Towards Universal Knowledge

Introduction

Why write this and how you can use it

Reading non-fiction allows me to marvel at the world around us. It makes me dream, ideate, and wonder. It took me 25 years to explore the vastness of the scientific disciplines around us and read comprehensively enough to condense the list below. This was vastly accelerated through the internet, eBooks, and audiobooks in the last 15 years. I wish I had had such a list when embarking on my learning journey, and that’s why I sat down and started compiling it.

I am aware that few people have the urge to read that much. I was born with it and I do not think reading that much is a requirement for either success or happiness. It is one of my greatest joys, and this post is to help other people find similar enjoyment with much less effort. Researching great books, filtering them down and then reading them is a means to an end and it took a lot of time I wish I could have spared.

I started reading very young. I remember finishing a Tom Clancy novel in one day at the age of 13. I think then I realised that I was both good and passionate at reading. I grew up in a three thousand inhabitant village in the Austrian mountains, long before the internet, so finding out about great books and getting them was a real issue. I read most of what I could get my hands on, and when I started studying, I took on a few programs in parallel. I majored in law, philosophy and business administration and then added a bachelor in economics. In Austria, University is basically free of charge, and this nearly unlimited access to knowledge was a dream come true. When I graduated, my parents gave me a gift. The standard one would be a trip with friends. I used the money to buy bachelor textbooks for Psychology and History.

Over the last nearly 30 years, I have read a few thousand books and their impact on me varied massively. It would have been valuable to cut straight away to the ones featured below.

Having read broadly across a huge array of disciplines, one impact I wish to share is that no subject should be feared: Rocket science is hard and so is psychotherapy. Medicine can be incredibly daunting and so is Law. It shouldn’t deter you from picking up a book about it or investing into building a career. Realising that nothing should scare you is a blessing beyond measure.

If you read through all of the 400 books that I recommend at a rate of one per week (which I think can be feasible even with very busy lives) you would get through all of the disciplines in around eight years. If you read only half of the books per discipline, you’d still know a lot about what’s driving the world around us. I think that is very exciting. And even if you just pick a few, I think you might find very positive impacts on your life in general.

I think that we hit an inflection point of further specialisation. Many of the challenges we face are more complex than complicated. They deal with interdependent systems, evolving phenomena and feedback loops. Much we will need to innovate to decarbonise the world. I found that having a solid idea of many different disciplines helps a lot in making critical connections, and I believe many you might find that too. Towards Universal Knowledge!

How I selected books

When diving into a topic, I try to find books that are to some extent “authoritative”. That is to say, if you needed to pick one book about a topic or discipline, this would be the book. That is often hard for a few reasons — authoritative books can be technical and/or long, and I tried to stick to books that I could integrate into a busy life without too much strain. A prime example for this dilemma is Modernist Pizza, the definitive guide to one of the world’s most popular foods by Nathan Myhrvold. (I adore all his “Modernist” books to a concerning degree). I would use it to define “authoritative book”in that it is a culmination of exhaustive research, travel, and experiments to collect and advance the world’s knowledge of pizza. It is beautifully done, without jargon, accessible, comprehensive, and truly unbiased. Myhrvold takes whatever ideas exist around pizza, tries them out in a scientific setting and shares the results (versus preaching what are often highly plausible though often untested ideas). It is also a 4 Volume 30 pounds sprawl that might literally over satisfy some readers. (Another one would be Bertrand Russel’s A History of Western Philosophy even though it is more selective and unapologetically biassed).

My recommendations below only reflect books that I have read, so there will be plenty of omissions and I welcome any thoughts. The list is also considerably curated — I estimate I read about 3–5 books for each one selected, skimmed through another 5–10 and researched still twice that. With all this said, please send me any comments and suggestions — the list is meant to stay dynamic and I am sure there are plenty of books out there that should be included here.

Some of the authors or books are controversial. I chose books because they inspired my thinking. Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene is a stunning feat of critical thinking. It opened up perspectives to me far beyond his original thesis and that is why I enjoyed it so much. If the thesis holds in its rigour is of less significance for me. This is similar to Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations or the controversies surrounding Jordan Peterson. I select books because I think the books in themselves are great. There are books from authors that are assigned as anarchists, far right or far left and I am neither of those. If I thought their books were excellent, you might find them below.

I structured below by discipline. They are in no rigorous order, and there are some disciplines I clustered as I think it can be helpful reading about them in sequence. There are some disciplines not yet covered simply as I haven’t gotten to it yet, and I hope I will add more later.

How to integrate reading into a busy life

If you are looking to read more, but time is in scant supply, audiobooks and rituals are of key importance. A solid average of the books mentioned here is around 10 hrs at 1.0x speed or 6.25 hrs at 1.6x speed as an audiobook. If you do 7hrs of sports a week (e.g. 3 hrs cardio, 2 hrs weightlifting, 2 hrs yoga/pilates), you could use 3–5 hours of these to listen to an audiobook. Assume you commute for 40 minutes 4 times a week that would add another 2.5 hrs of opportunity. That’s already one book per week, not yet counting the highly recommended “slow down before sleeping” time where 30 minutes of reading can do wonders. Or “pushing your newborn through the park” times. In addition, I find spending time in a spa/sauna a very high value-add for my physical and mental health — again excellent times for reading. As a last recommendation, I would cut out a lot of daily news. To me it doesn’t add a lot of value other than dopamine from scrolling. I try to limit myself to the Economist Espresso after waking up, which selects favourite articles from the weekly Economist edition (I bookmark them when it comes out and then read or listen through the playlist).

I often prefer books over podcasts as I have references in books and am able to cross-reference and check an author’s statements. I sometimes use podcasts as a book-discovery mechanism though. Some podcasts (e.g. Peter Attia’s excellent The Drive on contemporary medicine and longevity or Tim Ferris’s Blog) have show notes that I prefer to audio as I can quickly get to the essence (plus the fact-checking/references). Some disciplines are so dynamic that books struggle to keep up with innovation. One example close to my interests being regenerative food production, with Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food (Antonella Totaro and Koen van Seijen) being a favourite.

How I chose to read and remember books

I do not take notes. I do not focus in-depth. I try to enjoy the experience. If a book doesn’t offer what I am looking for, after a solid try (think 2–3 hours of listening or reading), I skip it without guilt. I don’t have the urge to remember everything. I find that books change you, slowly and always in the right way, without a lot of effort needed. Thus, I squeeze them hard into my daily routines even if I am not at my best, and I trust in them doing their work subliminally .

When embarking on a deep dive into a specialist topic, Itry to read in sprints, a concept I borrow from software engineering. I focus on one topic — say chemistry — and then read the core books I selected one after the other, typically over 4–10 weeks. There is usually some repetition within books that cover the same discipline, which I think is very helpful in entrenching the knowledge without me studying the materials in depth. Equally, each book makes the coverage more comprehensive, and different authors look at things in different ways which helps me connect dots between the subject and my own life.

On sources I enjoy

I want to both thank and share some of the more fruitful sources of my reading. GatesNotes, the blog of Bill Gates, in which he regularly shares book recommendations. Tim Ferris is another one (particularly through his books Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors) and via the people he features in there. I do look through Marc Andreesen’s reading, and (even though these are less dynamic) Warren Buffet and particularly Charlie Munger (whose Almanac is so dear to me that I cannot find the adequate words). I really appreciated David Rubinstein’s three books (How to Invest, The American Story, How to Lead) as they provided me with great fast insights into outstanding achievers in their respective areas.

If you want to go further into an area, a mix of the references in the books below and some internet research will work well. I also found a lot of book recommendations by Marc Zuckerberg and Elon Musk that I enjoyed a lot. . Three sites that are very helpful are www.mostrecommendedbooks.com, www.goodbooks.io and fivebooks.com. Finally, after spending decades studying and writing about history in a very comprehensive way, Will Durant wrote The Greatest Minds of All Times in which he provides lists of outstanding personalities and books throughout history and across disciplines, which is a very interesting overview.

On Critical thinking

We live in an age of disinformation, misinformation and conspiracy theory, but it’s difficult to believe how strongly information became instrumentalized and even “weaponized” since the beginnings of the Corona pandemic. I saw a video shared via whatsapp of a team of doctors showing “proof” and much conviction that their chloroquine treatment of Corona saved all the lives of their patients. It was so well done my entire system wanted to believe it, I got upset about why the world ignored them, I felt compelled to share it. Then I backchannelled it on Google and it was all fake. Manufactured on purpose. I was shocked, particularly by how well it did its job on me given how highly I would have rated my critical thinking before that. That materially changed my perspective on the dangers of manipulating democratic votes and dividing societies. With this in mind, I tend to cast a wider net in my recommendations as I think fake news is a topic that is unfortunately very far from its peak influence on the world. Sinan Arai wrote an indispensable guide to Social Media and its influences and dangers: The Hype Machine. How Social Media disrupts our Elections, our Economy and our Health — and how we must adapt.

Apart from reading the books below, I am passionate about reading The Economist regularly — across all the main news outlets of the Western World. It is, to me, by far the most Global, and in-depth source across a diverse array of subjects. The Economist is biassed towards liberalism and human rights, although this is made very explicit. I think reading it regularly is one of the greatest things you can do to be an informed and critical citizen.

Factfulness (Hans Rosling) is beautiful as it does three things very well: It outlines the life achievements of an outstanding public health professor. It offers an overview of public health in general. It also acts as a great synthesis of rational thinking in today’s world. Merchants of Doubt (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway) looks at rational thinking from a different angle — how science has been instrumentalized to spread doubt. It is a fascinating read as it shakes an often dearly held belief — that science would not succumb to overt manipulation. Life: The Movie (Neal Gabler) looks at how our need for entertainment is ever-increasing, providing fertile ground for fake news. On a side note, the author has also written one of my favourite biographies — on the life of Walt Disney. Finally Weaponized Lies (Daniel Levitin) was to me the most applicable of the above with one part on how to interpret numbers and another one on how to fact-check claims directly, identify bias, “discovering your own” knowledge base.

My next recommendation is a highly interrelated cluster of three books examining impediments to critical thinking from a brain science and group psychology aspect. Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow (Daniel Kahneman) is, in every aspect, an outstanding and highly valuable read which explains how our brains use two different processing pathways:one for routine decisions (fast and low in effort) and one for more considerate issues. Challenges arise if we use the fast path for considerate issues, and Kahneman lays out very well how easily that can happen.In this book, Kahneman also provides a highly readable overview of much of the research that led him to a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. Two further books which look at our own impediments to rational acting are the more politically angled Mistakes were made, but not by me (Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson) and Think Again. The power of knowing what you don’t know (Adam Grant) which offers more practical examples about relationships, teams and day-to-day interactions .

Natural and Formal Sciences

Chemistry

The chemical industry powers a lot of what our modern lives depend on — though very early in our value chains and thus often less present in our daily thoughts. From the fertiliser that fuels agriculture to dye that colours our clothes, to all the plastics that we use. The Alchemy of Air (Thomas Hager) deals with a watershed in modern chemistry:the invention of the Haber-Bosch method to create fertiliser. In synthesising ammonia, it not only created the base for the third agricultural revolution but also created a base to build one of today’s largest chemical companies (BASF) and a foundation for Germany’s war machine back in the day (ammonia is a key constituent of explosives). It also creates a stunning historic perspective: Haber, a jew and outsider, Wilhelm II, Prussia’s distinct emperor with his own set of complexes, and the times leading up to World War I. Mendeleyev’s Dream (Paul Strathern) describes the history of chemistry leading up until the discovery of the Periodic table. My main takeaway was how little we knew about chemistry before the turn of the 20th century, and how dependent scientific progress often is on critical enablers in other disciplines. Somewhere in between the two books lie two more books. First, The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean), which looks at the history of chemistry through key happenings in an essayist format. It is less structured, but to me a great entry point as it sparked interest left and right. Second, The Poisoner’s Handbook (Deborah Blum) which looks at chemistry through the angle of how certain elements were used to poison people, and how in NYC in the 1920s they spun up a department to put an end to it. It is a super entertaining and educational read.

The Joy of Chemistry (Cathy Cobb) is a much more practical book as it contains experiments and some technical notation. At the same time, it serves as a legitimate read-through overview about chemistry. It guides you through the main chemical concepts in a blend of theory and practical examples, like a very fun textbook. A similarly readable primer with some technical notation is The Chemistry of Life (Steven Rose and Radmila Mileusnic), focused on biochemistry — the chemical reactions powering our lives — how the cell generates energy, how food is converted to energy and how our body defends itself. For anyone more deeply interested in cellular biology and modern medicine, this is a great book.

Mathematics and Statistics

Mathematics can be quite a divisive subject in high school. Some folks love it, some endure it, some start thinking they are inept for it and develop anxiety. I think more of this is driven by how maths is often taught than by the discipline itself. Contrary to common belief, I think the “deeper” maths becomes, the more creative it gets. The skills that are often daunting in school are more like tools for an artist, with the creative thinking process at the core of it. Einstein wrote four of his ground-breaking works in his “magical year” 1905 without yet having the tools of advanced maths needed to formulate his general theory of relativity. The maths used in his special theory is surprisingly simple — the power of his papers was much more in how he used creative thinking to shatter widely held beliefs of the time.

I think that most people benefit from a friendly relationship with numbers and that no one should feel discouraged from them. Some wildly creative thinkers became great mathematicians, and some dyslexic people — often discouraged by schools to pursue maths or numbers — are amongst our greatest entrepreneurs — think Richard Branson or Ingvar Kamprad.

I really enjoyed Measuring the World (Daniel Kehlmann) as an unorthodox introduction to mathematics. It is a novel, based on the fictionalised relationship between two of history’s great protagonists — the geographer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Both have defined large swathes of their professions and I was hooked throughout. A similarly thrilling book(albeit being back to non-fiction) is Fermat’s Last Theorem (Simon Singh), which gives a stunning outline of the history of maths in one of its biggest challenges throughout the centuries. I was genuinely sad when I finished the book, I enjoyed it so much.

In terms of a slightly more technical overview of mathematics, How Numbers Work (New Scientist / Richard Webb (ed.)) is a brief, highly readable introduction to some core concepts of mathematics. My favourite is Elements of Mathematics (John Stillwell) as it is thorough and not unnecessarily technical. It is, however, a more advanced read. For the many of us who were taught mathematics following Euclid, The King of Infinite Space (David Berlinski) might feel like redemption as it explains the axioms and proofs in a very readable way. Finally, a book that I read parts of (Introduction and Origins) and then used as a reference book is The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Timothy Gowers (ed.)).

