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Harry Potter is pretty cool
People throwing MS are a bunch of muggles
Or Ravenclaws...
Favorite Books:
Non-fiction: Behave by Sapolsky, Thinking, Fast & Slow, Kahneman
Fiction: Infinite Jest, Wallace; Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
Finance Books: The Partnership, Charles Ellis; The Adaptive Markets Hypothesis, Andrew Lo
2nd Crime & Punishment here — life changing read
I liked it but it was fucking exhausting to read
I try to completely avoid business related books for leisure. You work all day. Read something unrelated. It makes you sound more interesting.
I’m a big follower of history/foreign affairs, but all of those listed are page turners
Love foreign affairs. Have you found this to be a common interest for other folks on the street, or topic of discussion at all (outside ofc the EM guys).
Sounds great
Best: Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Also good: The red and the black by Stendhal
The lady of the camellias by Alexandre Dumas
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
There are tons of other classics that are pure gold but these ones that are the most meaningful/interesting in my opinion.
Second Dorian Grey
steppenwolf is amazing
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter, Europe Central by William T. Vollmann, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby. Hard Rain Falling is such a great read. Probably in the top 10 for me. Recently started the fist volume in Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series and it’s awesome so far. For other “fun” reading Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy was great. Read the whole thing in like two weeks.
I rarely see people recommend this outside of niche forums/sites, but this is some of the most hilarious writing I've ever read in my life. Definitely due for a reread.
One of my best high school friends borrowed this book from me and then gave it to his psycho cousin who he never got it back from. Anyway, we really liked this book and said how it should have been made into a HBO miniseries instead, where each interview is an episode, or maybe a 3 series show with the first setting the scene, the second in the middle, and the last season after it's all over, which is more how the book is set up. Either way, that would have been infinitely better than that piece of shit movie Brad Pitt made, and would have been way better than the Walking Dead, which I stopped watching as season 2 was completely unwatchable and boring.
EDIT: also dude, the Eragon movie was trash but not gonna lie, while the video game sucked overall too, it was actually hilarious in how so many of the moves were basically wrestler moves instead of using the sword. If you like fantasy, or even if you don't but want to get a feeling of nostalgia, I'd recommend LOTR or the Silmarillion, which is nerdy as hell but a great read imo.
need an inheritance TV show thrones style. Recently re-read banger and sneaky great illustration cover
Books ive read
** indicates a must read
Psycho cybernetics
Feeling good
Start with Why
Radical Candor
Mr. Pikes
An Actor Prepares
Meisners On Acting
7 Habits of Highly effective people **
48 laws of power
Moonwalking with Einstein
50th Law - Robert Greene
Mastery - Robert Greene
The Defining Decade **
At left brain turn right
Thinking Fast and Slow
The Art of thinking Clearly
Influence - Robert Cialdini **
Steal like an artist **
How to win friends and influence people
4 hour work week **
A new world - Eckhart tolle
the charisma myth
Never eat alone
Bird by Bird
On writing - stephen king **
Strategize to win - carla harris
Think and grow rich - napoleon hill
See you at the top
Mans search for meaning - viktor frankl
Freakonomics
Outliers - malcolm gladwell
How to talk to anyone
The magic of thinking big
Emotional intelligience - daniel goleman
The wisdom of the crowds
The greatest salesman in the world
Benjamin Franklin autobiography
Focus - daniel goleman
mans search for meaning
The power of habit - Charles Duhigg
The Alchemists - Jim Ratcliffe
Philosophy -
The Daily Stoic - 366 days of wisdom
Tae te ching - Lao Tze
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius **
Senecas letters
Platos The republic
Courage - osho
Siddhartha - Herman hesse
Thus spake zarathustra - friedrich neitzche
Finance/Business
Mr.Pikes
The Alchemists
Shoe Dog**
Ray Dalios Principles
The King of Capital - Steve Schwarzman biography
Guide to investing - Robert Kiyosaki
Liars Poker **
Cold Steel
Barbarians at the Gate
Young Money
The Masters of Private Equity and venture capital
New tycoons
Investment Banking Books
Distressed Investing
CDO Modelling
The red pill/manosphere/girl game-
The rational male - rollo tomassi **
How to be a 3% man - corey wayne
Consulting -
The pyramid principle
The McKinsey Way
Crime
My manor - Charlie Richardson (arguably a business book)
Fictional -
The Fountainhead - ayn rand **
The alchemist - paolo coelho
The old man and the sea
Les Miserables **
Atlas Shrugged
Great Expectations ••
the idiot - Dostoyevsky
I tried to listen to the audiobook of this last year but it was really hard to follow, maybe I'll try again.
You're the only person I've ever heard of other than English teachers to recommend this book.
Really dig your other recommendations though, I'll have to get through some of those.
