating troubles of a professor with Asperger's (but who doesn't realize he has it)

Super easy to read. Provides strong evidence and good mental models for thinking about the world in a much more accurate way than 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-worlds. Highly recommended to test yourself, improve your mental model for the next 25 years, and avoid making easy mistakes about the world.

The science of aging has come much further than you realize in the last 10 years. David Sinclair runs a lab at Harvard.

This is an eye-opening look at the frontier of medicine where mammals are living multiple times their natural lifespan, eyes are being regenerated, some evidence that menopause could be reversed exists, etc.

Really good biography of Leonardo da Vinci that can be read on a few different levels - as a manual for creativity & observation, as a history lesson of the culture of Renaissance Italy, an illustration of the underpinnings of the scientific method, and on art appreciation. I learned a lot.

Michelle's story. Did you know she was Barack's mentor on his first day as an intern?

Easy-to-read; each chapter is an hour and focuses on a different person who is active during that hour. Gives good perspective on lives, habits, food, etc.

Long, but interesting. I liked seeing the overlap with Becoming and his/hers perspectives on events (e.g. Michelle has a long passage on waiting for Barack to speak when announcing his presidency, how cold it was, trying to get the kids to wear hats, etc. Barack basically has "And then Michelle and the girls joined me on stage"). I also liked the deep dives into legislation–getting the ACA passed, or ops–the Osama mission.

But it's a long book, so it takes a while to get to those parts.

Michelle does a somewhat better job describing their life pre-presidency as well, so I appreciated having read Becoming first.

Pretty good guide to how to build up habits that gradually add up to something bigger. The best part are the really practical templates for habit design, review, etc.

Overview of the United States since its discovery by Europeans, especially with a perspective toward the ongoing debate of how to define who is included in the vision of freedom & human rights. Lots of stuff not covered in school. I found the pre-United States history the most interesting because I knew the least about the opinions and debates among society at that time. (example: the role that the Caribbean colonies played in the Revolutionary War vs. the US thinking about itself as always central to the story)

If you want to be scared of chemicals in your home, read this book.

Interesting mix of history (medical, political, regulatory, technology), and science. Told as a series of vignettes so you get a personal story / biography as well.

I liked this book. It focuses primarily on a single year of Joe Biden's life, which means it can really get into the day-to-day details of what it was like to be VP. This is the year that his son Beau died as well as the beginning of the 2016 election when he ultimately decided not to run. He did not seem like he was just tooting his own horn in the book, either, which was pleasant. Overall, not mind-blowing, but a solid book that may give you some insight into our new president as a person.

Jordan Mechner is the author of Prince of Persia, a classic & innovative computer game. This book is literally his personal journal from when he was developing the game. I'm not even sure how much was edited.

So, it was a fascinating inside look into the state of the industry at that time. It was also to see how someone else journals, struggles with motivation, etc. Jordan was a mix of nerdy & cool - at the same time as personally developing games, he was writing screenplays for Hollywood and alternately living in Paris. The deadlines didn't seem nearly as urgent back then... but at the same time, he did almost everything in the whole project himself, so there were no teams relying or being blocked by him. This may have enabled him to be a bit more free & creative.

Recommended. Structured as a discussion between a challenger and a philosopher, this book explores a perspective on life that focuses on actions we can take to actively improve our lives and perspectives to build up our courage to do so. Lots to think about - among them is the idea that happiness is being useful to others and a feeling of belonging to a community. At the same time, the philosopher guides us to clearly distinguish our own tasks from others and not to make our happiness dependent on others' reactions or behaviors.

Fun for those of us who enjoyed Civilization! or other Sid Meier games growing up. Maybe too much detail for others. Pretty basic biography, but still inspiring to read from someone who truly enjoys their craft rather than being in it to make money, etc.

Very specialized - a good book if you know how to read ~1000 Chinese characters and want to practice in context. Part of the "Chinese Breeze" series of graded readers. I'm about halfway through.

It's about a kid who graduated from high school and doesn't know what he wants to do with his life learning how to be a drug sniffing dog handler as part of China's first class of K9 teams.

Easy-to-read & quick. Goes through multiple scenarios for the end of the universe - how they were hypothesized, what evidence we have for them, etc. Some new developments since I was in college and last read about these theories.

Felt like a pretty formulaic politician auto-biography. Lots of lists of accomplishments. But ok if you, like me, don't really know much about Kamala's background or views.

Looks at 5-6 times that nations have had a crisis in the last 150 years and what we can learn from those that made it through unscathed versus those that suffered terrible outcomes. The last chapter is on the US today.

Not as wide-ranging as Guns, Germs, and Steel and depends a lot more on Jared Diamond's personal experience living in various countries where he has varied levels of understanding of their culture. He seems more humble in this book than in GG&S.

Not as good as How Democracies Die, but covers some of the same topics.

A surprisingly bad novel given the author and typically interesting themes (simulating consciousness in a computer post-death). Maybe not a surprise if I'd paid attention to the amount of punctuation in the title...

The best parts were actually not related to the main theme, but the parts about fake news & filters creating alternate realities.

For a funnier and less weirdly religious/symbolic take on post-death simulation, watch the Amazon TV series "Upload"

I couldn't finish this book. Too much detail. His early life is interesting, but the middle gets bogged down describing every concert he ever played in.

You may want to check it out to get a sense of what African American musicians faced in the 1940s and 1950s, especially around NYC. He was arrested, barred from performing legally, etc. Tough times.