A Mind for Numbers (Barbara Oakley) is a bit of a misnomer. It is a great book on how our mind learns, how not to be afraid of learning new skills and how to foster creativity. It is much more about us learning the meta skills of how to learn than about maths itself, and as such, I think it is a highly rewarding read. Somehow related, albeit a bit more advanced, is How to solve it (George Polya), one of the 20th century’s leading mathematicians. It reads like a mix of distilled wisdom on how to approach complex problems, aphorisms of a highly accomplished mathematician and some examples of how maths work. For anyone who will have to do more with maths, I think this is a highly valuable read.

I’ll cover more applied mathematics and statistics in a business context under “Business and Investing”. Meanwhile, How to Lie with Statistics (Darrell Huff) is an entirely non-technical, fun representation of how statistics pervade our life, and how to avoid being fooled by them. It is a great thought starter for some of the denser books in the “Business and Investing” section and a very useful addition to the “Critical Thinking” section above.

Earth Science, Palaeontology, Anthropology and Oceanology

The Story of Earth (Robert Hazen) is a great book about Earth’s evolution. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (Stephen Jay Gould) investigates pre-human evolution and offers a refinement to Darwin’s evolution (it happens less linearly!). The Invention of Nature. The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt (Andrea Wulf) is the beautifully written life story of Humboldt, one of the most outstanding scientist explorers who ever lived, who did a lot to build earth sciences as a discipline to this day.

A similarly engaging overview regarding how humans evolved is Who We Are and How We Got Here (David Reich). Meanwhile, Behave. The Biology of Humans at our Worst and Best (Robert Sapolsky) looks at how behaviour evolved and why. Where Reich shows how humans evolved, Sapolsky takes a stab at why humans act the way they do from an evolutionary perspective. A nice follow-on is The Better Angels of our Nature (Steven Pinker), how and why civilization somehow tamed our evolutionary impulses. It gives a lot of hope.

On Anthropology, Patterns of Culture (Ruth Benedict) is an outstanding book which I imagine has inspired plenty of anthropologists over the decades. The Wayfinders. Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (Wade Davis) collects stunning stories about indigenous people and is a wonderful read.

Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science (Robert Kunzig) chronicles the discovery of our oceans and Ocean Science. The Unnatural History of the Sea (Callum Roberts) is a thrilling (and unfortunately quite sad) history of fishing and its impact on our oceans.

Biology and Medicine

Biology encompasses quite different fields — the study of animals, of plants, of humans, of life’s evolution. At the forefront of current discussion are the areas around genetics and cell biology. I found it helpful to get a primer on cell biology and genetics as a basis to understand the staggering breakthroughs in medicine that are happening currently. Whilst it might feel strange opening a textbook out of university, some of them are incredibly well-written and a pleasure to peruse. Biology (Campbell) is a great way to understand the foundations of the true revolution of medicine we are amidst. When you look back at the evolution of modern medicine, there was a rise in understanding of contamination (e.g. washing hands to stop childbed deaths), in anaesthesia and pain medication (opioids), penicillin, diagnostic medicine (think x-ray) and probably most impactful vaccines. Cancer treatments remained quite crude until recently (kill everything and hope the host survives longer) and our options around diseases affecting metabolism, chronic inflammatory or autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric diseases are in many ways shockingly basic. Over the last two decades, deciphering genomes at scale, the ability to cut and replace parts of it, the ability to program our own body to manufacture tailored molecules (think mRNA) and more recently the rediscovery of psychedelics and breakthroughs in Micromechanics (Neurolinks) and Robotics (Nanomachines for targeted drug delivery) are bringing the potential for an entirely new world of medicine. The Song of the Cell (Siddharta Mukherjee) is a great narrative-style introduction and history of cell biology.

The greatest benefit to mankind (Roy Porter) is a comprehensive but long history of medicine, also covering Chinese and Indian medicine. It has a distinct chapter on psychiatry which I found very interesting given how much more present mental health in public consciousness. It has now become rudimentary in our understanding of treatment options.

Life Ascending (Nick Lane) provides a reason to marvel at the complexity of life by describing ten outstanding innovations of evolution (think photosynthesis, or consciousness). The Sixth Extinction (Elizabeth Kolbert) offers a riveting follow-up, describing how we are on track to destroy a lot of the biodiversity around us, and with it, a lot of our own foundations.

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species (Matt Ridley) was very interesting to me as it covers the core history of genetics (e.g Mendel, Watson/Crick) but also offers context on evolution, particularly Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) It does not cover the last two decades, and as the topic is of such high relevance, I would add The Code Breaker from prolific writer Walter Isaacson which focuses particularly on our recent ability to manipulate our genetic code (CRISPR and messenger RNA).

Some further reading: The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson) is a thrilling read about the evolution of modern cities, the role of sanitation and the birth of epidemiology. On Immunity (Eula Bliss) is the story of a woman’s quest to learn about vaccines and their impact and a great overview of one of 2020’s most controversial topics — vaccines. Related, An Elegant Defence. The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System (Matt Ritchel) provides a great overview of how our immune system works. Medicine (Goldman/Cecil) is a standard textbook on internal medicine and an interesting reference book (plus, available on Kindle) if used with caution ( you shouldn’t read it if you have hypochondriac tendencies). The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine (Daniel Keown) is a great overview and comparison of traditional Chinese medicine and the philosophy behind it with western medicine. It’s written by a doctor schooled in western and eastern medicine and offered lots of perspectives into how to think of our bodies in a broader context.
Finally, there are two more books that sparked wonder in me: The Hidden Life of Trees (Peter Wohlleben) and Entangled Life (Merlin Sheldrake) about how trees communicate — and help each other, and how Fungi (Entangled Life) plays a pivotal role in all our lives foundations (and for trees and plants).

Physics

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) is a wonderful quick read and starter text into a quite daunting and intellectually endlessly stimulating domain. It is written for everyone and a beautiful teaser for more to come. A Matter of Degrees (Gino Segrè) is a bit longer and written in an equally engaging and easy to read style. It explains key concepts of physics as well as the history of their discovery with an emphasis on the role of temperature.

Now we are getting to the real deal: Richard Feynman, who truly seems like one of the smartest people in the 20th century (do not read his hilarious autobiography “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” if you believe you are very smart. It is very humbling) His Feynman Lectures on Physics in three volumes are outstanding. While they are hard to read when in a busy day job, it is much more accessible than you might think. It is stunning how a beautiful mind like Feynman can describe the most challenging concepts in the simplest words possible (which sometimes is not super simple), always keeping humour and a light-hearted tone. If you have some time and are interested in science and physics, it is a spectacular read (even if you might not get all of it, fully, which is the case for me). Another great pick is Einstein’s biography by Walter Isaacson — I was unaware how much of Einstein’s work was built on creativity and imagination (with a lot of hard maths coming much later for his General Theory).

If you are interested in why and how aeroplanes fly as an application of physics, there is a classic and much beloved book about the art of flying, Stick and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche). It shows how physics influences one of the most important practicalities of our lives today — flying a plane. It also explains the principles of how to fly a plane in plain language.

Astronomy

Astronomy is blessed with outstanding books. Cosmos (Carl Sagan) is a classic, beautiful and engaging read. It was equally a defining science documentary series, though the production quality made it a bit hard to watch for me these days (Cosmos: A personal voyage). The reboot with Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Cosmos: A spacetime odyssey) I thought illustrated the beauty of Creation in many aspects.

A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking) and the more recent A Briefer History of Time are written by another outstanding mind. I read A Brief History in the early 2000’s and thoroughly enjoyed it. There are some more hard-to-grasp parts in it though, for the most part, it was very readable. I didn’t read the latter, but it is supposed to be more accessible.

Coming of Age in the Milky Way (Timothy Ferris) is a wonderful history of astronomy, and as a great follow-on This New Ocean (William Burrows) chronicles the first space age. More recently, I have become a big fan of The Everyday Astronaut, Tim Dodd, and I share him here despite his content being videos and not books as these are some of the most memorable videos (youtube) on advanced, fascinating technology I have ever seen.

History of Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) is an incredibly well written, riveting story of science. I sometimes think if we could have all our youth reading it prior to choosing their university programs, we would have a lot more scientists. A Short History of Technology. From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900 (T.K. Derry and Trevor I. Williams) is a book I was searching for a long time — describing major inventions throughout history in one book, ranging from the vulcanisation of rubber, textile mills and glass-making, to telegraphy and printing. It makes me marvel at how inventive we have been throughout the millennia. Science Matters (Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil) is a wonderful primer to science in general. The authors manage to convey scientific principles across main disciplines in an easy-to-read and still highly instructive way. It is an outstanding choice for non-scientists who aim to approach the world of science. How We Got to Now (Steven Johnson) shows how inventions in one area can have incredible ripple effects to science in general. Think of inventing a glass lens — which enabled the microscope which in turn enabled modern biology!

A classic in the Philosophy and History of Science is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas S. Kuhn). There is a lot in there that you can find again in The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell) and I think it is highly relevant for any entrepreneur. Kuhn shows how hard it is to go against the mainstream and how scientific paradigms require a lot of time and effort to change (as do entrenched systems, beliefs and industries). Somehow related is The Innovator’s Dilemma (Clayton M. Christensen’s), in which he shows how hard it is for dominant companies to keep on innovating, for many of the same reasons it is hard for scientific dogma to change.

A book that zooms in on one of the most innovative institutions of all times, Bell Laboratories is The Idea Factory (Jon Gertner). They got nine Nobel prizes for their work and single-handedly invented a lot that powers our modern lives. To this day I wonder how we could replicate what happened back in their time.

Philosophy

Philosophy has one of the most memorable “authoritative books” :A History of Western Philosophy (Sir Bertrand Russell). It is so good that even if you are not into Philosophy, I would recommend it for its sheer intellectual quality and clarity of writing. If you would like to know more about what philosophy deals with in a very engaging, no-nonsense way, Thomas Nagel’s What does it all mean is a great pick. Sophie’s World (Jostein Gaarder), is a classic which combines both books in some way — it provides a great overview of the history of philosophy and its main thinkers in an easy-to-follow narrative. Irvin D. Yalom, a writer, psychotherapist and philosopher, wrote several novels in which he blends an introduction to a famous philosopher (e.g., Nietzsche in And Nietzsche Wept) with applications of some of their insights in his psychotherapeutic practice. I enjoyed all of his books a lot and have successfully recommended them to many friends.

I would recommend furthering your philosophical knowledge with source materials. I majored in Philosophy, so I am biassed in favour of it and will restrain myself to a few top picks. I would read the four antinomies of Immanuel Kant (in his Critique of Pure Reason), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche) and the Meditations (Marc Aurel), followed by some Socrates (via Plato), Plato and Aristotle.

Applied Sciences

Computer Science

The Innovators (Walter Isaacson) is a wonderful overview of all main elements of the digital world we live in (particularly if you read The Cellphone mentioned further down as well). If you want to understand how computers work in more detail, I really enjoyed But How do I Know? (J. Clark Scott) — I felt uncomfortable not understanding how computers are built and operate given how much they define our lives and this book solved for that in a great way.

Neuroscience and General Artificial Intelligence

Recent progress around Artificial Intelligence (particularly 2010–2022) has brought General Artificial Intelligence from Science Fiction into the realm of active consideration. In essence, we can build machines that can learn by themselves and thus outpace our cognitive capabilities fast by far. This could revolutionise science in all its aspects and opens the question of whether these machines would be “conscious beings” with their own rights — and if they could pose an existential risk to humanity given their (at some point) immeasurably higher competency levels. Interestingly, many researchers pursue the advance of General A.I. through understanding how our own brains work, and vice versa. I found several of the books around understanding our own brains and the potential to develop “machine brains” incredibly fascinating. The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Iain McGilchrist) was eye-opening. It consists of two parts, the first one on the science of our brain — that we essentially have two brains, constantly “negotiating” for one reality and set of behaviours. It gives foundation to popular concepts around the creative and the logical parts of the brain and reveals plenty of craziness about how our brains function. The second part is quite different as it looks at our cultural evolution through the lens of how different brain functions were emphasised through history. Two classics on The Philosophy of Mind and how to think about Consciousness are wonderful supplements to McGilchrist: In Self comes to mind, Antonio Damasio does several things — he lays out basic concepts of the philosophy of mind, surfaces more recent findings on consciousness and provides an interesting and in some ways quite intuitive theory about consciousness. A book a close friend recommended recently and that I enjoy deeply is Thomas Metzinger’s The Ego Tunnel, in which Metziner lays out a more philosophy-driven overview of our knowledge of consciousness. I particularly enjoyed how he refers to Meditation research to add to our understanding of consciousness. If you read all three, it will become obvious why the notion of a swift, linear progress to conscious artificial intelligence seems very naive. We don’t really know how to define or think about conscience. It is incredibly hard to describe what basic constituents of our mind are, and whatever artificial kind of intelligence we might end up building one day — it might look very different than how we imagine it. And that might be perfectly fine.

Your Brain at Work. Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long (David Rock) is a practical guide on how to get the best out of your brain, founded in brain science and very practically applied with a lot of useful tips.

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence and its risks, Life 3.0 (Max Tegmark) is an excellent starter. Ray Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind was very interesting in its approach tackling questions such as: How could we build a conscious mind? Is it an evolving state (i.e.once you cross a threshold of complexity, consciousness evolves) or is it intrinsic to our brain? As with many books, I find the concept or thesis per se less critical than the thinking and its ability to provide thought-provoking concepts. More recently, A Thousand Brains (Jeff Hawkins) builds a compelling theory of why there is no existential risk from artificial intelligence (amongst many other reasons I liked the book a lot) whilst laying out a compelling theory of how our brain works as a contrast to how machine intelligence operates to date.

Telecommunications

It is still a miracle to me how you can use mobile data on a high speed train, transmitting from a tiny device whilst moving hundreds of kilometres an hour. Few devices have changed our daily life to the extent of our phones. The Cellphone (Guy Klemens) is a thoroughly enjoyable and readable book laying out the technologies that power these modern marvels — and much of our daily routines.

Electrical Engineering and Energy

For fans of readable scientific books, Vaclav Smil is a landmark author. How the World Really Works (Vaclav Smil) is a great general overview of what powers our modern lives through the lens of energy as its main underlying agent. The Quest (Daniel Yergin) is a comprehensive and very well written primer into energy across its aspects. The Grid (Gretchen Bakke) provides a fascinating view into how our power grids evolved. The King of Oil (Daniel Ammann) describes the extraordinary story of Marc Rich, who invented oil trading as we know it today and founded one of the world’s dominant raw material companies.

Amidst the challenge that is already defining our generation — saving our own lives by halting global warming and decarbonising the planet, Seeing the Light. The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century (Scott Montgomery and Thomas Graham jr.) shares a lot of indispensable facts about Nuclear Energy. I think Nuclear Fission has been unnecessarily emotionally laden — much to our detriment. Looking at available information and newer technologies such as molten salt/thorium reactors, I do not see how we can succeed without a massive expansion of Nuclear Energy.

Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Construction and Architecture

When the Corona pandemic struck, Marc Andreesen, a famous Venture Capitalist financing start-up companies focused mostly on novel software products, wrote an article called “It’s time to build” in which he expresses frustration that we have social networks but not enough facemasks. A lot of our world is built upon technologies that are between seventy and 100 years old and received only gradual improvements — the car, electric overhead lines, steam-turbines, nuclear pressurised-water reactors, industrial-scale manufacturing, reinforced-concrete based construction. The last time a person set foot on the moon was over 50 years ago. I believe that decarbonising the world is a unique — and desperately needed — push to build the 21st century on novel technologies that can reinvigorate our spirits, dreams, and productive capacity. As I wasn’t University trained in engineering and reading engineering textbooks whilst running large companies was not an option for me, I searched for books that helped me to learn in a more approachable way.

Engineering in Plain Sight (Grady Hillhouse) is absolutely delightful. It spans the electrical grid, communications, infrastructure (road and rail) and construction and city utilities (waste and water). It is fascinating, jargon-free and simplified to its essence. A Degree In A Book: Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (David Baker) goes a further, in that it provides more foundational knowledge on why certain things work, whilst being an easy and engaging read. Thing Explainer (Randall Munroe) illustrates some 50 modern engineering marvels from washing machines to oil dwells, simply It uses accessible phrasing which is both fun and sometimes annoying to me (oil is called “stuff in the earth we can burn”). That said,this doesn’t detract from the book’s strengths.

Stuff Matters (Mark Miodownik) and Structures (J.E. Gordon) are great, readable overviews of Materials and Structures and together offer a great foundation of how to build things.

Fundamentals of Building Construction (Edward Allen and Joseph Iano) and Fundamentals of Modern Manufacturing (Mikell P. Grover) are two textbooks that I enjoyed skimming through — they can be used dual-purpose, to get a good overview of a discipline and key ideas and challenges, and as a study book. I used them in the former way. Fundamentals of Building Construction is particularly useful if you are considering building a house of your own.

Making the Modern World (Vaclav Smil) provides a lot of very useful data and information on the materials that are the backbone of our lives.

Agriculture

I am deeply passionate about agriculture. Cooking has been my lifelong passion which led me to learn about how produce is made and how to explain the staggering differences in taste between one tomato to another. Looking at the staggering obesity metrics (2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese), healthcare cost (US 19% vs Germany 13%) and my own findings on impaired productivity through poor food (grab a burger with fries and then try to do complex work afterwards….) made me better understand the system of food production. It is “in itself stable, but in every meaningful dimension broken”. We put out enough food to feed our populations, but it makes our people sick. Producing the food destroys our environments, and we even put massive monetary subsidies behind these practices (in the EU for instance). And farming has a generational problem, with less and less young people following their parents’ footsteps.

At the same time, there are clear signs of hope in terms of new methods of food production that seem to be not just be sustainable, but capable of putting carbon back in the soils. The magnitude of this carbon sequestration potential is staggering and could win us a decade of time to work on decarbonising cement, steel and heavy transportation for which technologies are not fully market-ready. There are several books outlining these technologies often called conservation or regenerative agriculture, and I will focus only on these. Growing a Revolution (David Montgomery) is my favourite first read, as it does a great job of outlining issues with traditional agriculture and how to remedy these. It also references the pioneers of these new methods, and it focuses on success examples from all over the world and across climatic zones — if you are looking for further reading, great books (Gabe Brown, Nicole Masters) are referenced there. There are now plenty of proof points that we can produce equal levels of food with much higher nutrient density in a way that reduces very little to no chemical inputs, all whilst putting more carbon in soils and making soils much more resilient to extreme weather.

Law

I think having some basic understanding of law is an important life skill — we cross its paths when speeding, signing a mortgage, facing property damage through sloppy construction, or becoming employed. Whilst each country differs in their practical laws, there are two main religious systems in the Western world, civil law (Continental Europe: law is predominantly specified by legislation) and common law (the US and Britain: juridical decisions are a major part of forming and developing law). What about Law (Barnard et al.) is a fun and readable overview of main branches of law and its underlying principles. It follows British common law, though many of the legal principles shown will help you understand these principles also for civil law. If you want to learn more after that, I recommend a standard introductory textbook from within your country’s legal system — they are often more readable than you would imagine.

Sustainability and Decarbonisation

This is not a canonical discipline but rather a cluster of highly relevant research focused on the defining challenge of our time — to slow and stop global warming via decarbonising our industries. There are two books that I think give a great overview, and one more that does a strong job at tackling the one aspect I think is highly underrated given that it can make a fast, linear, and massive impact without any technological change required — Agriculture. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Bill Gates) is written in Gates’ formidable style: succinct yet dense and highly readable. It is a great overview beginning to end. Regeneration (Paul Hawken) is a tour-de-force through all the relevant aspects of our life that require action. It is beautifully comprehensive, and after reading it I felt some hope that maybe, just maybe we can turn this ship around. Finally, The 100% Solution (Solomon Goldstein-Rose) did a particularly good job at outlining the massive requirements on energy production that we face, a topic I think getting far too little attention. We produce roughly 25 petawatts per year globally. Counting in increased demand from developing nations (easily predictable), adding electification, carbon-neutral fuel synthesis and other requirements for decarbonisation, we need to produce 100–150 petawatts of sustainable energy by 2050. Given that it will be very hard to convince countries to decomission newly built fossile power plants, the timeline to create economically viable energy capacity is a lot shorter. There is no single plausible way this can happen without a massive increase in nuclear power generation. One note — I think Goldstein-Rose missed out on agriculture’s massive potential for sequestration.

Social Sciences

Psychology and Psychotherapy

Psychology has been tremendously useful to me when running large teams of people. It is surprising how often people act in ways they probably aren’t proud of, either subconsciously, or because of poorly reflected emotions, or because they optimise for things that are not that useful to them (e.g. trying to get ahead by taking credit for the work of others). In all cases, being better equipped to understand how humans operate makes a difference. . Please note that Relationships, Parenting, Emotional Intelligence and Communication (see further down below) and this chapter both deal with Psychology and its related disciplines. I coarsely split the chapters to keep them more readable as a whole. Psychology (David G. Myers) is a classic and enjoyable undergraduate textbook introduction to Psychology.. A great follow-on that introduces current knowledge on prominent mental health issues is Connections(Karl Deisseroth). Prof. Deisseroth is both a practising psychiatrist and a leading researcher into mental health, and interweaves knowledge about mental health issues with examples from his clinical practice.

During my Philosophy major, I focused on Human Anthropology: How did emotions develop? Why do we act the way we do? Are there intrinsic drivers that guide us? If yes, why, and which ones? Though behavioural therapy is often more effective than classic psychotherapy, , I found a lot of provocative thoughts that gave me new perspectives in the classics.

Three classics by the founders of psychotherapy are Understanding Human Nature (Alfred Adler), The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (C.G. Jung), and Sigmund Freud — The Penguin Freud Reader (Adam Philipps ed.) (Freud delivered a lot of his work through lectures rather than books so an edited Reader book works well). From more modern classics, The Drama of the Gifted Child (Alice Miller) covers a wide range of psychotherapeutic concepts, with some more about Narcissism and the influences of our childhood on our adult life. The Bonds of Love. Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (Jessica Benjamin) deals with gender roles and their subliminal influences on the world we live in. Anxiety (Fritz Riemann) deals with four personality types, characterised by how they approach anxiety which Riemann sees as a foundational part of our lives. I thought these three give an excellent insight into modern psychoanalytic thinking and I took away a lot from them. I would probably also start with these three before going back to Freud, Adler and Jung as their style can make for a more challenging read. An outstanding book explaining narcissism and sociopathic personalities by analysing Hitler, Milosevic and other politicians is Narcissism and Power. Psychoanalysis of Mental Disorders in Politics (Hans-Juergen Wirth).

A widespread issue today is depression, overt and hidden. I think it affects most of our societies in some aspect, and as its symptoms can vary significantly between genders and between individuals, it often goes undiagnosed whilst affecting our lives in many ways. I was deeply impressed by I Don’t Want to Talk About It. Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (Terence Real). Real writes about how the way we raise boys and girls takes an essential part of ourselves away from each — men can be assertive, but not show emotions, whilst women can show emotions but not be assertive. I found a lot of truth in it, and the book is a great read overall. Lost Connections (Johann Hari) talks about social influences on depression. I think the books highlight a lot of things that we should avoid — disconnection from meaning in work and in relationships. It is equally important to realise that we know relatively little about depression, though twin-studies show a significant hereditary influence (about 50% — see here for a great overview https://peterattiamd.com/arthurbrooks/). There are also indications about the impact of chronic stress and inflammation responses and the mind-gut axis. When the Body Says No. The Cost of Hidden Stress (Gabor Maté — who also wrote the excellent Scattered Minds about ADD and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts on Addiction) providing another insight into “things we should try and improve” — stressors in our lives and how to tackle them. One of the most promising new avenues of research comes from a broader set of pharmaceuticals long forgotten, and Michael Pollan does an excellent job at guiding through it (How to Change Your Mind. The New Science of Psychedelics)

We don’t know a lot, and thus working on things that we can work on is an approach I think worth pursuing (narrowing gender roles, emotional constraints, meaning in our lives). And staying away from arguments that over promise — celery juice is great, but it won’t heal your life. Neither will Vitamin D, or a gut diet — and still all of them might contribute.

Finally, Influence. The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini) is one of the more influential books I have ever read — in some ways showing off a lot of what psychological insights can do for you. He lays out some psychological findings and helps to apply them in a practical life context.

Sociology, Gender, Inclusion and Race

Introduction to Sociological Theory (Michele Dillon) is my favourite overview of Sociology. It builds upon the great thinkers of Sociology, and these remain highly relevant — Max Weber’s insights on how the protestant work ethic built the foundation for much of our modern world was eye-opening to me.

I have four girl daughters, and in my leadership roles, there were typically more women in the workforce as a share of total. My eyes opened even more when I read Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Perez), a highly readable book based on data about women and their struggles in our society. I think everyone should read this book. Over the more recent years, pronouns, gender identity and a broader, less binary sense of inclusion became much more topical. I think this is very important for many reasons — amongst them, it can help us rethink our own mental templates which can provide much happiness and less constraint in our lives. I thought Life isn’t binary (Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi) was a very helpful read in expressing how often outdated, binary classifications make life hard for far too many of us. It reflects the spectrum of life that happens across sex, gender, relationships, culture, bodies and more. Related, Testosterone (Carole Hooven) shares a lot of science behind the influence of Testosterone on behaviour (there is much more than I suspected) and gender roles and brings a much-appreciated dose of science into a topic very dense in emotions and assumptions.

So You Want to Talk about Race (Ijeoma Oluo) does an excellent job showing how race permeates our daily life as seen through the eyes of a black woman, also explaining why certain things hurt. It also tackles how to best deal with situations involving racial issues. I was very emotionally impacted reading about the childhood of famous Tennis coach Richard Williams in his memoirs Black and White. I did not realise the unbelievable extent of terror black people needed to endure in the South of the US in the 1950s and 1960s.

For anyone in a business context, The Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias (Pamela Fuller, Mark Murphy, Anne Chow) is a quick and practical read, explaining different types of bias, the neuroscience behind them and how to modulate behaviour to avoid them.

Political Science

I have always been very interested in Politics. The more I learned, the more I respect it as an incredibly demanding profession, particularly in walking the narrow path between maintaining your own beliefs in a world that functions through barter trade and compromise. I think there are several angles with which to approach it. There is a historical and a constitutional law angle: How did modern governments evolve? Which laws and underlying beliefs govern them? What differences are there between systems (comparative politics) in theory and in practice? There is a large practical aspect to it that is quite distinct to its country and institutions: Which political parties govern the USA, the UK, Germany? What is their history and their guiding beliefs? How are coalitions formed in practice, etc? Then, there is a more historic and anthropological aspect: Why did certain things evolve to their current state and what can we predict for the future? Many leading thinkers of Political Theory and Philosophy made their contributions here, as did some of the leading Political Scientists of our times, like Fukuyama, Huntington, Popper, Rawles or Chomsky. Finally, there are provocative thinkers that challenge the structures of our status quo.

As I studied law, I didn’t read introductions to Political Science (it was part of the curriculum, alongside constitutional and international law). Political Science for Dummies (Marcus Stadelmann) is a quick and comprehensive overview of key concepts and a good foundation if you have a different background. Another great book that helps understanding foundations of political events is Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall that brings to surface a lot of key geographical insights, many of which were new to me.

I absolutely loved The Origins of Political Order (Francis Fukuyama). It is part history of the world, part evolution of its institutions plus more. The book enhanced my understanding of why certain things are the way they are (e.g. why is there Mafia in Southern Italy but not in Germany?). It is a long read and I was somehow sad when it ended. In the same league was The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Samuel Huntington). The book has a breadth of knowledge and strength of argument that impressed me to this day, enabling me to understand much more about the world we live in. A third one that was equally stunning is Henry Kissinger’s World Order. It wonderfully links Geography, History and Culture together to illustrate their effects in shaping many of the main historic events in the last century. The Myth of the Strong Leader (Archie Brown) is my favourite book on Political Leadership (Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin about a similar leadership style employed by Abraham Lincoln would be another one). It argues that many of the most breath-taking and enduring political results result from people acting deliberately from the background, with low egos and in a highly collaborative way.

If you are still interested, I would then learn about Political Philosophy — Adam Swift wrote a good overview of the same name laying out main thoughts by its influential thinkers.

Against Elections (David van Reybrouck) is a fascinating short read. It lays out why we face a democratic crisis after 70 years of mostly dual-party systems in the Western World. Utopia for Realists (Rutger Bregman) is another thought-provoking book outlining different approaches to current problems. As is often the case, these books are less about agreeing with an author’s thesis than learning from their data, their thinking and using their positions to reflect on my own beliefs and convictions.

Economics

When I studied, I got to view Business Administration as a craft of running a company, and Economics as an underlying science. The more I have witnessed the last 30 years of economic history, the more I understand how little is known about Economics (or more is known, but it doesn’t influence action as economics becomes highly political very fast through fiscal policy. The inflation outbreak in 2022 was a highly expected result of a massive increase in available liquidity in main markets — and still more and more money was printed). In any case, I was always fascinated by Economics, and Freakonomics (Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner) and Naked Economics (Charles Wheelan) are great and highly readable starter into understanding economic concepts and their relevance for our daily life. As a next pick, The Worldly Philosophers (Robert Heilbroner) offers a wonderful overview of classic economic thinkers who defined Economics to this day and remain relevant. A great, excellently written and highly approachable description of economic principles as we have them throughout our lives (from prices to profits, to competition, trade and investments) is Basic Economics (Thomas Sowell). I like how he describes many situations as deciding between trade-offs (e.g. profits (and to some part inequality) are a price to pay for weeding out inefficiencies in a decentral way. One of socialisms largest costs are inefficiencies)

Economics (Mankiw) is a standard undergraduate textbook introduction to Economics and a great and readable pick for anyone who wants a more rigorous overview.

History

There have been strong tendencies in the latter half of the 20th century to transform social sciences into “hard sciences’ ‘ — based on measurable facts and cutting away any larger narratives or explanatory assumptions. I think focusing History, on “facts only” is a fool’s game — who defines a fact in a world that is perceived through its main actors? When Economics started to try and become a hard science, it faced a rude awakening during the 2007 financial crisis when there was little guidance coming from academics — there is only so much you can run controlled experiments about. In brief, I always preferred authors that risk an interpretation of events, their evolution, and consequences, to mere enumerations of documented happenings. It does imply that the reader needs to select what is useful, and what might require critical thought or even be refuted — but it is always much more thought provoking. As the following is quite large, I structure it into Historic Overviews, then Cultural/General Histories, then Archaeology and Early History, followed by more recent books on General History and on “the Rise and Fall of Nations’’, plus some favourite historical novels and some works on Military Strategy and its History. Finally, I share some of my favourite biographies — I tried to slot some of them into the chapters they are most related to, but that sometimes felt a bit forced and so I share these here.

A great foundation is Big History (Big History Institute / David Christian). It covers all of history in an illustrated, concise way and helps put all the other books that follow somehow in perspective. A next favourite is A Little History of the World (E.H. Gombrich). Gombrich got famous for writing the authoritative Story of Art to this day and wanted to bring his passion for history to a broader audience. The book is a wonderfully inspiring and easy read. A similar work written by another outstanding and even more famous scholar and writer is A Short History of the World (H.G. Wells ). It stops after the first World War as it was written back then, but that shouldn’t keep you from reading it .

One of my all-time favourite books is A Cultural History of the Modern Age (Egon Friedell). Boundless in ambition and scope, Friedell, who might have been one of the most broadly educated people of the 20th century (read the books…) weaves together culture (literature, philosophy, music) with politics into the richest history you could think of. I also think his approach might be the only one to do justice to history, as all history happens in a cultural context, and all culture happens in a historic context. He writes in an anecdotal style, and there will be plenty of opportunities to prove him wrong on details — still, its outline, premise and sheer intellectual strength are just beautiful. He wrote the books whilst also being an actor, director, writer and translator. It seems the 1910s to 30s were a golden time for bolder histories. The UK for instance had A Study of History (Toynbee) and the Germans had Decline of the West (Spengler). Somehow related to Friedell, though much shorter and written by one of the 20th century’s leading novelists, Stefan Zweig’s autobiography “The World of Yesterday” is a breath-taking memoir and cultural history of the early 20th century. Both Friedell and Zweig killed themselves as a result of Hitler’s rise. A more recent example of a history that spans all humanity through one narrative angle, Michael Mann wrote a four-volume history of the world through the lens of power structures that I thought excellent, The Sources of Social Power. It lies between History and Sociology, and although a lengthy read was worth it all and more to me.

Regarding Archaeology and earlier histories, there are three outstanding books to me. First, Gods, Graves and Scholars (C.W. Ceram) is a great book about the golden age of Archaeology and presumably one of the main suppliers for Archaeology students decades after its release. It makes you yearn to be part of these epic adventures unfolding in the 19th century. The Chalice and the Blade (Riane Eisler) is a best-selling early-history book, and for good reasons. It is written by a master of her discipline and it unearths so much about life and about us. A lot of history was written by men, and often in a grossly dishonest way, leaving out plenty of evidence that was against their prevailing views. Eisler shows us plenty of thought-provoking evidence of early history and the role of women in it — and there are plenty of spaces along the partnership-domination continuum. Finally, amongst these three is a book that reminded me a lot of Eisler, although it is more recent and has a broader reach. The Dawn Of Everything. A New History Of Humanity (David Graeber and David Wengrow) outlines how much of early history science was frankly shit, and how much to this day it sticks with us. There was no “one directional” “hunter to farmer to industrial” teleological development.There is plenty of evidence humans opted for autocracy, only to then move back to a more democratic and egalitarian way of life. It seems we have had a lot more freedom in deciding on our fates after all.

Building upon the early histories of mankind, two books did a great job at bringing Greece and Rome to life, Athens (Christian Meier), and SPQR (Mary Beard).

The last decade seems to have brought a lot of life back to history for the broader public. Sapiens (released in English in 2014) (Yuval Noah Harari) reminded me of Friedell in the strength and boldness of his style. It doesn’t touch Culture (which I think would crown it for the reason outlined above) though it does have this beautiful intellectual grasp across humanity’s timeline — and it is a lot shorter than Friedell. The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan) did a wonderful job in shining a light on trade and on the silk road — both of which were a major catalyst and drive of all our history. It also reminded me to read more about Asian history (particularly India, China and Japan), and once I do, I will update this section.

I love books that aim at understanding why some nations do better than others, and some of my favourite books are written in this sub-genre. The first one I read and loved is Wealth and Poverty of Nations (David Landes). Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel is another classic in this field I thoroughly enjoyed. How Asia Works (Joe Studwell) is the single best analysis I know on how to bring a country out of poverty (and how not to). It investigates Asian countries and identifies three policies that created repeatable results. It is precise, well-argued and persuasive. From Third World to First (Lee Kuan Yew) , offers a first-hand account of efforts to build up Singapore over five decades, arguably the most successful country transformation ever.

Historic novels can be a beautiful genre. Several stand out to me: The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follet), The Physician (Noah Gordon). The Accursed Kings (Maurice Druon) Ivanhoe (Walter Scott) and — written much later — The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), which is one of the defining historical novels of the Middle Ages). Druon was France’s culture minister, a long-standing member of the Académie Francaise (a leading French cultural institution) and a humanist scholar. The books depict the 100-year war between France and Britain and as I read much later, George R.R. Martin who wrote the books behind Game of Thrones cited it as a major influence. I wish all of them would have lasted a lot longer.

Biographies and Company Stories

Maybe the greatest autobiography ever written, Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a spectacular book in any respect, and one of the few books I read twice.

Coming from a career in technology companies, I enjoyed Steve Jobs and The Innovators ( both Walter Isaacson). Two wonderful books on the business of creativity are Walt Disney (Neal Gabler) and Creativity Inc. (Ed Catmull). I thought both held a lot of lessons on how to build any company, and how to manage for creativity in particular.

On political biographies, I thought Long Walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela) and The General (Jonathan Fenby) on Charles de Gaulle were great books.

Military History and Strategy

I always believed there was a lot to learn by bringing core insights from one discipline to another. I approached Military Strategy and History for this reason, and it unfortunately became a lot more relevant recently. There are a few books I enjoyed, all for different reasons. To this day, my recommended starter is The 33 Strategies of War (Robert Greene). Greene did a great job distilling learnings from Military Strategy, sharing their application within history, and helping to build a bridge from these insights into more broad applications throughout our lives.

The Mask of Command (John Keegan) was another great starter book for me, as it looks at four historical military leaders, their historical context, and the strategic insights we can take from their actions. Military Strategy. A Very short introduction (Antulio J. Echevarria II) provides a concise overview of key elements of military strategy, underpinned by when they were deployed and their results. In Military Power, Stephen Biddle explains in detail using plenty of examples, why complex manoeuvre warfare is a superior strategy, if and only if, you can pull it off. It reminded me a lot of business in that there are often superior strategies that require a unique culture and skill level to deploy — and if you are not honest to yourself about having it or not, they can either succeed or fail spectacularly. It is less of an overview and more of an up to date thesis on military strategy, which made it even more interesting to me.

One classic in the field is Strategy (Liddell Hart). He shares insights on how Hitler’s military strategy exceeded traditional ideas of war and battlefield scopes. His book Mein Kampf also revealed his objectives a long time before action was taken. It also highlights how the West initially appeased him, even though he was very explicit about what he aimed to do (and the parallels to Putin these days). Another one I enjoyed a lot was the comprehensive Military Strategy by John M. Collins.

Three defining origin texts of strategy are On War (Carl von Clausewitz), The Art of War (Sun Tzu) and The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) — the last one straddling Politics, Power and Strategy. I found them all to be both relevant and rewarding in their clarity of thought. Do note that Clausewitz has a German writing style that makes reading a bit more strenuous (many others, including Immanuel Kant, suffer from that in my opinion).

Business and Investing

In Management, I think you should know whatever you manage very well. And then expand these areas over time. Jeff Bezos called this “high standards”. In his own words from the Amazon 2017 shareholder letter: “What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result — “the scope.” I think a great way to understand what to look for is to read about disciplines. Over the years, I needed to learn about Retailing, Marketing, Talent, Finance, Operations, Engineering. Most of it I learned from the people doing it — and for them to invest time in teaching me, showing that I did my homework was invaluable.

Strategy, Leadership, Management

There are three books I like as “first reads” on strategy (with my angle on tech/digital/ecommerce companies). The Outsiders (William Thorndike) is, to me, the single best book on what it means to act strategically as a CEO. Good to Great (Jim Collins) is a classic and full of examples of how to (and not to) build great companies. Start with Why (Simon Sinek) lays out well how to create desire in customers to instil loyalty, and how tactics follow strategy, and strategy follows purpose (the “why”).

In management, there are plenty and I would start with three: High Output Management (Andy Grove), Radical Candor (Kim Scott), and The Hard Things About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz). Grove is probably the most read, whilst Scott is more recent. Both complement each other very well. Horowitz has more of a tech and start-up angle. For anyone aiming to work in the broader tech industry I think all three are mandatory reads.

On more hands-on aspects of management (helpful and essential tools to run companies), Measure What Matters (John Doerr) describes the probably most-used metric driven approach to leadership. I think this approach works excellently if implemented well (and that is a big “if”, though that doesn’t weaken the concept). The Great CEO Within is written by executive coach Matt Mochary, who has also open-sourced a lot of his tools in 2022. Both the book and the tools (google them) are a great starter for anyone managing people. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Marshall Goldsmith) is another great book, and I found myself far too much in his “twenty habits that hold you back”. I find most of the challenges in running a company are the same across industries — so not wasting time on re-inventing the wheel is essential to then have enough time to focus on the few things that truly can differentiate your company. Whatever guidelines, systems and approaches you use to reduce effort on these “common” challenges matters less than getting the work done in high quality and without excessive effort. Mochary’s book is a great way into that. The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team (Patrick Lencioni) was invaluable to me in learning the importance and how-to of forging an executive team.

There are two more high-level skills related to Management: communication and negotiation. Both partly overlap. Communication has two components: a craft component, which is excellently covered by the classic Pyramid Principle (Barbara Minto). It explains how to communicate in a way that makes best use of the reader’s or listener’s time, and thus signals respect for the other’s time. The broader aspect of communication is about being aware of your emotions before communicating, and finding ways to express your observations and conclusions, not your preconceived notions or inferred judgements (look for the ladder of inference to learn more). I cover this in the Relationships, Parenting, Emotional Intelligence and Communication section.

On negotiation, Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher and William Ury) is a classic and focuses on Negotiations that “make the pie larger”. Negotiation (Richard Luecke) is a bit broader as it also covers strategies in zero-sum negotiation (which are naughty and can often be turned into negotiations where both can win — that said, the tactics described are valuable ).

Marketing

I think about Marketing along 4 disciplines. Defining the Brand, then Brand or Above-the-line Marketing, then Performance and Retention Marketing and finally PR.

Defining the brand requires a story, a vision and mission, a reason to be. This then flows into the corporate identity — logo, website, app. A lot of the success of Airbnb was built on this, and I think surprisingly few businesses put enough emphasis on this point. The quality of your brand pervades everything, everywhere and thus it needs to reflect your vision at its best. On defining the brand, Start with Why (featured above under Management) is essential reading. Contagious (Jonah Berger) puts surprisingly actionable thoughts behind word of mouth, which again is an essential growth driver for businesses. There is a lot in there for marketeers, leaders and product managers. The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell) is a great and rightfully famous book about why systems “tip” or change catches on, and very interesting for any marketeer. Once you have understood the basic mission of your brand, Branding: In Five And A Half Steps (Michael Johnson) is a standard work on how to move ahead from there. The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding (Al and Laura Ries) is a thought-provoking brand how-to and how-not-to overview along 22 rules. . All-Inclusive Tv. How Booming Brands Are Reimagining TV Advertising (Chuck Hengel) is a good introduction to TV advertising (even though I wished they could have written more about producing an actual TV commercial, which can bind a lot of resources and can have wild swings in production costs). It does have a surprisingly deep chapter on TV attribution which in my experience is one of the key elements in media optimisation which in turn is critical in achieving good TV channel performance.

On Storytelling, which is in many ways a foundation to “telling your brand story”, I think Rule the World. Master the Power of Storytelling (Paul Furlong) is a broadly useful introduction. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell) covers the power of myth in our lives and was the basis for Star Wars. It gave me an entirely new perspective on a common journey we might all face going through life. Meanwhile, Save the Cat (Blake Snyder) is focused on the profession of screenwriting and for anyone interested in movies a great read. Finally, Everybody Writes by Ann Handley is a good overview of how to write well. I was surprised to see the impact that just writing better emails had on my career.

Performance Marketing has revolutionised Marketing and is the foundation of both Google and Meta as businesses. Particularly for e-commerce businesses, performance marketing is typically the foundation of their marketing spend as it offers unique advantages — you know who clicked on which ad, and then again who bought as a result. There is an incredible amount of data that you can use both to optimise how much each individual ad is worth to you, and to optimise your product (if many people show interest but few buy — that seems to be a great opportunity to optimise your product). Done well, these two factors can provide invaluable advantages against traditional brick-and-mortar retail and against your competition. Building on that, retention marketing is the art and science of bringing customers back for repeated purchases, mostly by sending them highly targeted communications.
The traditional challenge in executing performance and retention marketing well has been that it has very little to do with marketing. I think of it as a mix of applied data science and marketing engineering and if it is not staffed like that, it will most likely not be done well. It is about building a highly performing technology stack, including customer identification (“from cookies and devices to a person”), profiling (“what can we infer they like”), storefront tailoring (show them what they like to see based on historical or probabilistic data), bidding algorithms (how much is an ad shown to this person worth), performance attribution (which channel, which ad gets how much of the profit given that most customers have several touchpoints before ordering) and communications tailoring (should we send a sales push notification about product x to their smartphone, and if yes, which day, how often and at what time of day?).
That is a long way of explaining why I don’t know of any good books about it — it is highly specialised, very dynamic and constantly evolving. Books that are somewhat valuable with limitations are: Email Marketing Rules (Chad White) which gives a brief overview of Email Marketing, and many principles are equally helpful for app notifications. I would also recommend reading about email and apps as a technology (which information is transmitted? How do the protocols work? Wikipedia works well for that). Advanced Google Adwords (Brad Geddes) is not that advanced, but a good overview. It is a bit old and much has changed but to understand the key building blocks of performance marketing it is useful (there might be newer and better ones — I used this one back in the day). Data-driven Marketing (Mark Jeffery) gives to this day a good overview of key metrics and concepts across all marketing channels. How we measure and optimise has progressed a lot due in large part to machine learning, though Jeffery does lay out the foundational concepts well. If your business is less consumer and more B2B oriented, Crossing the Chasm (Geoffrey Moore) is a classic read for disruptive businesses.

The Little Book Of Big PR (Jennefer Witter) is a great primer about how PR works — and PR has been a main growth engine for many of the big businesses of our times (think Airbnb).

Sales

Sales is an essential function for any B2B or B2B2C company. The Ultimate Sales Machine (Chad Holmes) is excellent and his learnings on sales skills are valuable for many life situations.

Retailing

I consider retailing anything that involves a physical store and a consumer, or a digital store and a consumer (e-commerce). That means retail banking, selling phones, gas stations, supermarkets, fashion and many more. Retailing is omnipresent in our lives, and I think understanding one of the core industries of our world better is very helpful in many ways.

Why We Buy (Paco Underhill) is a very interesting overview of how people shop, what matters to them and how to use that in defining retail. It is focused on brick-and-mortar retail though I found many insights to carry over to online.

Retailing Management (Michael Levy et al.) is a good and easy to read textbook covering foundational knowledge of retail in a comprehensive way. It helped me a lot when I started working in retail.

Made in America (Sam Walton) and The Everything Store (Brad Stone) are chronicles of the two most influential retail businesses of our times, Walmart and Amazon. I would add IKEA there as they drove so many innovations in retail, but I didn’t find a good book on it. Smart Success. What Alibaba’s Success Reveals About The Future Of Strategy (Ming Zeng) shares core insights into Alibaba, and from my vantage point of having run a large e-commerce operation, I think the future of e-commerce innovation lies in China. The Luxury Strategy (Jean-Nöel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien) is highly relevant as it explains how entirely different high-end luxury retail and marketing works. Writing this at the tend of 2022, Bernard Arnault again became the world’s richest person. Luxury is highly relevant and to understand how it works, why it works and how it contrasts to mass market retailing is valuable.

Analytics, Data science and Applied Statistics

Over the last two decades (2002–2022) two revolutions happened in how we can run businesses: Firstly, we have gained unparalleled access to customer data. Second, we can make this data useful, and far beyond that, we can employ self-learning algorithms that far exceed the performance of traditional business-rules based algorithms (in a business-rules based algorithm, you conduct analyses to inform an algorithm — like saying put more weight on a customer purchase than on the basket size, in a fixed way. In a more modern way, we would employ machine learning in which we point to an optimisation goal (e.g. maximise customer lifecycle profit), feed it with everything needed, and let the algorithm decide how to achieve that). The difference in performance between these is staggering.

I found that Data science, along with Engineering in general, and Performance Marketing, sometimes have a certain “intellectual wall” around them which makes it hard to manage them as an executive. It can feel to non-technical folks like something too hard to get into in a meaningful way. I think that is dangerous and wrong. It is possible for non-technical people to become competent and value-adding leaders of these disciplines. It does require an investment in foundational knowledge, and in recent years, I think without that investment it is increasingly hard to be a strong executive. Fortunately, the investment needed for data science, performance marketing, plus aspects of operations (e.g. peak volume forecasts) and storefront engineering (e.g., product ranking) is overlapping.

Genius makers (Cade Metz) is an inspirational introduction to the recent history of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence and an interesting, non technical starter into how much of what is happening in data these days evolved. Data Smart (John Foreman) is my go-to starter for anyone interested in Data science from an accessible and still slightly technical perspective. Foreman rebuilds simplified conceptual algorithms using Excel, which I thought was a great idea as a learning tool. I think every executive or manager should read it. Building upon it becomes a bit more challenging, as the industry is very dynamic. I found Data Analysis using SQL and Excel (Gordon Linoff) helpful. It fulfils two functions, and one might be sufficient for most people. It describes what is possible and the intellectual effort required (it helps you as a leader to calibrate how hard certain things are, which is critical), and it gives highly practical guidance. If you read it for the first function, it is a reasonably fast and highly productive read. For anyone interested beyond that, Deep Learning (Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, Aaron Courville) is a leading (and quite readable) textbook even for non-technically trained readers and currently probably the most famous one in the area.

Practical Statistics for Data Scientists (Peter Bruce et al.) is a great book about statistics in an applied context and a very important read for anyone who deals closely with A/B tests, product development or data. Naked Statistics (Charles Wheelan) is a great starter into statistics and does not require any previous knowledge or technical notation.

Web Analytics 2.0 (Avinash Kaushik) is a classic book outlining core metrics around the web. If you have anything to do with e-commerce or the web — and you don’t know the concepts well yet — this is mandatory reading.

Operations and Supply Chain

Operations isboth a way of thinking and a set of distinct disciplines with overlapping experience pools. Operations-style thinking and principles are extremely relevant for pockets of activities across all businesses, from running people processes (HR departments — hiring, onboarding, people analytics, learning and development all have large process components) or for running deployment in tech organisations. The Goal (Eliyahu Goldratt) and The Gold Mine (Freddy and Michael Ballé) are two similar books outlining key principles of manufacturing and operations in a narrative story-telling style. I would particularly recommendThe Goal to anyone doing business in no matter which discipline as the insights carry over into many other areas. Customer Service typically rolls into a COO/Head of Operations and is one of the most essential things to get right in any business. I think it is essential to understand it as a marketing (and thus growth/profit) function as well as a cost centre and to constantly balance these two perspectives. A great short book on how Zappos built a lot of their success on outstanding customer service is Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh). It was a key-read in San Francisco tech companies for many years. Contact Centre Management on Fast Forward (Brad Cleveland) is a great overview of how to run a call centre — which is typically at the forefront of customer contacts (unless you operate a brick-and-mortar retail operation — and even then this will be a major share of your customer contacts). If your executives including the CEO do not take customer calls occasionally, you are likely doing something wrong. These calls are a great insight on what customers really think, and what your business is not doing well.

There are several disciplines within operations that are important to understand particularly if you are in retail, e-commerce or requiring a logistics footprint. I like five textbooks to provide a good start and overview into how to think about Operations and its core concepts (e.g. Peak, Critical Path, Constraints, Bullwhip, Production Stability and Lost Sales, Inventories, Pick and Pack, Freight forwarding, Unit economics, Damage and Defective units, Waste, Reverse logistics, Forecasting, Constant Learning, Six Sigma, Total Logistics Cost/Total Cost of Ownership). Operations Management (Nigel Slack et al.) is a good and comprehensive overview of Operations in general. The Handbook of Logistics and Distribution Management (Alan Rushton et al.) is a second textbook, this one focused on all aspects of transportation. It is comprehensive and highly helpful. Mastering Import and Export Management (Thomas A. Cook et al.) is a pleasantly practical overview of key steps in outsourcing production overseas, the import process and a lot of terminology that you should know — there is an abundance of things you can get wrong easily. Warehouse Management (Gwynne Richards) is the best textbook I found on the topic. For anyone involved in e-commerce, logistics or retail I can highly recommend knowing a decent amount about warehousing and fulfilment. It makes the (indispensable) visits to warehouses a lot more productive for you and the local teams. The Logistics and Supply Chain Toolkit (Gwynne Richards and Susan Grinsted) provides a lot of templates/checklists/tools that I found to be overlapping with a lot of concepts used in real life.

Finally, two more well-written and highly interesting books that deal with key innovations in the field of operations that literally power much of our modern world. The Box (Marc Levinson) is a classic, describing the birth and adoption of modern container shipping — the backbone of globalisation. The Machine that changed the World (James Womack, Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos) is a great overview of automotive manufacturing (the largest manufacturing industry in the world), and how Toyota became its leader through lean manufacturing — with its principles now being applied in technology start-ups as well as across most industries.

Product Management, Graphics Design, User Research & User Interface, Experience Design

I clustered a few disciplines together as they interact heavily in creating modern technology products. A product manager is the general manager of a certain product or feature — think “ships within 2 days” for an e-commerce site. They work with the Operations and Supply Chain teams to find out which items are eligible. They work with Category Management to find the Suppliers that can participate. They then provide a cost-benefit analysis on the feature, and if agreed, put together a team. There would be a user researcher looking into if customers want fast ship, at which “cost”, and for which items they like the most. Then, there would be a user interface/experience designer thinking about how customers could find that feature, e.g. if it should be a dedicated filter on the website. The graphics designer would then think about colours for the feature, maybe a small icon, and probably also some advertising banners once launched. The product manager then puts all this together and staffs some computer engineers on it who will write the actual feature code. At the same time, she needs to find out with engineering leadership all the teams that need to be involved to ensure the new feature implements well — it will affect search, product rank, it needs to flow through the relevant databases (fulfilment teams need to know which items should ship faster, returns teams need to know, etc). There is quite a lot of heavy load here particularly if the code base of a company is convoluted (most are as they grew organically over years). Then, the new feature gets tested and put to devOps which will put it into a production environment (meaning — putting it into live databases and web servers). It will then be tested again before it will be switched on. Web Analytics will track performance in minute detail, and feed that back to Product Management. Product Management will then work with Marketing to promote the feature, and report back to Leadership.

As you can tell by now, it is a heavily cross-functional role, and there is not a set curriculum for it. Some people come from Engineering, some from Design, others learn it through apprenticeship on the job. Some come from business. The best book I have read putting it all together is from Marty Cagan, Inspire. I would strongly recommend it to anyone working in any function at a tech company. The other highly relevant book is The Lean Startup (Eric Riess) which illustrates many of the success principles modern companies and teams have been centred around (though always with a product angle).

Graphic Design School (David Dabner, Sandra Stewart, Abbie Vickress) offers a comprehensive introduction into Graphic Design and its constituents. Two of the three founders at airbnb went to the famous Rhode Island School of Design and working alongside them taught me a lot about the importance of Design. I think most companies would benefit from better design, as it pervades all customer touchpoints and affects customers in conscious and subliminal ways. Don’t Make Me Think (Steve Krug) is an excellent primer on usability design. The Elements Of User Experience (Jesse James Garrett) is more practical in that it maps how actual UX teams work. Lean UX (Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden), another quick read, has some useful terminology and examples of actual work.

The Design of Everyday Things (Dan Norman) offers classic foundational reading. I was intrigued that Norman used the two modes of cognition (fast and slow) that Kahneman championed (Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow). Norman gives a lot of foundations to design in psychology and human centricity and it is a great base for all kinds of design.

Observing The User Experience (Elizabeth Goodman) is a practice-oriented textbook giving a comprehensive overview of the methods of user research, which again is foundational to all good design and product management.

Any good feature, product of online marketing needs to be tested. Design valid tests that are improving your results in desirable ways can be very hard. Trustworthy online controlled experiments (Ron Kohavi et al.) is an excellent and sufficiently profound guide and highly recommended.

Computer Engineering

I am not a trained Engineer and have not developed an expertise comparable to other disciplines (knowing what good looks like and how much time/resources it should take to get there). That said, I have a solid idea of web architecture, code quality, metrics, and engineering talent. For people like me who are not formally trained, the following books can be a very high value-adding start.

Fundamental Concepts Of Web Development (Roxane Antequetil) is a useful primer around basic web architecture. You can focus only on the opening chapters if you are short on time.

Three classic books on Engineering that are quite accessible are Clean Code, the Clean Coder and Clean Architecture all by Robert C. Martin. Finally, the Phoenix Project (Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford) uses lean manufacturing ideas on development operations, which is often an endless source of issues in technical organisations. In modern tech companies, there are several departments involved in producing software that customers can use — Product Management which is often the “general manager” and process manager of software projects. Then, the software teams (writing the code) together with Design (how will it look and work) and User Research (will customers like it). Finally, the applied analytics team (web analytics to measure success, data science for machine learning/advanced algorithms) and the devOps teams (the ones that make the code run in a “production environment” — meaning a data base and web servers that can be accessed by customers. If software engineers write code fast, but not “scalably” it needs to be rewritten. The software teams “delivered on time” but the project will be delayed. Think about how much fun it is to disentangle the blame contest that can develop. The Phoenix Project does a good job helping you see through it.

Finance, Accounting and Tax

People who study finance can work in very different jobs. There are people investing or trading in stocks and commodities (we look at this under investing, mostly hedge funds, investment banks, family offices, investment trusts), people buying and selling companies (Private Equity and Investment banking Mergers & Acquisitions) and then there is corporate finance (how to manage the finances of corporations). We will deal with this aspect here. A Chief Financial Officer of a Corporation typically has a few core functions reporting to her: Investor Relations (managing investors), Corporate Finance (raising money — can often be one function with Investor Relations), Accounting and Tax (often incl. Payroll), Treasury and Cash (can include Accounts receivable and payable). Essentials of Corporate Finance (Stephen Ross et al.) has been a standard textbook since I studied Finance. It is well-written and has a lot of examples. A shorter version for anyone touching Finance more lightly, Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (same authors) is a great start.

Taxes and Accounting are often neglected maybe because to many the subject sounds dry. That said, there is a lot of money in knowing them well and I can recommend getting into their principles well, as they apply throughout the world (individual accounting and tax laws differ, but the underlying principles are surprisingly common). In times of remote work, where you work can have a much larger impact than before (e.g. earn in a high-income country, live in a high living quality country). Taxes are often quite complex in these cases. For taxes, most introductory books are more specialised to their jurisdiction. What Everyone Needs To Know About Tax (James Hannam) is quite broadly applicable though, as his structure holds true across countries (taxes on income, on spending, on corporations, on assets etc).

For Accounting explained in simple, very useful terms, the Warren Buffet Accounting Book (Stig Broderson, Preston Pysh) is a great start. For anyone wanting to “understand the language of business”, (plus for anyone into investing)this is a great foundation text. Anyone having to do more with Accounting, Financial and Management Accounting (Pauline Weetman) is an illuminating resource.