Thus Spake Zarathustra - This is one of the most difficult books to read. You're not alone there.
Great Expectations - The way Dickens writes is beautiful. I'm still working my way through it. Good resource to enhance your vocab.
I cannot stress this enough, but everyone in College and under the age 27 should read the defining decade. It's a quick read that really helps you think about structuring your life.
+1 SB for The Alchemist, I actually cant believe I didnt list it as my favorite. Easily the best philosophical book I've ever read. It made me reflect deeper than I thought any piece of literature ever would and try to figure out if I was on the right path as I navigated my own life. Everyone should read that book during their 20s, or if they feel an existential crisis coming on. It is the only book I would describe as truly powerful. I must have read close to 1000 books and I doubt Ill ever read another that I have such a visceral reaction too.
One of my teachers read it aloud to us in elementary school, and it was fantastic back then, even if I didn't fully understand it. I actually haven't read it again since then, but the plot and many of lines have kept with me, including one of my favorite:
"I'm an old, superstitious Arab, and I believe in our proverbs. There's one that says, 'Everything that happens once can never happen again. But anything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.'"
+SB for Robert Greene. That dude changed my life (seriously).
The alchemist was an amazing read
Barbarian Days - A surfing life
Can't reccomend this book enough. A truely great surfing autobiography and travel novel. Will give you wanderlust
I love you
this seriously may be the best book I've ever read
I have a big interest in a genre called hard SiFi (premise is none of the contents can violate known scientific findings; pretty typical to find papers / a citation section at the back).
Best book I've read is Blindsight - Peter Watts but a more gentle introduction would be any of Andy Weir's stuff (Artemis, The Martian, Hail Mary). Another great popular series is The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu
We have this post almost more frequently than the endless prestige rankings now, but at least people recommend good stuff.
My plug is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Beyond writing about the history and some misconceptions, the author does a fantastic job of highlighting Temujin's management style which has some takeaways.
2 great audiobooks I listened to in the pandemic:
Three books I absolutely loved every page of:
1. Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World - Michael Lewis (Finance). One of his lesser talked about books, but easily his most interesting in my opinion. Great overview of the impact of globalization on various economies around the world, and Lewis uses the 2007 financial crisis as an extreme event to demonstrate global economic interdependencies, from Ireland, to Greece, to Iceland.
2. The Secret History - Donna Tart (Fiction / Best Book Ever). Spoiler alert: this is a weird one and may not be for the majority of users. Had to recommend it as it is my favorite book of all time. Focuses on a lost California kid as he navigates a niche, elite liberal arts college in New England. The main concepts range from purpose to religion to dealing with extreme and unexpected circumstances. There is truly no good summary for this book. This book references a lot of Greek and Latin phrasing and is not a quick read, so many users expecting immediate satisfaction will likely be disappointed.
3. Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown (Non-Fiction). This book is the epitome of inspiring, and is incredibly eye-opening for anyone unfamiliar with the fairly secretive Navy Seal experience. Side note, if I could do it all over again I would try out to be a SEAL, so I have read a lot on the subject. However, this book deals with far more than just what it takes to become a SEAL, but how to overcome the most horrific and difficult problems life can throw at you.
Lastly, I would consider all three of these to be 10/10 books, but they are all tailored to my areas of interest. Including brief descriptions so as to save folks time.
Edit: Also hot take, most finance books aren't very interesting. Most of us work in finance, are friends with people in finance, use our free time to talk about our time in finance, and are on a finance forum currently reading this...
Honorable Mention (Finance): However, if you want to read a FANTASTIC finance-oriented true story, read Red Notice. This is an extremely interesting book about one of the first American investors in Russia. Russia is what makes this book a true page turner, but there is a significant finance theme throughout.
One final thought - Upvote OP's thread if you're reading this so we can continue to get a lot of traffic on this topic. It would be great to have an eclectic range of new book recommendations from WSO users across the globe.
hey man, I loved the Secret History too. Read it last year. Chased that high and read a bunch of similar books that you may like:
- If We Were Villains by Rio: so good, basically the Secret History but replace the greek mythology with Shakespeare. must read if you liked SH
- The Atlas Six by Blake and Piranesi by Clarke: Both of these are a little weird, but similar themes to SH and great writing. Would rec both
- Ninth House by Bardugo, Vicious & Vengeful by Schwab: these 3 are geared a bit towards the YA crowd, so didn't like them as much. Still worth a read
- The Maidens by Michaelides: just ok, wouldn't really recommend unless you have nothing else to read
Thank you for the recommendations. Just ordered If We Were Villians. Currently reading three books so it may be a minute before I get to it but looking forward to it.
