Brian Hamachek's Book Recommendations

Brian Hamachek

I am a software engineer and entrepreneur living in Palo Alto, CA.

I am also on Instagram, LinkedIn, Github, Medium, and Quora. I've previously worked at companies such as Microsoft, HP, StorSimple, and Portworx. I also co-founded a social networking app named Nearby and grew it to over 13 million users. I am currently the CTO of Vently.

About this website

Outside of books assigned for school, I was never much of a reader growing up. Back in 2012, I decided to change that and set a goal of reading one book a month for a year. I got hooked. Since then, I've read over 600 books.

This website is a collection of the best books I've read. I've organized them by category and added a short description of each book. My hope is that someone is able to get as much from these books as I have. Also, if you have any recommendations, please let me know!

The Books (last update 1/23/2025)

Non Fiction - Business & Finance

The Great Mental Models, Volume 4 cover

The Great Mental Models, Volume 4: Economics and Art

Shane Parrish

Volume 4 of The Great Mental Models series delves into the realms of economics and art, presenting more than twenty-four valuable ideas with clear language and style. This book equips you with an understanding of the dynamics shaping our world.

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Systems and Mathematics cover

Systems and Mathematics: The Great Mental Models, Volume 3

Shane Parrish

Volume 3 of The Great Mental Models series focuses on systems and mathematics, simplifying more than twenty-four key concepts from these technical fields into easy-to-understand terms.

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Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

Charles T. Munger

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up, Charles T. Munger advises in Poor Charlie’s Almanack. Originally published in 2005, this compendium of 11 talks, delivered by the legendary Berkshire Hathaway....

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$100M Offers: How to Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

Alex Hormozi

The methods contained within this book are so simple, so instantaneous, and so effective, it’s as if they work by magic. If you implement even one tactic in this book, you’ll see the change in your prospects' demeanor....

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Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

Michael Lewis

The classic Michael Lewis book that defined an era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune, available for the first time unabridged and read by the author....

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Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success

Jordan Belfort

Jordan Belfort—immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street—reveals the step-by-step sales and persuasion system proven to turn anyone into a sales-closing, money-earning rock star....

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Bad Blood cover

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

John Carreyrou

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device....

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Freakonomics cover

Freakonomics: Revised Edition

Steven D. Levitt

Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing....

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Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from 20 countries, ranging as far back as the 18th century, to uncover key economic and social patterns....

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Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis returns to the financial world to give listeners a ringside seat as the biggest news story in years prepares to hit Wall Street....

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The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis intelligently - and humorously - explains the current economic crisis in The Big Short....

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The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

Michael Lewis

In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur....

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Non Fiction - Science

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Physics, Chemistry, and Biology: The Great Mental Models, Volume 2

Shane Parrish

Volume 2 of The Great Mental Models series provides a collection of over twenty important concepts from physics, chemistry, and biology in a clear and accessible style.

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The Demon-Haunted World cover

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Find out....

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The Interpretation of Dreams

Sigmund Freud

The Interpretation of Dreams is the book that Sigmund Freud considered his most important and that forever changed the way we think about our dreams....

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The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it....

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Genome cover

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

Matt Ridley

The genome's been mapped. But what does it mean? Find out....

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Fiction

Tempest cover

Tempest: A Novel

Julie Cross

In Julie Cross' Tempest, the year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he's in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it's not like the movies....

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2001 cover

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke

From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man adventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other....

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Stranger in a Strange Land cover

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with “psi” powers....

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Haunted cover

Haunted

Chuck Palahniuk

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales....

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I Am Legend cover

I Am Legend

Richard Matheson

In I Am Legend, a plague has decimated the world, and those unfortunate enough to survive are transformed into blood-thirsty creatures of the night....

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Sphere

Michael Crichton

A classic thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton, Sphere is a bravura demonstration of what he does better than anyone: riveting storytelling that combines frighteningly plausible, cutting-edge science and technology with pulse-pounding action....

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Timeline: A Novel

Michael Crichton

In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site....

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Jurassic Park: A Novel

Michael Crichton

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true....

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Seveneves cover

Seveneves: A Novel

Neal Stephenson

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space....

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The Three-Body Problem

Cixin Liu

From China's most beloved sci-fi author, a first-contact story that weaves politics, science, and cosmic mystery.

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The Alchemist cover

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Paulo Coelho

Combining magic, wisdom, and wonder into an inspiring tale of discovery, this is a modern classic narrated by the inimitable Jeremy Irons.

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Inheritance Games cover

Inheritance Games

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: Survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why - or even who Tobias Hawthorne is....

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Matched cover

Matched: Book 1

Ally Condie

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die. Cassia has always trusted the Society’s choices. And when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, she is certain he’s the one - until she sees another face flash for an instant....

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Choke cover

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

Victor Mancini, a medical school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: He pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants....