Human Resources and Talent

If your business scales, a significant part of your time and your success will come down to recruiting (hire the people), culture (make sure they are productive as part of your company), learning and development (train them to be at their best for a certain role, and to grow over time) and talent processes (performance management, compensation, organisation charts, approval rules). If you can hire better performing people than competitors, or make your teams perform better, you’ll likely win over time. The Essential HR Handbook (Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell) is doing exactly what it promises — it goes through all the essential talent functions and gives a brief outline of what you should aim to accomplish. It also has a solid list of further reading. I found that there is often a lack of emphasis on talent functions, and that building excellence in these can be a sustainable source of competitive advantages (better people that become productive faster, that refer more friends, that grow into stronger leaders, that forge a culture that achieves excellence). A great further reference is Netflix’s original HR and culture slide deck — you can find it on google.

Investing

I spent most of my career to date operating companies and now have both the need and time to think more about investing. There is a typical distinction in the business world between investors (people providing resources to companies) and operators (people putting these resources to good use). The more I understand about both, the more I side with Warren Buffet: “ I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am no investor”. I found both to have a larger amount of skill required than most people would believe. There are few “born leaders” or “born investors” — there are plenty of people who enjoy a certain repetitive task to do it long enough, with enough energy and passion, to become really good at it. That holds true for any profession in my experience, and sheer craftsmanship is often underrated. Adding to that, the craft or skill required is sometimes hidden to the undiscerning eye. A great manager has a great, sustained source of emotional energy, as the job drains a lot, you are under constant vigilance, and you need to be constantly at your best. A great investor needs to withstand ridicule by his peers and stakeholders as this job requires a contrarian mind. Enduring sustained periods where others win and you look like you’re “not getting it”, whilst staying true to your beliefs, requires a distinct character. In essence, both jobs are hard in ways that are less obvious than “strategy, accounting, valuation”. These are mere entry tickets to a game played in different ways.

Investing plays on a spectrum between active and passive, and I think it is helpful to start here to investigate investment as a profession. On the very active end is someone buying a company because they believe they themselves can make it a lot better. They bundle their financial resources (investing) and their operating resources, believing they have capabilities which outstrip the exiting team The downside is that the number of investments is limited by their time, and their personal risk is often very high (you cannot scale your own time — it is much more finite than money). On the passive end would be someone buying a wide bundle of bonds or stocks (a typical example being index-funds tracking a size-weighted representation of an industry, country, or asset class). They have no say in how a company or asset is run, and most often no say in which asset will be invested in (other than their selection of a fund bound to a certain asset type).

On the active end, we have Private Equity and Venture Capital (and Venture Debt as a more structured analogous part). In the middle of the spectrum, we have Value Investors. Moving more to the right, we have Hedge funds and distressed debt (different types, but can take significant operational decisions), traders (often done by large investment banks, trading in arbitrage where they think an asset is undervalued in one market vs another, or over time — very active in their decisions, but very passive in the sense that they don’t partake in operational decisions by their underlying assets/companies), Investment trusts (funds with managers who pick investments for you, and charge for their skill to beat the market), and then ETFs (exchange traded funds — where you buy a fraction of someone mirroring a certain index (e.g., S&P 500, CAC40, FTSE100) or asset class).

Looking at it at a high level, I think there are three kinds of skills required to invest well. First, emotional control: Be able to stick to your premise, even if the whole world seems to move against you for a prolonged time (lots of people buy high and sell low — profiting from that is a significant part of how great investors make their money). Second, sheer intellect and financial acumen (understanding if an asset is undervalued — that requires assessing their strategy, their execution capabilities, their competition, and their ability to coral the resources they will need). Third, experience over a long time (30–50 years) through a combination of yourself and your mentors (there are key macrocycles that move over decades not years and many leaders and investors who have not weathered even a regular depression will make grave mistakes in their first one).

There were a few people in investing that became successful in an extraordinary way, and to me following them was a great way to understand more about investing in a practical way. Most famous are probably Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway) — they define Value Investing, a semi-active form of investing (they do not interfere with daily operations, but they pick the leaders very carefully, mentor them, and they often buy control or significant shares of businesses). Then, there are private equity funds, with David Rubinstein (Carlyle Group) as a leading example. For Hedge funds and traders, the most successful being Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater (Principles is a great start, and then Big Debt Crises And The Changing World Order which looks into the rise and fall of empires in a particular data driven way). The person that defined exchange traded funds is Larry Fink (Blackrock). In the Venture Capital Sphere, I am most familiar with Andreesen Horowitz, Sequoia (both among the leading American funds) and Lakestar (a leading European fund by Klaus Hommels who managed more 10bn plus exits than anyone else in Europe) — there are more, and I mentioned the ones I can attest to personally. A great book introducing many of these — and their asset classes — is How to Invest by David Rubinstein himself. Investing is complex, as it lies in the intersection of different potentially unrelated movements. There is the macroeconomic situation (Is the economy around you favourable to your business?) There is the company strategy (Are you doing something that can create strong profits over a sustained time?) Then there is company execution and leadership (Are you doing the right things to make the strategy work?) Understanding all three is complex. A good start to many of the required macroeconomic basics is Naked Money (Charles Wheelan) which covers how money creation works, what inflation is and what economic cycles are. Building on that, I loved The Ascent of Money, in which Niall Ferguson writes a history of money, debt and financing. Boom and Bust. A Story of Financial Bubbles (William Quinn and John Turner) provides a comprehensive story of market bubbles which is mandatory knowledge for anyone investing.

My start to understanding investing better were Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet. To this day, a compilation of Munger’s speeches and writings in Charlie Munger’s Almanac (Peter Kaufman ed.) is one of my all-time favourite books for many different reasons. It feels to me like reading the essence of a person who figured out life in a broad sense, and the clarity of thought he employs to describe their Coke investment is unparalleled. The Warren Buffet Way (Robert Hagstrom) explains Munger’s and Buffet’s main principles and approach very well. He also mentions their favourite investment books which I liked even though they are quite old — investment principles don’t seem to age. Many of their examples are hard to relate to (many of the companies ceased to exist), but the gist is clear and compelling. Security Analysis, and The intelligent investor (Benjamin Graham) are written by Buffet’s mentor Benjamin Graham. Common Stocks and Uncommon profits (Philip Fischer) is another classic of which his checklist I think is extremely useful to this day, and has helped me also as an operator running businesses. The most important thing (Howard Marks) is by another of the most outstanding investors over a very long time (which is what really matters — anyone can beat the market for a short while. Doing it over decades is the incredibly hard thing. Munger wrote “It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid”). The little book that beats the market (Joel Greenblatt) and The little book of common sense investing (John Bogle) are additional classics outlining key thoughts of value investing. Warren Buffet and the Interpretation of Financial Statements (Mary Buffett and David Clark) is a helpful base to understand how Buffet and other value investors look at companies from a financial data basis. The education of a value investor is about the journey of Guy Spier through the world of investing, landing on being a value investor in today’s times. A random walk down Wall Street (Burton Malkiel) is a regularly updated, easy-to-read introduction to investing. It also covers things that Buffet would frown upon like technical analysis, and I generally thought it most helpful to “know what is out there”. The

Looking beyond the principles of value investing and more into the world of trading, The Art of Execution (Lee Freeman-Shor) is a short read with broad implications on investing and on psychology. It shows how different personality types deal with trading success and failure, and what to learn from it. I certainly learned a lot. The Psychology of Money (Morgan Housel) goes in a similar direction and does a very good job at describing what money can do to us. Market Wizards (Jack D. Schwager) is a collection of interviews with leading traders. There are brief overviews of asset classes and their trading intricacies. I thought it was a great way to glimpse into the world of trading. There is from the same author The New Market Wizards and Hedge Fund Market Wizards. As he interviews truly interesting people and the read is an easy one, I thought all three were an excellent use of my time. Richer, Wiser, Happier (William Green) is a similar overview of leading investors, though in a narrated style (vs as interviews) and across asset classes. It helped me in a fashion like How to Invest in giving me an idea of the industry leaders out there and their perspectives.

Over the last years, a set of novel technologies evolved, often called Crypto or Bitcoin. It is undeniable that the underlying technology is a breakthrough (establishing trust in decentral networks), and I am curious and hopeful that highly useful applications will evolve — before there are any, investments are highly speculative and without underlying value (which might still work for you). The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains (Anthony Lewis) gives a good overview, including the technological ideas underlying it.

Last, there are two books that are a bit more practical in terms of educating a broad range of people on how to think about money and investing, Money (Tony Robbins) and Rich dad, poor dad (Robert Kiyosaki). I particularly liked the way Kiyosaki put it all in terms of the story of a young kid growing up.

Arts

Fashion

Over the years I developed much more interest in fashion to self-express, develop a more personal taste and understand design principles in a day-to-day way. It is also surprisingly helpful to see the impact you can have on people without having spoken or acted, but by the way you dress.

The Little Dictionary Of Fashion (Christian Dior) is written by Christian Dior himself, about fashion for women. It is an outstanding and practical overview of how and why fashion works. Masters of Fashion (Maria Luisa Tagariello) is the best overview of fashion I have found as it explains the uniqueness of the defining fashion houses and designers using great photography. In addition, Elegance. The Beauty of French Fashion and Iconic. The Masters of Italian Fashion, both by Megan Hess, a great fashion illustrator, give a fun and brief overview of the iconic styles of the world’s great fashion houses. Picking up monthly copies of Vogue is another great way to understand more about fashion. The Fabric of Civilisation (Virginia Postrel) investigates the garments and dyes that bring fashion alive and the businesses and histories that underpin one of the defining industries of our time (five of the richest people alive, Bernard Arnault, Amancio Ortega, the Wertheimers, Leonardo del Veccio, Francois Pinault all made their money in fashion). Dressing the Man (Alan Fusser) is a great way to get started on men’s fashion. It seems quite traditional, though I think most of what is mentioned holds true even if you want to dress more contemporary (e.g., cuts, form, how to wear trousers).

I recently read a few books on sustainability of fashion with two standing out to me. Fibershed (Rebecca Burgess) investigates how clothing is produced, and what it would take for us to produce it in a more regional way. I was particularly interested in how much dye can be toxic. Fashionopolis (Dana Thomas) is a well-written short history of fast fashion and its implications on the world, and thoughts on how to move post it (though Fibershed is I think more far-reaching).

Music

I always loved music. I think it can be a great mood regulator, an inspiration, a way to connect with others. I like reading about music to discover new music, to understand some more complex music and to learn about the stories behind some composers and performers. I’ll cover it in three parts: classical music, jazz, and popular music (pop, rock, metal, electronic dance, hip hop and rhythm and blues).

How to listen to great music (Robert Greenenberg) is one of my two favourite audiobooks ever (other being Ben Kingsley reading Autobiography of a Yogi; it exists as both, though given the music samples and incredible passion of Greenenberg himself, listen to the audiobook). It is incredibly well written, and the passion and joy he radiates when guiding you through a comprehensive tour of western classical music is simply outstanding. A History of Western Music (Grout/Palisca) is more on the textbook spectrum, and very well written for anyone delving deeper (there is also the 5 Taruskin volumes for the very deep interest). The Lives Of The Great Composers (Harold Schonberg) describes the personalities behind much of the most famous music ever created, and made a lot of the history of music much more relatable and memorable to me. Equally well written are two classics by Charles Rosen, The Classical Style and The Romantic Generation, bringing life into these pivotal periods of classical music. I found Peter Uehling’s Biography of Karajan great, arguably the most influential conductor of all times. There is no English version, though there are other Karajan biographies in English (just that I haven’t read these). Two more riveting biographies are Maria Callas (Anne Edwards) and Mozart (Alfred Einstein). There is a lot about history and music in these that goes far beyond their life’s stories (for all three of them — Mozart as arguably the most famous composer, Callas the most famous performer and Karajan the most famous conductor).

The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross) is a modern classic, a very engaging book on classical music in the 20th century. Ross is a great writer on music, with Listen to this being a super interesting blend of classical and pop music and Wagnerism an engaging description of the times and tendencies that forged Richard Wagner. My favourite is his Walküre Act 3, in the Solti recording (Der Ring der Nibelungen, Sir Georg Solti, on Spotify), and I would advocate for reading the libretto whilst listening. It might require a few repetitions but once you are in it, it is incomparable. On a sidenote, Wagner is my favourite classical composer, followed by Mozart and Bach.

The History of Jazz, alongside How to Listen to Jazz, both by Ted Gioia, are my two favourites on Jazz — plus listening to all the albums mentioned alongside.

Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story Of Modern Pop (Bob Stanley) is a big and comprehensive book about the history of pop. As pop is contemporary, it is probably also more subjective, and many readers would probably emphasise some groups more than others when compared to Stanley. He also writes in a very casual, essayist style. Thataid, I enjoyed seeing so many bands of my life put into context,while discovering some that I missed out on before. White Line Fever is written by the undisputedly greatest Hard Rock Star ever alive, Lemmy Kilmister. His life of purest integrity in the craziest of environments is a role model, and his music sheer energy.

Movies

When I started working at consulting, there was so much learning in so many ways that I found it hard to read books for a while. I used that time to delve deep into Arthouse movies and influential movies throughout history. It was a great way to feel exposed to an artform and to learn whilst being a bit easier for me back then compared to reading books. There are two books that give great overviews: The Story Of Film (Mark Cousins) which tells the story of film, its major movies and directors in a chronological narrative, and The Movie Book (DK) which does the same but through outstanding individual movies.

On how movies are made, written by one of the defining directors himself, Making Movies (Sidney Lumet) is concise, readable, and very interesting.

Visual Arts and Photography

The Story of Art (E.H. Gombrich) is probably the most famous book on the history of art, and I understand why. I would start there. The Story of Contemporary Art (Tony Godfrey) continues where Gombrich stops and is another great read. Seven days in the Art World (Sarah Thornton) offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of today’s art world. The wonderful coffee-table book publisher Taschen has a collection of paperback prints selecting leading works by contemporary artists in several volumes called Art Now! that I enjoy a lot.

Drawing On The Right Hand Side Of The Brain and Color (Betty Edwards) offer practical guidance on how to draw and use the spectrum’s hues. I read a few times that learning how to draw is like learning an instrument in that it stimulates your brain in very different ways. It also quiets the mind, which I have absolutely experienced, even if I still prefer photography.

For those, who like me, never learned how to paint, photography can offer a rewarding path into visual creativity. I found Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs (Henry Carroll) the best quick start guide to photography, covering all aspects you need to understand to operate a modern professional camera. That said, recent iPhones are so technologically advanced that for many situations you will struggle to see a difference to professional cameras. Just start shooting, look at the pictures, edit them a bit, and then read more. A highly inspirational book on how to approach making art is Art & Fear. Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (David Bayles and Arthur Morey).

