The Antilibrary
Welcome to my digital collection of books: read, being-read, and to-be-read!
What is an antilibrary? Instead of a celebration of everything you know, an antilibrary is an ode to everything you want to explore.
I got the idea from Jacky Zhao.
Biographical/Memoir
- Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson
- Bad Blood - John Carreyrou
- The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
- Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
- Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
- I Am Malala - Malala Yousafzai
- Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
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When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
- A short but very meaningful read. "As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives—everyone dies eventually—but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness."
Science, Math, and Philosophy
- Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
- The Stranger - Albert Camus
- A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
- A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
- How to Change Your Mind - Michael Pollan
- General Relativity - Leonard Susskind
- How to Avoid a Climate Disaster - Bill Gates
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Yuval Noah Harari
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Permanent Record - Edward Snowden
- I recommend this to basically everybody. Highlights the massive danger companies and governments create by disrespecting people's privacy. Reminded me to pursue a responsible career in tech.
Self-Help
Finance/Career
- The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko
- The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
- The 4-Hour Workweek - Timothy Ferriss
- 80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good - Benjamin Todd
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The Richest Man in Babylon - George Clason
- Often described as timeless advice, this book gives financial principles to live by (guard your hard-earned money, put money to work for you). Most of the advice seems applicable today, but some feels a bit archaic.
-
I Will Teach You to Be Rich - Ramit Sethi
- Much more modern and timely advice: Get the big things right and don't stress so much about the small ones. I enjoy his focus on the idea of a "rich life"—one where you can "spend lavishly on things you really enjoy, but cut back mercilessly on other things."
Other
- The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
- Like a Virgin - Richard Branson
- Range - David Epstein
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Atomic Habits - James Clear
- Overall good book. Forcing yourself to build/break habits is like swimming upstream. This book focuses on techniques that are more pleasant and effective. I still successfully use some of the principles from this book (tracked cycling progress encouraged me to go out more, keeping a water bottle with me made drinking more water effortless).
- Spark Joy - Marie Kondo
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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo
- This book was more of a guide to tidying—folding clothes, packing bags, etc. Both books were a good reminder to be intentional about the things I do/keep.
Cookbooks
- Flour Water Salt Yeast - Ken Forkish
- The Wok - J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
- Amazing cookbook that answers the why of cooking more so than the how. I've used his principles to make excellent stir-fried noodles and tofu.
- The Food Lab - J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat
- On Food and Cooking - Harold McGee
Fiction
- Foundation - Isaac Asimov
- I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
- Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
- Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
- Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
- The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
- 1984 - George Orwell
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (DNF)
- The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
- Finished it a long time ago, DNFed while re-reading recently.
- The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
- Exhalation – Ted Chiang
- Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
- Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
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A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
- Beautifully written story with complex characters. Also one of my favorite books of all time.
- The Martian - Andy Weir
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Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
- One of the best books I've read - just as good as—if not better than—The Martian. Amazing characters and scientific detail, just like his first novel.
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Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
- I enjoyed how artfully Murakami sets mundane scenes, but some poorly developed characters really broke the book for me.
- Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse