Recently there was a thread on what books one should read to assist in the development of a successful career in finance. I strongly believe in balancing your library with pure "finance books", pleasure reads, and classics, with a strong bias towards the classics. You will learn about structuring a deal, negotiating working capital, building nuanced financial models, etc. on the job. While interesting reads such as Red Notice, Barbarians at the Gate, and King of Capital tell thrilling tales of big things gone bad and how the finance society's masterminds solved them, they won't contribute much to making you a well-rounded "Intellectual Killer". On that point, I bet Schwarzman, Kravis, and Browder have books like Middlesex on their bedside tables. Reading has always been an obsessive hobby of mine, so I thought I would share some of my favorites to the monkey community. Below is a sampling of my favorites with a short excerpt on what makes them the beautiful, timeless creations they are.
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
I would argue this being Shakespeare’s best work – its obvious poetic beauty and exploration of life’s most difficult questions make this a compelling read. Shakespeare’s lyrical tale informs the reader that conquering enemies requires patience and the willingness to bring them intimately close. However, the complexity in characters and paralleling stories / plot make this a challenging puzzle of a story.
Side note – a tasteful reference / quote from the tempest at the dinner table is an ultimate finesse. Strong emphasis on tasteful; there is a fine line between seeming like a do-nothing literary snob and an Intellectual Killer.
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Reading this alone is a trial of patience and perseverance; it is a long, dense, but redeemingly thrilling read. Pulitzer Prize winning stories speak for themselves, but this is special. Eugenides breaks literary convention by writing his masterpiece on first-person omniscient narrative, where the protagonist, Cal, is allowed to know what has gone through the minds of other characters. This gives Cal awareness to terribly uncomfortable truths that I think offers a valuable lesson to the reader and you monkeys: learning how to cope with realities far out of your reach. I was a self-conscious kid – inspiring stories like Middlesex helped me find my way to becoming a confidant man.
Ulysses – James Joyce
This book taught me more bout clever, high-brow whit than anything I’ve ever read or heard. The art of story telling is something I think is way undervalued in society; this is the ultimate, exhaustive guide to mastering that art. Between reading chapters of this mammoth, you can probably recess with some curls and chest presses with this book. However, don’t be one of the many who quit before hitting the 100 page mark – this story brilliantly comes full circle and is well worth the time.
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Definitely a book held closely by some of the most intellectual circles in the world, if you have any curiosity of the human condition whatsoever this book is for you. It’s essentially about a young man in the 19th century that comes up with the idea that some people should be able to kill without impunity under circumstances which advance the good of many. People are moral creatures and divide humanity into guilty humans and innocent humans. Although I am not justifying this implication, there is a lesson to be learned: the powerful move beyond comforting moral judgments in order to understand the world. Once we have transcended identifying moral acts as guilty or innocent, we have obtained a powerful skill: the ability to understand our enemies.
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
It is a cliché that we hear time and time again – bad things happen to good people. In the circumstance of this true story, horrifying, monstrous acts happen to great people. We realize it doesn’t matter how good-natured and loving people are in your community - monsters are everywhere.
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
Not necessarily a literary classic, but an excellent read and well worthy of its place on the list. A tale of a young, blind girl living in German occupied France during the invasion of WWII. Books like this remind you that things can be a lot worse than working late on a turn of comments in a luxurious Manhattan high rise office. Besides being a study on circumstantial happiness, this is an incredibly intimate view of the war in France. Most of the stories of the war are written about its leaders and soldiers, but getting a terrifying glimpse from its innocent captives is uniquely enlightening.
Thinking Fast, and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
I won’t make poetry of this book as most of you are well aware given its popularity in our community, but book builds on challenging concepts that will reshape the way you approach problem solving; full of really enriching intellectual surprise, this is well worth spending the time on.
The Art of War – Sun Tzu
Often found on the favorite reading list of famous leaders and athletes, this is the ultimate guide to combat strategy. As you read, you will hopefully realize how applicable the strategies analyzed are to leadership and success.
I would love if other monkeys would contribute to this list with other classics they have read that complement the “Intellectual Killer” theme. As my pops famously said “I prefer books over swords. They don’t need sharpening.”
The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Fascinating character arc (lowly public servant to "the most powerful man in NY") and provides great insight into state & local power dynamics. Highly recommended for anyone living in the tri-state...if for no other reason than to understand why transportation & municipal governance in NYC are - and always have been - royally f'd up.
Crime and Punishment, as well as Brothers Karamazov, are imo some of the best pieces of literature ever produced. You've reminded me that I should read C & P again.
Great thread idea
Gravity's Rainbow, written by me, an intellectual
I'll throw an overlooked one in the mix. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
One of favorite books was Heart of Darkness. It’s a pretty quick read but, similar to Crime and Punishment, provides a brilliant analysis of human behavior. It centers around the imperialism of European powers in tropical Africa
Working my way through Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari!
If I can add to this, I would say that the best autobiography I have read has to be "Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller"- Ron Chernoff.
It really goes into detail about the character of Rockefeller, his stoic nature and relentless pursuit to succeed. It's an immensely interesting and inspiring story.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley is also amazing. If you're looking for an example of a person who rose to prominence through relentless pursuit of knowledge, then I don't think there's a better example than Malcolm X
Agreed. Halfway through it right now, it paints an incredible picture of focus.
Also, Ron Chernow is fantastic. House of Morgan is one of my favorite books.
ditto.
also shocked no one has said the Bible. regardless of your faith, plenty of good stories in there
Atlas Shrugged by Rand is great.