In addition, I would recommend looking at great photographers’ works — Photography: The Definitive Visual History (Tom Ang) is a good start. Then look up more catalogues and works of the photographers who appeal the most to you. . Vogue. The Covers (Dodie Kazanjian) and Vogue. On Location (Vogue Editors) are inspirational overviews of great fashion photography.

Literature

I read a lot more literature earlier in my life than I do today. I suspect I will continue to be absorbed in non-fiction before I move back to Literature. In terms of understanding life, its intricacies, emotional ups and downs, social relationships and people’s conscious and unconscious motives, Literature might be the most rewarding. It might also be harder to read to people like me who like emotions most at a safe distance.

I started reading novels about spying at the end of the cold war, very much a result of the times I grew up in. When I went through adolescence, existentialism was winning on all fronts, think of Sarte (No Exit and other dramas), Camus (The Fall) and Celine (Journey to the End of the Night). I then delved into the Russians, Tolstoy (Anna Karenina, which I re-read a few years back and enjoyed so much more) and Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment). To this day, all of these books left a mark on me. As I was always very interested in what drives humans, I then spent considerable time on Goethe’s Faust (more part one than two) and Shakespeare’s Dramas (Hamlet (Revenge, Procrastination), Otello (Jealousy), Macbeth (Ambition and Evil), King Lear (Justice and Naivety) — just to name a few — which I think capture a large share of what goes on in humans in incredible depth. Then, I discovered non-fiction and was taken in a totally different direction (for now!)

The Literature Book (DK) is a book that I enjoyed a lot, beautifully done, didactically great and quite comprehensive as a starter into World Literature with a Western-centric focus.

Interior Design

In my journey to balance my profession, construction and interiors have become a dear passion alongside cooking and photography. The Interior Design Handbook (Frida Ramstedt) is the most comprehensive starting point I know without being technical or hard-to-follow. How to Decorate (from leading paint producer Farrow & Ball) is a great and quick guide to combining colours. Home. New York School of Interior Design (Ellen Fisher) poses great questions that help one to understand the main elements of how to think through the design and functionality of room types, in addition to introducing the main stylistic elements (lighting, flooring, wallcovering, textiles etc). The Finer Things (Christiane Lemieux) is a wonderful overview of great materials used in interior design. Once equipped with that foundation, Pinterest is an invaluable tool to build your own mood boards and generate ideas.

Health and Longevity

I am very grateful that my body gave me tons of energy, allowing me to work some 60 hours a week or more for 20 years straight. Most of these years, I was slowly eroding my health, living off adrenaline and cortisol and in a constant state of stress. I fortunately managed to always eat well, get reasonable amounts of sleep, and work out a bit, which I think limited the damage.

Recently, I took a break and as I have more time and as I get older, I want to give back to my body. I made understanding the key drivers of health a priority, assisted a lot by my doctors Peter Attia in Austin, USA, and Florian Haensel in Berlin, Germany, plus Peter’s team and his podcast (I am also thrilled about his upcoming 2013 book The Science and Art of Longevity). The big levers to increase your health span as to our current understanding are (1) Eat well, enough protein and micronutrients, keep your glucose low throughout to reduce metabolic stress and help with tons of other things. Keep your weight ideal. (2) Have strong endurance as measured by VO2Max (your body’s max capacity to process oxygen) (3) Have a lot of muscle mass as this helps your metabolism, posture, chronic pain, self-confidence, and stability as you get older (4) Sleep well (5) Screen for the bad three ( cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and cardiovascular diseases). Then, cut out all the stressors that you can (for there are many that you cannot), which to me means learn how to ignore things that you cannot change, put aside things that you cannot change yet, endure things that you’ll have to live with, and don’t get too enervated by things that are annoying but not life changing (losing your phone on a plane).

There are a few books I enjoyed that get you started on Health and our Bodies. The Body (Bill Bryson) is a spectacular book. It collects a very wide range of facts about the body, most of which I didn’t know and much less so put into perspective. It is written in Bryson’s hallmark very engaging, fun and easy to read style and a great starter to understand many of the more practical concepts about Health, Sports and Longevity. The Story of the Human Body (Daniel Lieberman) explains the story of our physical body from an evolutionary angle — what did we need to survive as a species and how did this change over time — ranging from apes to modern humans.

On a more practical level, I loved The 4 hour body (Tim Ferris). Ferris unleashes his ruthless experimenting and time-management on the body and it is a great introduction to sports, getting fit, the concepts and trade-offs. Life Force (Tony Robbins et al.) is a great overview of modern (Year 2022) medical practices centred around longevity and a good primer to test your doctors (if they haven’t heard of it, it might be good to look for ones who have). A bold look into the future (alongside a strong overview of our current state) is written by one of the most famous Longevity researchers David Sinclair in his 2019 book Lifespan.

Nutrition

Surprisingly, Nutrition science is quite dynamic. Evolutionarily, our bodies don’t really change that much so how come there is still little consensus about what we should eat? One key point is the difficulty of applying our scientific toolbox to nutrition — we can’t do long-term controlled studies about different food effects. How do you want to test the impact of white rice? What is the control group? How much white rice does the test group get? How do they live their lives? How long do you monitor? The absence of much “definitive” science and the prevalence of strong emotional connections with nutrition make this a breeding ground for strongly held opinions. In addition, much of the protein that we need is coming through animals which are mostly not held in ethical conditions and whose impact on our planet is in its current form unsustainable.

A few personal beliefs I follow: I try to consume 1g of protein per 1lb of body weight a day, half through food, half through shakes. I take Magnesium and a micronutrient supplement called Athletic Greens. I substitute a lot of grains with legumes and seeds — lentil pasta, lentil/chickpea rice, flaxseed/chia/sesame instead of oats porridge. I never eat processed food, which is made easier by my taste not being adapted to it — too sweet, too flavoursome. I try to prepare meals out of everything that grows seasonally which is a very fun challenge to me. I have not found any scientific evidence that animal protein is detrimental per se, and I eat fish and meat from more ethical sources and in moderation because of its climate footprint. I find that we like many dishes traditionally based on meat, when made with vegetarian substitutions (e.g., chilli, lasagne, moussaka). I try to limit carbs as they often make me tired, and I try to drink a lot of water. I don’t drink cow’s milk as it makes me very tired (a strong sign my body struggles with it).

To understand the foundations better: I found the Science of Nutrition (Janice Thompson et al.) to be the best textbook. I tried many and most of them were either out-of-date or weirdly biassed. A great overview of much more up-to-date science (there is little that is done sufficiently well to draw conclusions) is The Diet Compass (Bas Kast). To understand why we face such an explosion of obesity, and what went wrong with food — and a lot of our health — the Dorito Effect (Mark Schatzker) is an outstanding read. In simple terms, our taste and smell system is primed to help us find out what our body needs. If we eat a large variety of foods (I can absolutely guarantee this works), we will develop cravings for the foods our body needs (that can range from oysters to sauerkraut, steak tartare, ma po tofu, pho bo, fruit salad, squeezed lemon juice, cheesecake, blue cheese or kombucha). If we hack that system by linking artificial flavours to foods, our body loses that ability. Then, a second effect kicks in when we eat food depleted in nutrients — we overeat. Our body needs calories, but not too much. It also needs macro and micronutrients in the right composition. If all we offer our bodies is fast food, it will overeat in order to access the tiny amount of micronutrients found. Unfortunately, although we might be cognizant of the benefits of healthy food, junk remains addictive whilst causing incredible external effects (insane healthcare costs, higher mortality, productivity losses, eating disorders and more!).

Strength and Conditioning

In a simplified sense, I found for myself I need to do four kinds of exercise. Endurance (I chose Triathlon), Strength (I chose a blend of Weight/Powerlifting, Strongman, and Gymnastics/Callisthenics), Flexibility, Breathing and Mindfulness (Yoga/Pilates) and finally Conditioning (Boxing). CrossFit is an intriguing combination of Strength and Conditioning, and whilst I do probably all their exercises by themselves, I am not a fan of mixing complex weightlifting and conditioning — so I separate these (plus I love boxing and martial arts for many additional reasons). All of them are doing something distinct for you, and all of them together are synergetic and self-reinforcing.

On strength, I chose Powerlifting with some Strongman as a base — the five big lifts (squat, deadlift, military press, bench press, pulldown/pullup) with farmer’s walk for grip strength and stability. Weightlifting is too specialised for me (I would love to do it well, but it is incredibly difficult as the movements require maximum explosive strength, great technique and great mobility — it is quite different to powerlifting even if the movements “look” very similar). Callisthenics (the big levers — front lever, back lever, side lever, planche, plus one arm pullups, pistol squats and handstand push ups) are a spectacular way to build core strength, motion control, arm strength and full range of motion. There is a great device that makes these superhuman moves more accessible, a “gymnast harness” that can half your effective weight (gymnasticsforza.com) and that I find incredibly useful (for side levers, resistance bands and wall bars work very well).

The Science Of Strength Training (Austin Current) is a very good overview of strength training. The Purposeful Primitive (Marty Gallagher) is written by a legend in strength coaching and a great read for anyone more deeply interested in the world of strength and iron, from a true practitioner. Complete Callisthenics (Ashley Kalym) is a good overview of Calisthenics. I think finding great coach(es) is essential if you want to do your body justice. I self-studied for 10 years and I did most moves the wrong way, repeatedly. I ate sub optimally; I trained sub optimally. Find a great coach and then occasionally train with other great coaches as they all have their own eye, their own angle and that is very helpful.

The Art of the Sweet Science (Shahan Dudayev) is a pretty complete book on boxing — training, strategy and mindset. Championship Fighting (Jack Dempsey) is stunning for two reasons irst, it is written by one the leading boxers of the 1920sand wonderfully illustrated in the style of its time, second it is a detailed guide on how to box. Finally, The Cus D’Amato mind (Reemus Boxing) is a selection of quotes and commentary from Cus D’Amato, the legendary coach of Mike Tyson and others. I found his emphasis on fear and the mental aspects of boxing very interesting. Mike Tyson particularly in his early fights (getting/defending his title) was truly superhuman.

Endurance

Getting your endurance metrics up is one of the biggest boosters for increasing your health span (the time you are healthy enough to live “a full life”. I got intrigued by Triathlon as it balances three leading endurance disciplines. Swimming is beautiful to work on breathing and CO2 tolerance, as well as a unique way to learn “how to float” which is both hard and rewarding. It is also a very healthy sport that can be done till old age. The leading method I found puts great emphasis on the biomechanics of swimming. The Triathlete’s Training Bible (Joe Friel) is an outstanding overview of general training theory, practice and the skills needed to run, bike and swim. It is partly based on the biomechanically most sound method for running I know (the Pose method, The Running Revolution (Nicholas Romanov) and the biomechanically most sound method for swimming Total Immersion (Terry Laughlin). Born to Run (Christopher McDougall), is a wonderful related read on humans’ ability to run extreme distances which has inspired so many people to run (and run well). If you want to pick up any endurance sport, I highly recommend finding a great trainer (who has true credibility — through their own performance and the ability to explain biomechanical principles of a discipline).

Breathing, Sleep and Mindfulness

Mindfulness received increasing attention in recent years, and probably rightfully so. I read many books about it and I did a three day course with an outstanding meditation coach and still, meditation and mindfulness have proven evasive to me. I can’t even explain why. I do not find the experience at all disagreeable and I feel better if I do it regularly. And then I stop. I hope I will one day either build a routine or at least make my peace with not doing it. Right now, I am doing neither. Bliss More (Light Watkins) is my favourite book on Meditation, as his practice (Vedic Meditation, similar to Transcendental Meditation) works best for me so far, and his way of explaining that sitting comfortably is of pivotal importance made a big difference. 10% Happier ( Dan Harris) effectively explains the process of building a practice and its benefits. The book that illustrated the benefits and practice of mindfulness in business best to me is Search Inside Yourself (Chade-Meng Tan), by a computer engineer turned meditation teacher. Its language and both scientific and practical approach were very accessible to me. Why Buddhism Is True (Robert Wright) Is fascinating as it equally looks at Buddhism with a Western-science based approach, with further insight by Wright’s lifelong studies into evolutionary psychology. For anyone with deeper interest, there are great books by Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zin, as well as the classic “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Shunryu Suzuki).

While meditation may have eluded me, better breathing has been something I have been able to implement in daily life. . If I were to answer the single highest value-adding simple life-hack, I would recommend taping your mouth during sleep. It feels like one hour more of sleep every night without spending more time in bed — and my friends and family shared this experience. I first stumbled across it through the highly interesting Breath (James Nestor). Nestor wrote about free diving before (Deep) and increasingly realised the power of breath on our lives. After I read Breath, I followed up with The Oxygen Advantage (Patrick McKeown) which spends more time on the science, metabolic impact, and implementation of increasing your CO2 tolerance. Teaser — most of us breathe too much. Stress does that, and the answer is breathing less, which also helps with emotional management. The more I investigated different subjects, the more I realised we just somehow forgot what nature and life provides, and the more we get back to it, the more it is all connected — breath, sleep, nutrition, emotions, balance (sports, creativity, stress, relaxation, growth), sexuality.

Highly related is Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker). Walker is a professor for neuroscience ,leading a sleep laboratory and wrote a highly accessible book that is incredibly eye-opening. Whilst I always had a strong intuition about the importance of sleep and I always try to get enough sleep I had no idea how much scientific evidence we had on the importance of sleep, and how easily things could turn very bad. I now wear an oura ring and really try to optimise my sleep to the high 80s or low 90s regularly.

Whilst the title Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (Robert Sapolsky) didn’t work its magic on me, the content did. This is a remarkably comprehensive, deeply researched book on stress and what it does to our bodies.

Flexibility and Posture

Our bodies are not built to sit as much as we do today. When we drive a car, our pelvis is typically posteriorly tilted. When we sit, most of us sit with a posterior tilt. That keeps the back of the legs (the hamstrings mostly) constantly under slight tension, which makes them weak and tight over time. You can try it very easily — can you squat down easily and use your hands at the same time (think of writing something down in a small book whilst squatting down)? Can you squat down deeply at all? In countries where people sit less (India, Arab or North African countries come to mind based on my travel experiences) that’s how people spend a lot of their days — they don’t sit, they squat. Sitting is one, but a major one, of the foundational issues of how we misuse our bodies. I know far too many people in their mid-thirties that started to develop low-level chronic pain. Lower back pain, knee pain, pain between the shoulders/scapula. The good news is that you can address this through strength and flexibility training — and you should, or else chronic pain will onset at some point in your 30s or 40s.