Coming back to say that If We Were Villians was a phenomenal read, another book I couldnt put down. I would say if the SH is a 10/10, If We Were Villians is a 9/10. I think early on it was harder for me to be as engaged, but overall as the book got going that feeling quickly went away.
Red Notice is awesome. Once Upon a Time in Russia is pretty solid as well.
Red Notice and Boomerang are fire and super quick. How’s the Secret History compare to the Goldfinch by Donna Tart? Goldfinch was awesome read.
Id say the SH is a tough read, no other way to put it. A lot of folks fall off before page 50, deeming it either slow or uninteresting. If you enjoyed the Goldfinch I would say there is greater than a 50% chance you will like the SH, but a lot of folks do not enjoy it. That said, the character development and unfolding of events is unparalleled, at least IMHO.
Like movies, there are so many great, but I would try to point out few:
Generally - biographies of interesting people
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers - this has been mentioned few times
William H. McRaven - Make Your Bed, Sea stories and others - retired US admiral and Navy Seal
Peter D. Kaufman - Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger - did not see this get mentioned often, but absolute recommendation, wealth of wisdom on life primarily, then business, investing etc.
Fiction Recs
Nice list, I read Crime & Punishment last year and liked it. Made it one of my goals this year to tackle Brothers Karamazov
If you want to be a more well-rounded person, with a better worldview and a decolonized mind, I'd recommend these.
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
Any of Federick Douglass's autobiographies
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
All About Love by Bell Hooks
+1 SB for Kiterunner. Dont recommend reading it in 6th / 7th grade like I did though.
Over the past few weeks I've been reading The Silk Roads - A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan. The book is pretty popular and highly rated that's how I came across it.
The view on world history (if taught in a USA public school as I was) can be a little skewed in certain aspects, so this new way of looking at the world has been really interesting to me. Not necessarily saying that I learned things that were straight up incorrect, but more-so things that my middle/ high school decided not to cover or teach. Certain things sound like they can be straight out of some drama TV show too, history can get pretty wild.
Hoping I can use some of the things I learned in higher level conversations with people that I meet, and even if I end up not talking about it with people it has well been worth the knowledge.
The Prize.
Just read all of Charles Bukowski’s novels. Entertaining stuff
Liar’s Poker
Any Micheal Lewis book tbh. May sound basic, but the way he writes just draws you in.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander was eye opening to say the least.
random thoughts below
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius
"Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse
"The Three Body Problem" (trilogy) by Cixin Liu
"Lord of the Rings" (trilogy) by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Asset Management" by Andrew Ang
"Don't Count on It" - Jack Bogle
Depends on what you're looking for - I already see a lot of non-fiction listed so I'll go the escapism route. If you want to completely detach yourself from work and all things reality, I'd recommend the sci-if/epic fantasy route.
Here a few recommendations:
Recently read the Cradle series from your suggestions and really thoroughly enjoyed it! Even read the traveler's gate series right after. I was wondering if you had some kind of book list? all your suggestions are ones I would read haha
I know this has been mentioned before in this post, but listing it again to emphasize how good it is: Mastery by Robert Greene had a huge impact on me and will give anyone food-for-thought. I haven't met anyone that regrets investing time in this book.
Brothers Karamatzov, Barbarians at the Gates
I highly recommend Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Such a brilliantly well done book that poses a lot of thoughts and questions to reflect upon.
Yuval Noah Harari strikes me as a dishonest and hateful person.
Goodnight Moon
Wow nobody said Man's Search For Meaning yet? I suppose that. 7000 Days in Siberia close second. I'm sorta a student of human suffering.
one of the most impactful books I've ever read
Harry Potter is a classic, and it's more interesting to read than to watch the movies. I think everyone could get this collection together
Infinite Jest & I really get a kick out of most Phillip K. Dick books.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche
A New Earth, Tolle
and many more... direct message me if you are interested
Thanks for the information !
Helter Skelter is the best true crime novel of all time
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Silence of the Lambs
Because I'll never let it go at this point: "The Jungle Books" by Kipling.
Rainbow Six is also dope. One of the strongest redemption arcs ever with Popov literally riding out on the high horse after merc'ing several guards and directing Ding , Clark, et all to the compound so they can clear it out, and then the one in Brazil too. Then Popov snakes the gold and uses it to fund real medical research unlike say a certain name that rhymes with "ouchie" or someone else that more likely than else will not make it past a pearly something he shares his name with when he has to talk to a certain St. Peter.
Discussion Materials
a) Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl
b) True Devotion to Mary
by St. Louis de Montfort
adapted by Eddie Doherty
https://www.amazon.com/True-Devotion-Mary-Adapted-Doherty/dp/1724024663…
Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce
I'm reading through it now - probably one of the most interesting / challenging reads I've tackled, but I'm determined to see it through and finish
And Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
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