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The Bonfire of the Vanities cover

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe's best-selling modern classic tells the story of Sherman McCoy, an elite Wall Street bond trader whose one wrong turn leads to a humiliating fall from grace....

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Under the Dome: A Novel

Stephen King

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field....

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The Institute cover

The Institute: A Novel

Stephen King

From number one New York Times best-selling author Stephen King, the most riveting and unforgettable story of kids confronting evil since It....

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: 50th Anniversary Edition

Ken Kesey

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time....

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To Kill a Mockingbird cover

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

A great American classic with many invaluable teaching moments. It continues to touch hearts and minds.

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The Most Dangerous Game cover

The Most Dangerous Game

Richard Connell

A mysterious island, shrouded in fear, evil, and darkness. Here the amoral General Zaroff hunts....

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Uglies cover

Uglies: Uglies, Book 1

Scott Westerfeld

Tally lives in a world where your 16th birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation that erases all your flaws, transforming you from an "Ugly" into a "Pretty"....

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The Midnight Library cover

The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

Matt Haig

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality....

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The Great Gatsby cover

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

This new audio edition, authorized by Fitzgerald's estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal....

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The Handmaid's Tale cover

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale has become one of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time....

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Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace

A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction....

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Palo Alto: Stories

James Franco

A fiercely vivid collection of stories about troubled California teenagers and misfits - violent and harrowing, from the astonishingly talented actor and artist James Franco....

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Non Fiction - Psychology / Sociology

The Great Mental Models cover

The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts

Shane Parrish

The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand....

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Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life

Luke Burgis

A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, Wanting provides a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires....

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Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will

Robert M. Sapolsky

One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences.

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The Game cover

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Neil Strauss

Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women....

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ADD in Intimate Relationships: A Comprehensive Guide for Couples

Daniel G. Amen

Attention deficit disorder causes intense unhappiness....

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The Sociopath Next Door

Martha Stout

We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people....

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Infidelity cover

Infidelity: Why Men and Women Cheat

Kenneth Paul Rosenberg

What the latest science tells us about the brain's reward systems, love, and sex - and how to prevent an affair from destroying your life. Infidelity provides key insights to find your true sexual and romantic potential and advocates honesty, trust, and integrity....

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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions....

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The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

Esther Perel

An affair: It can rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood....

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The Truth cover

The Truth

Neil Strauss

A shockingly personal, surprisingly relatable, brutally honest memoir in which the celebrated dating expert confronts the greatest challenge he has ever faced....

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The Undoing Project cover

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Michael Lewis

The Undoing Project is about the fascinating collaboration between two men who have the dimensions of great literary figures. They became heroes in the university....

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The Better Angels of Our Nature cover

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Steven Pinker

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen....

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Modern Romance: An Investigation

Aziz Ansari

At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now....

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The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, & Other Adventures

Janet W. Hardy

For anyone who has ever dreamed of love, sex, and companionship beyond the limits of traditional monogamy, this groundbreaking guide navigates the infinite possibilities that open relationships can offer....

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The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Matt Ridley

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. The pessimists insist that we will reach a turning point and things will get worse. But they have been saying this for 200 years....

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Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic & the Domestic

Esther Perel

Esther Perel takes on tough questions, grappling with the obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion....

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Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad - and Surprising Good - About Feeling Special

Dr. Craig Malkin

In Rethinking Narcissism listeners will learn that there's far more to narcissism than its reductive invective would imply....

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How to Win Friends & Influence People cover

How to Win Friends & Influence People

Dale Carnegie

For over 60 years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this audiobook has carried thousands of now-famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives....

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Predictably Irrational cover

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Dan Ariely

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways....

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Influence cover

Influence: Science and Practice, ePub, 5th Edition

Robert B. Cialdini

Widely used in classes, as well as sold to people operating successfully in the business world, the eagerly awaited revision of Influence reminds the listener of the power of persuasion....

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Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

Sudhir Venkatesh

The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics....

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Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

David Brooks

It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture....

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Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth in America

Nelson Aldrich

This insider's look at inherited wealth in the United States explores the complex meanings of money and success in American society....

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Non Fiction - History

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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Vincent Bugliosi

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century....

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American Kingpin cover

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road

Nick Bilton

In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything....

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Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

Bhu Srinivasan

Americana takes us on a 400-year journey of the spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things....

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The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself

Philip L. Fradkin

The first indication of the prolonged terror that followed the 1906 earthquake occurred when a ship steaming off San Francisco's Golden Gate "seemed to jump clear out of the water"....

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Who Killed Jane Stanford? cover

Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University

Richard White

Deftly sifting the scattered evidence and conflicting stories of suspects and witnesses, Richard White gives us the first full account of Jane Stanford's murder and its cover-up....

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Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

Malcolm Harris

Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing....