I haven’t been flexible ever. My experiences are that people are quite different in their relation of flexibility and strength. Very few have an easy time with both. Some, like me, are having an easier time building strength and a hard time with flexibility. Some are exactly the opposite. Now you really need both — and choosing your approach depending on if you are more strength or flexibility driven. For me, I need to do loaded stretches (stretches with extra weight). Those with a lot of flexibility might need to do more weightlifting. I love doing yoga, but it is very hard for me. The load on my nervous system is as high as if I lift very heavily. I found that to get more out of Yoga, building some routines outside of Yoga practice can be helpful (distinct loaded stretching routines).

The best practical guide for flexibility I found is from matthewismith.com and online-only. Stretching scientifically by Thomas Kurz is a classic on the science behind flexibility and highly recommended. There are many books and guides, though the Kurz one and/or Matthew Smith should do enough for you.

Once you have a certain base mobility, I think Yoga goes far beyond mobility and can unlock new dimensions of calming down, energizing the body, and feeling yourself in new ways. There are books about Yoga by famous gurus, but after a slew of scandals around several of these, I prefer books that look at Yoga from a more neutral angle (even though this might well cut away critical elements of its spirituality — I just haven’t found a good way around it).
The Science of Yoga (Ann Swanson) is a spectacular book, with many great visualisations that give a concise overview of how our spine works (the importance of kyphosis and lordosis), how our diaphragm works and many more. It then shows many main postures and what is supposed to happen in these. The one thing I wanted to see more of is the impact these asanas can have on you. Yoga as Medicine (Timothy McCall) closes this gap very well, describing the numerous benefits of Yoga on the body. Finally, Yoga for Men (Dean Pohlman) helped me a lot as I felt it catered well to my “strong but stiff” constitution and offered undogmatic guidance on how to move ahead.

The other famous practice around posture and flexibility is Pilates. Pilates Anatomy (Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger) is a good overview, though only focused on work done on the mat. I believe the machines Joseph Pilates invented (first and foremost the Reformer) are outstanding, and I can highly recommend trying these out with a trainer. There are few methods coming close to Pilates in building a strong core for beginners and more advanced practitioners. When you are interested in Callisthenics and Gymnastics, Pilates can be an outstanding starting point as well.

Sexuality

This is clearly a topic that feels a bit harder to capture with non-fiction books than many other subjects here. That said, this connotation has also caused a lot of stigma, ignorance, assumption, and deep frustration for many people. Mating in Captivity (Esther Perel is a classic in the area and I think a great read to understand oneself and partnerships and their intertwined relationship to sexuality. Perel and her partner Jack Saul have also provided wonderful help to Ukraine this year through her podcast and much more. I took a lot from The Way of the Superior Man (David Deida) and as with all books that become more personal and less scientific, a lot of the books’ value comes from you taking what is relevant to you (this one is written for people that identify with a more masculine energy). Finally, Come as you are (Emily Nagoski) does a great job of putting a lot of facts on the table and countering unhelpful assumptions.

Self-Development and Spirituality (willpower, habits, etc)

Self-Optimisation and Motivation

There have been many great books written on self-optimisation and motivation. I think I was somehow gifted with a lot of grit and working at McKinsey early on taught me a lot of the right habits and tools, so this is not a category in which I have been a prolific reader. I will share the few books I truly liked — I never did a thorough investigation of all the leading books out there, so there will be plenty I don’t feature below.

I am deeply impressed by what Tony Robbins has achieved. I am a strong group introvert, so the idea of being in a big stadium at one of his performances is terrifying to me. This said, watching the documentary about his work, and the sheer excellence he brings to it all, the ability to touch thousands of people, deeply, over the course of just a few days is staggering to me. I know how much energy it can cost to bring your best to large groups, to radiate energy. Him doing this over days, always at his peak, is outstanding. Awaken the Giant Within shares a lot of his thinking and is a powerful read. A related, influential treatise on what motivates us is written by Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

A nerdier access to life comes from Tim Ferris, who has written three bestselling books (The 4- hour week, The 4-hour body, The 4-hour chef, plus a selection of the wisdom of many of outstanding people he has interviewed over the years, Tools of Titans and Tribes of Mentors). I love his books, to some extent as I feel less alone wandering through life — many of the ways he “hacks” life, squeezes it, understands things often as games and then tries to understand the rules to win, not just play — a lot of these things have worked for me throughout my life (and I haven’t found a lot of others thinking like that). The 4-hour week is a great starter as it lays out a lot of his thinking. Another book I enjoyed a lot is The Almanack of Navi Ravikant (Eric Jorgensen ed.) laying out how Ravikant thinks about many aspects of life — Ravikant is the founder of a highly influential early stage technology investment portal.

The Laws Of Human Nature (Robert Greene) describes 18 guiding ideas about life (he calls them “laws”). I thought they are well thought through (even though I guess everyone would come up with their own list, and it might differ in many parts) and an interesting and thought-provoking overview. A highly intellectual approach to “rules to life” comes from Jordan Peterson (12 Rules For Life) who draws from a very broad humanistic base to distil his ideas about life. The book is thought provoking and I believe much less controversial than the author himself.

Spirituality and Religion

My reading around Spirituality and Religion went in waves throughout my life. I was not raised with a distinct religion. I was officially roman-catholic, though I never participated in any formal education (I opted out). I think the catholic church has evolved very differently from what is written in the New Testament, which is different from the Old Testament. And there is a lot of evidence that what is written in the New Testament was quite heavily curated. In any case, I am an avid believer in liberalism (leave people to make their own choices as much as is reasonable) and equality of chances (if there is clear evidence people do not have equal chances in real life, make adjustments towards it). These beliefs are not easily in alignment with most religions, so my study of religions is predominantly driven by cultural interest.
The World’s Religions (Huston Smith) is a book I thoroughly enjoyed. It is quite plain and descriptive, which I liked for an overview of Religion. I think there is more to things than what the author writes about (the part about Taoism for instance), though this is both hard to prove and disprove and thus a personal belief. The Religions Book (DK) is another DK example of a well-illustrated, structured book that provides an easy and more visual, quick overview of main religions.
The Varieties of Religious Experiences (William James) is different as it is biassed by the theoretic outline of a great philosopher and one of the founders of modern psychology. James is interested in what people experience more than in any underlying theory, and it is from that angle that James looks at Religion.

Men’s Search For Meaning (Victor Frankl) is a unique book, written by a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz. Frankl developed a third school of Viennese psychotherapy, and one that is in many ways analogous to aspects of Buddhism, Yoga and Entrepreneurship (in my reading). Entrepreneurship to me is to take control of your life and to pursue what you believe in. I think a cleaning lady can be more entrepreneurial than the daughter or son of a famous lawyer taking over their practice just because they felt this was what was expected. If what we do is in sync with our passion, our aim, our purpose, it gives incredible life force. The farther away we are from our purpose, the more strenuous our life, our mental health and health overall will become. Frankl formulates this clearly, and there are parallels in the different paths of Yoga and many core beliefs of Buddhism.

There are a few novels — a format which I think can work well for conveying spiritual messages — that are beautiful to read. First, the very popular The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), an allegory about life narrated along the journey of a shepherd. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) always felt to me like the godfather of the Alchemist and is even more of a classic. Hector And The Search For Happiness (Francois Lelord) is equally uplifting, about a psychiatrist’s search for happiness.

A New Earth (along with The Power of Now) (Eckhart Tolle) were recommended to me by a dear friend a long ago. I continue to strive to be more in the moment every day, with variable success, and Tolle’s books were a wonderful wake-up call to try harder (along many other inspirations found in his books).

I heard about Autobiography of a Yogi (Paramashansa Yogananda) as Steve Jobs gave every attendant of his funeral a copy. I then listened to the audiobook narrated by Ben Kingsley, and it was one of the most memorable books of my life.

Relationships, Parenting, Emotional Intelligence and Communication

Relationships are incredibly complicated. I think more so than physics. They pervade all our lives and are equally a result of all our lives. Much of what happens in relationships is driven by what we feel, and much of that we might not even realise. Now imagine a team of six people, in a stressful time, working on a topic that is new to everyone, with fluid roles and hierarchies. Or two people incredibly attracted to each other, deeply insecure about what that might lead to, and still passionate about winning the other one over. I found that private relationships, work relationships and parenting share a lot of aspects, so I’ll cover them together. Add miscommunication to the whole mix and you can understand why some interactions can go so wrong. I think Emotional Intelligence and Communication skills are the foundation for functioning Relationships and Parenting, thus I treat them together.

On communication, Nonviolent Communication (Marshall B. Rosenberg) influenced me deeply. The book was so eye-opening and dense that I re-read it (which I rarely do). I find that a lot of issues arise by imprecise communication, mixing un-reflected emotions, preconceived notions, and whatever issue we wanted to address in the first place. Rosenberg does an excellent job at showing the mechanisms and ways to improve. How To Win Friends And Influence People (Dale Carnegie) was first written in 1937 and is incredibly relevant to this day. It is one of the most influential books I ever read about relationships and communication. The Culture Map (Erin Meyer) shows differences in communication styles across cultures and is indispensable for anyone acting in a multicultural setup.

People are different, and it took me far too long to understand the true implications of that. Why has nobody told me this before (Julie Smith) is the life learnings of a psychotherapist across a wide variety of life’s challenges. There is a lot in there, and it also gives an overview of different attachment styles (there is also a dedicated, valuable book on this, Attached (Amir Levine and Rachel Heller). People are different across several dimensions, and I found that understanding that is incredibly helpful. There is not always a lot of “hard science” behind it, and still, I found reading about different aspects of how people can be different very insightful. People have different attachment styles. They have different personality types in how they generate energy, process information, emotions and in their need for structure (Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers and Peter Myers is the base of the MBTI tests that many leading corporations use and that I think it is very helpful). They have different ways they express their love and appreciation (The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman — is a very quick read that deeply influenced me). Men are from Mars Women are from Venus (John Gray) is about how gender can influence communication and relationships. The book isn’t scientific and some of the statements might be controversial and slightly crude — still I thought it was a very helpful read. On stronger scientific footing is The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (John Gottman and Nan Silver). There are again a lot of things in there that matter beyond romantic relationships, in particular the difference between perpetual and solvable problems. There are things in life we can’t change and are better off coping with, and that holds true beyond relationships.

On family relationships and parenting: At least in Europe Jesper Juul is probably one of the most influential family therapists. No! (Jesper Juul) is a quick read about similar aspects brought up by Rosenberg, less comprehensive and more tailored to children, and still I took a lot of leadership impulses away as well (on top of the parenting). By the same author, Your Competent Child is a great book about how families actually (could) work, and finally Family Life looks at 10 core values foundational to modern family life. I recommend all of them. Many issues of our lives lie beyond our core family — our partner and our children. They lie in our relationship to our parents, or their relationship with our grandparents. With family trauma that is often passed down through generations. A highly effective treatment option is called family constellation, and the theory (It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn) and practice (Family Constellations Revealed by Indra Thorsten Preiss) behind it is fascinating. For any parent, the book series Little People Big Dreams is spectacular for kids around 4 years and up. As many people struggle with overt or hidden trauma, The Body Keeps The Score (Bessel van der Kolk) is a modern classic on trauma and an important read for everyone.

There are few topics that helped me as much in understanding myself and what goes on around me as learning more about emotions. Knowing what I know today, I believe I flood quite easily (get emotionally overwhelmed). I also learned a lot about the importance of keeping your body budget balanced to manage your reaction to emotions particularly in a professional context. Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman) is an outstanding start into the world of emotions, with Permission to Feel (Marc Brackett) a great follow-up guide on how to improve on emotional awareness. Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents (Lindsay C. Gibson) is a very interesting book as it helped me differentiate between those who are emotionally more or less mature and to act accordingly.

Once you understand your own emotions better and the influence of communication on any interaction, Games People Play. The Psychology Of Human Relationships (Eric Berne) adds further understanding to how we modulate our actions to try to achieve certain results. This is a very eye-opening book for private and professional lives.

Life Skills

Cooking

Along with reading and learning, cooking has been a defining passion throughout my life. I have been an avid cook for some 30 years and thus my list is quite biassed away from beginner’s guides. I learned through three avenues: First, understand why recipes work, often called “the science of cooking”. I love these books. Second, on that foundation, flipping through actual cookbooks. I don’t follow recipes (other than for baking which is a more exact art) and instead try to understand flavour combinations or special techniques (think ceviche, sous-vide) If you understand what Szechuan pepper does, you can add it not just to Szechuan cuisine but also to dark chocolate. Third, cooking a lot and eating a lot at interesting restaurants helps to refine the palette.
If you feel like cooking takes too much time, I think that adding up all relevant factors and optimisation potential, you’d be surprised. The physical, emotional, and family health benefits of one home cooked meal a day are hard to beat. We are capable of a large variety of things, and I think we feel better if we cater to this variety somehow. Do some business, do something visually creative, something musical, something social, some sports. And cooking is the act of creation, done in a short time!

Cooked (Michael Pollan) is one of my favourite reads of all time. It deals with the history and significance of cooking as much as it being an addictive introduction into cooking itself.

On the science behind cooking, Kitchenwise (Shirley Corriher) is my favourite first book to read. It explains the science behind cooking and applies it to recipes, closing the circle with the science behind it. Her two other books Cookwise and Bakewise are great follow-ons, along with The Science Of Good Cooking (America’s Test Kitchen). On Food and Cooking (Harold McGee) is probably the most famous around the science of cooking and for everyone more serious about cooking an essential read. The Science of Good Cooking (Stuart Farrimond) is beautifully illustrated and a great gift for people getting into food. Finally, as mentioned in my opener, Modernist Cuisine (and the ones on Bread and Pizza) by Nathan Myhrvold are incredible in every aspect and are truly authoritative resources. Their sheer volume and cost might be a bit frightening, but the quality of thought, photography, and experimentation is out of this world.

Travel and Culture

I believe that many indispensable things are learned through travel, and that the student years are a great time for it. To this day, these are some of my most treasured memories. I was studying intensely, which awarded me a small grant every year that allowed me to backpack during the summer whilst I was studying. Pack your backpack, a lonely planet guide, and go with the flow. Great Journeys, Wonders Of The World (Lonely Planet) And Journeys Around The World (Marc Walker) are wonderful ways to get inspired. Journeys Around the World shares beautiful images of famous, historic voyages dating back to the early 20th century.

The Explorer’s Eye (National Geographic, Fergus Fleming ed.) is one of my all-time favourite books, selecting many of the most famous explorers of history and describing their deeds both in the author’s and in their own words. A similar book by Nat Geographic, Worlds to Explore (Mark Jenkins ed.) provides even more famous travel excerpts.