Some of my favorite books, by category

Fiction

• Historical Fiction
  • Neal Stephenson
    • The Baroque Cycle
  • Hilary Mantel
    • Wolf Hall
  • Robert Harris
    • An Officer and a Spy
• Classics
  • Ayn Rand
    • Atlas Shrugged
    • The Fountainhead
  • Harper Lee
    • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Nevil Shute
    • A Town Like Alice
  • Victor Hugo
    • ’93
    • Les Misérables
    • Notre-Dame de Paris
    • The Man Who Laughs
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky
    • The Brothers Karamazov
    • The Idiot
  • Tom Wolfe
    • The Bonfire of the Vanities
  • Jane Austen
    • Pride and Prejudice
    • Emma
      
  • Charlotte Bronte
    • Jane Eyre
• Espionage
  • John le Carré
    • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Science Fiction
  • Roger Zelazny
    • Lord of Light
  • Robert Heinlein
    • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
    • Citizen of the Galaxy
  • Frank Herbert
    • Dune
    • Children of Dune
  • Neal Stephenson
    • Snow Crash
  • Orson Scott Card
    • Unaccompanied Sonata
    • Ender’s Game
    • The Worthing Saga
  • Vernor Vinge
    • A Fire Upon the Deep
    • A Deepness in the Sky
    • Rainbows End
  • Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
    • Oath of Fealty
  • Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
    • The Space Merchants
  • David Zindell
    • The Neverness Cycle
  • Some other favorite authors:
    • C.J. Cherryh
    • Cordwainer Smith
    • David Brin
    • Gregory Benford

Misc Non-Fiction

• Michael Lewis
  • The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
  • Moneyball
  • The Blind Side
• Timothy Ferriss
  • The Four Hour Work Week
• Petr Beckmann
  • A Brief History of Pi
  • The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear
• Malcolm Gladwell
  • Outliers
• Atul Gawande
  • The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

Philosophy

• Ayn Rand
  • The Virtue of Selfishness
  • Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
  • Why Businessmen Need Philosophy and Other Essays
• William Graham Sumner
  • What the Social Classes Owe To Each Other

Economics

• Henry Hazlitt
  • Economics in One Lesson
• Julian Simon
  • The Ultimate Resource
• Thomas Sowell
  • Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One

Politics

• Charles Murray
  • Losing Ground
• John Allison
  • The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure
• Jonathan Haidt
  • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
• Aaron Wildavsky
  • But Is It True?
  • Risk and Safety
• Jean-Francois Revel
  • Anti-Americanism
• John Stossel
  • Give me a Break (dedicated to my dad)
  • No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed
• Jason L. Riley
  • Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed
• Don Watkins, Yaron Brook
  • Equal Is Unfair: America’s Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality
• Alex Epstein
  • Fossil Future

Biography

• Robert Caro
  • The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Auto-Biography

• Richard Feynman
  • Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman
  • What Do You Care What Other People Think?
• Jim Bouton
  • Ball Four

Children and Young Adults

• Ayn Rand
  • Anthem
• Robert Heinlein
  • Citizen of the Galaxy
• Louise Fitzhugh
  • Harriet the Spy
• Philip Pullman
  • His Dark Materials
• Norton Juster
  • The Phantom Tollbooth
• Rachel Wildavsky
  • The Secret of Rover
• Sydney Kendall
  • A Turn for de Wurst
• Connor Boyack
  • The Tuttle Twins and the Search for Atlas

Software Engineering

• Kent Beck
  • Extreme Programming Explained, 1st edition
  • Test Driven Development
• Jon Bentley
  • Programming Pearls, 2nd edition
• Martin Fowler
  • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
• Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and Vlissides
  • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
• Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
• Steve McConnell
  • Code Compleat
• Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco
  • Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams