Here you'll find the list of books I've read in no particular order. This goes as far back as I can accurately remember. I spent a great deal of time in my primary and high-school days reading non-fiction books so there's a vast amount not covered in this list, but I wish I had written them down.
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
A deeply anthropological and philosophical read. I really enjoyed this one and has helped with contesting some previously-held beliefs I had.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Quirky, taboo and, just like 1984, deeply anthropological. This book encouraged me to dig deeper on human psychology/neuroscience to understand exactly why the events in the book are seemingly plausible and the aspects that keep this narrative as a piece of fiction rather than our real world.
The Fall - Albert Camus
A birds-eye view of the life of a seemingly selfless and successful lawyer that eventually turns around and hits you with a philosophical truck. I believe this book holds an answer to why some people tend to build an identity centered around selflessness and innocence, why it is not as virtuous as it seems, and hence why it is unsustainable.
The Initial D Series - Shuichi Shigeno
So far I've read stages 1 and 2, but I've watched most of the anime series.
Would highly recommend the books, it's far easier to pick up on the depth of the characters, their feelings and also the nuance of the authors in their writing. They also have some really interesting insights into cars and the way they are driven in Togue.
The Deficit Myth - Stephanie Kelton
This book presents an interesting take on the modern financial system since the abolishment of the gold-standard. One question this presents to you now is "What's stopping all of the governments in the world from simply borrowing or printing infinite amounts of money from their central bank?"
The Ten Equations that Rule the World - David Sumpter
Not the greatest book I've read. It presents some interesting scenarios that involve some mathematics, but it's not an all-knowing oracle as the title suggests, rather is more like a children's playground of various interesting correlations between maths and the real-world.
Unf*ck yourself - Gary John Bishop
A short and sharp self-help book if you're in dire need of a boot up your ass.
The Goal - Eliyahu Goldratt
A book on lean manufacturing theory presented as a short story of a man who has been put in charge of making a factory profitable within 90 days. I accidentally got the comic book version, but I assume the principles are communicated just the same since this one still made a lot of sense to me.
This book was recommended to me as an aside to some other books I'll mention below since it also extends to software engineering.
The Phoenix Project - Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford
Yet another software engineering-related book. This one is not about the code itself, but rather how organisations should flow. I've always been more fascinated by this because it is often the biggest road-block and pain point when you are an engineer.
The way this is presented is quite exquisite in my eyes. It is also written as a narrative about a fictional company and project that needs to be completed. Some of the activities they partake in to get the ball rolling is quite raw, but somehow it works, and that's beautiful.
The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
A great book that applies the learnings from The Phoenix Project ans also lays out hard principles that explain what makes certain startups so good at launching themselves into the stratosphere and maintaining their growth after the fact.
Staff Engineer - Will Larson
A book about navigating the next career path after Senior Software Engineer. This presents some interesting takes on the various job roles you'll find around the world. In essence, there's nothing clear I took from this book other than a sense of what the environment will look like. Every company does something different so every Staff Engineer or Principle Engineer/IC will be doing something different with a different set of behaviours and trust.
One thing I like about this book is that it contains both the original conversations that the author had with people in the field, and also commentary on it. Having this mix of raw primary data and also an opinionated take on it made this very engaging.
Game Theory - Biran Clegg
I believe this is a dandy and cushy introduction to game theory. This book is great if you've never heard of game theory and generally enjoyed high-school maths.
Personally none of the concepts stuck since I don't study or apply it regularly, but it has some fun little tricks in there if you want something to bring up at a party (one not comprised of computer scientists and statisticians of course!).
The Pigeon - Patrick Suskind
A short absurdist novel about a man who does the same thing every day for 30 years and has his entire world turned upside-down after an encounter with a pigeon.
This is a very short read (I finished it within about a week of reading it during my commutes to and from work) and the prose is quite simple and quite easy to follow.
What I took away from this was a reinforcement of my views on absurdism. Great angle to view it from, and an easy way to introduce yourself to the subject.
Philosophical Classics - James M. Russel, et al.
This specimen is quite exceptional. If you're getting interested in philosophy, this is probably the perfect place to start.
This book is a series of synopses of philosophical texts throughout the ages and also throughout modern history. The book starts with a (mostly) chronological journey through greek philosophy and through most western philosophy, then gets into some niche areas of metaphysical discourse.
Each synopsis is roughly 3 pages in length, and each of them have an opinionated (and sometimes comedic) 1-paragraph take on the whole book as a "speed read". This makes the reading experience exceptionally delightful!
You can tell that there is an enormous amount of bias in the way the author review these texts, however, I believe this irrelevant given my aim for this book was as an atlas to show me what lies out there.
Animal Farm - George Orwell
A quite enjoyable, satirical take on the rule of Stalin. For someone who hasn't studied history, it was deeply intriguing and insightful to get a feel for what life may have been like on the ground during this time.
It's a short story (mine was only 94 pages), so I'd recommend it as a small weekend muse.
My favourite character is Benjamin the Donkey!
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Currently reading...