That's because you lack the capitalist spirit that it takes to read the book. You're a real life Jim Taggart.
And the Fountainhead.
I almost got into a fight with some lib lady on the subway while reading it a few years back. She seemed really upset that Rand's ideas weren't stashed in a dark silo somewhere.
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
Stream of conciousness picks that could create some interesting conversation:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce The Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Luo Guanzhong
The Prince: Niccolo Machiavelli
I loved it for this quote alone:
"A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it."
Snowboard Showdown - Matt Christopher... love his work
Great topic for a thread (also a big fan of “The Temptest”).
There is real wisdom in the classics. I started really delving into classical works about two years ago and it really has changed my life. Ones that have stuck out for me:
The Illiad and the Odyssey – the foundation of everything we have. Pretty much humanity summed up in these two epic poems. They are also entertaining, interesting and relatively easy to read (if you get the right translation). Do read a verse translation though. It loses some impact in prose (my opinion, others disagree).
The stoics (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius) – Reading the stoics completely changed my outlook on life. I understand a lot of aspects of stoicism make up the basis for modern cognitive behavioural theraphy (CBT) and I can see why it would be so effective. The stoics may have overemphasised our ability to control our emotions somewhat, but I really wish I had read this stuff before starting my first job. Essential lessons in dealing with the difficulties we all face in life.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays – Montaigne was a 16th century French statesmen who decided to chill out later in life and write a bit for his friends and family. The result was a series of essays that became a best seller at the time that is still massively influential today. Buy a copy and keep it on your bedside locker. Dip in and out. His essays are funny and often profound and again teach important lessons on living a good life and the importance of self-reflection.
Nietzsche – unfairly hijacked by nihilists, nazis and, worst of all, broody teenagers, Nietzsches philosophy is actually very beautiful and ultimately life affirming. His work is hard to get into, and I would be lying if I said that even now after studying him a bit I get the finer points, but it is worth the reward in my opinion.
As far as more modern stuff, I am a big fan of Nicholas Nassim Taleb and I also really liked “Thinking Fast and Slow”.
In terms of reading older works, to get the most from the experience I recommend learning as much about the book as you can before reading it. Learn about the author, why they wrote the book, when it was written. How does it fit into the key intellectual movements of the time? Get some context. Most importantly, try to understand what the author was trying to achieve. What is the key point/argument they are making. As you read think about how they build their argument and ultimately ask yourself if they have achieved what they set out to do. Do you agree or disagree?
Also before you read a book, ask yourself what you want to get from it? I’m not gonna lie and say these books are always easy to read. They do take a bit of work and effort but they can be very rewarding if you approach them in the right way.
Some of my personal favorites from my bookshelf:
V. - Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Consider the Lobster - David Foster Wallace
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Ulysses - James Joyce
JR - William Gaddis (seriously, everyone on this board would love this one)
Recognitions - William Gaddis
The Tunnel - Gass
Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
As I Lay Dying - Faulkner
White Noise - Delilo
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer (Fagles translation)
Mythology - Edith Hamilton
Metamorpheses - Oviid
Histories - Herodetus
Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
SPQR - Mary Beard
Brave New World - Huxley
Doors of Perception - Huxley
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Wolfe
On the Road - Keroac
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Decameron - Boccaccio
Notes from the Underground - Dostoyevsky
Brothers K - Dostoyevsky (P&V translation)
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Don Quixote - Cervantes (Raffel translation)
2666 - Bolano
The Wasteland - Eliot
Nausea - Sartre
The Time Machine - Wells
Trial - Kafka
Siddhartha - Hesse
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
Heart of Darkness - Conrad
To the Lighthouse - Woolf
Naked Lunch - Burroughs
Women & Men - McElroy
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Foucalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Wittgenstein's Mistress - Markson
I disagree. How so?
Of those already mentioned, I can’t recommend enough to try your hand, eyes and mind at:
…and a few additional and different reads that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend:
The Divine Comedy – Dante
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair – over 100 years old and yet still speaks to the ever-existing challenges of the immigrant experience, labor laws and the America Dream.
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride – told in alternating chapters by son and mother – a Polish Jew leaving her family drama and religion in Virginia, she married and raised 12 mixed-race children in an all-black Brooklyn housing project. A powerful telling of race relations, religious differences, family dynamics and perseverance.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan – insightful observations about the dynamics of what’s involved in a bringing a fast-food meal to fruition, visiting a sustainable farm, and hunting/gathering for wild boar and wild mushrooms.
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard – recommended to me years ago by my step-dad, who read the book in the 1950s when he first got involved in film editing in advertising. It shows how everyone is selling something, whether it’s manufacturers of product or politicians or television programmers and explains how our feelings and thoughts can get manipulated psychologically.
The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman – fascinating read about the relatively recent invention of childhood, when you take into account the impact of the printing press and how the concepts of things like contracts and invoices began the division between adults and children long before labor laws.
For shits n’ giggles and lighter fare: anything by...
Carl Hiaasen [former Miami Herald investigative reporter [he wrote a great expose piece on the world of Disney] who writes hysterical capers and characters that usually revolve around corruption and often take place in the Florida Everglades. His novel Striptease was made into a so-so movie with Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds, but don’t let that stop you, LOL].
Louis Bayard [writes fiction involving historical people such Edgar Allan Poe, Teddy & Kermit Roosevelt and others]
and for sci-fi, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, most of Philip K. Dick’s writings but his Now Wait for Last Year is one of my faves and one of his trippiest tales.