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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test cover

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe's classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, LSD, and the 1960s, ushered in an era of New Journalism and defined a generation....

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The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

John M. Barry

In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide....

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Countdown 1945 cover

Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World

Chris Wallace

From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday comes a behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima....

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The Pioneers cover

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

David McCullough

The number one New York Times best seller by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that's "as resonant today as ever" (The Wall Street Journal) - the settling of the Northwest Territory....

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The Last Days of Night cover

The Last Days of Night: A Novel

Graham Moore

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history....

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White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Nancy Isenberg

The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement....

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens integrates history and science to challenge everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our heritage...and our future....

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Non Fiction - Other

Nuclear War cover

Nuclear War: A Scenario

Annie Jacobsen

There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.

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Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit

Ashley Mears

A sociologist and former fashion model takes listeners inside the elite global party circuit of "models and bottles" to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men....

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The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe describes the inner life of astronauts with almost uncanny empathetic powers....

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Troubled: The Failed Promise of America’s Behavioral Treatment Programs

Kenneth R. Rosen

An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails....

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The Art of War

Sun Tzu

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu....

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Misquoting Jesus cover

Misquoting Jesus

Bart D. Ehrman

In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today....

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Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

John E. Douglas

Discover the classic behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ 25-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling....

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American Radical cover

American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent

Tamer Elnoury

The explosive memoir of a Muslim American FBI agent fighting terror from the inside....

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Billion Dollar Whale cover

Billion Dollar Whale

Bradley Hope

Now a number-one international best seller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history....

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Non Fiction - Biography

The Trading Game cover

The Trading Game: A Confession

Gary Stevenson

The Trading Game is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world—the trading floor—from someone who survived the game and then blew it all wide open.

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Einstein cover

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Walter Isaacson

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos....

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Elon Musk cover

Elon Musk

Walter Isaacson

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh.

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King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files.

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Paris: The Memoir

Paris Hilton

From the woman who is credited for launching what we know as the celebrity focused, “brand” driven, social media obsessed popular culture of today, comes an honest and surprising memoir that reckons with that truth, and shows that there is so much more to Paris Hilton than you might believe.

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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life cover

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Walter Isaacson

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings....

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Washington: A Life

Ron Chernow

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington....

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Leland Stanford cover

Leland Stanford: The Life and Legacy of the Railroad Executive Who Became California's Governor and the West's Most Famous Robber Baron

Charles River Editors

Leland Stanford: The Life and Legacy of the Railroad Executive Who Became California’s Governor and the West’s Most Famous Robber Baron chronicles the remarkable life of Stanford....

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Will cover

Will

Will Smith

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned....

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A Promised Land

Barack Obama

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world....

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Washington's End cover

Washington's End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle

Jonathan Horn

Popular historian and former White House speechwriter Jonathan Horn tells the astonishing true story of George Washington’s forgotten last years - the personalities, plotting, and private torment that unraveled America’s first post-presidency....

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Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City

Robin Nagle

America’s largest city generates garbage in torrents - 11,000 tons a day on average. But New Yorkers don’t give it much attention....

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Thank You for My Service

Mat Best

Members of the military’s special operations branches share a closely guarded secret: They love their jobs. They relish the opportunity to fight. They are thankful for it, even, and hopeful that maybe, possibly, they’ll also get to kill a bunch of bad guys while they’re at it....

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My Own Words

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America's most influential women....

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Born a Crime cover

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah

Comedian Trevor Noah offers listeners a glimpse into his childhood during apartheid in South Africa in this award-winning memoir.

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21 cover

21: Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

Ben Mezrich

In the midst of the Go-Go '90s, the culture of greed infused the MIT campus....

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Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering....

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The Operator cover

The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

Robert O'Neill

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career....

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Alexander Hamilton

Ron Chernow

Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton....

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Lincoln

David Herbert Donald

In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography....

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High Price cover

High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society

Carl Hart

A pioneering neuroscientist shares his story of growing up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction....

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Pimp cover

Pimp: The Story of My Life

Iceberg Slim

A blueprint. A bible. What Sun Tzu’s Art of War was to ancient China, Pimp is to the streets. As real as you can get without jumping in, this is the story of Iceberg Slim’s life as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it.

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Educated cover

Educated: A Memoir

Tara Westover

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom....

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Elon Musk cover

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs....

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Non Fiction - Silicon Valley / Start-ups

Hackers & Painters cover

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

Paul Graham

We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care? Find out....

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Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It

Scott Kupor

In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs....

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Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

Antonio Garcia Martinez

Liar's Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martinez....

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Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Dan Lyons

An instant New York Times best seller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes listeners inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers....

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Non Fiction - Life Skills

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Law School for Everyone

The Great Courses

Over the span of 48 lectures, four experienced lawyers and teachers recreate key parts of the first-year law student experience....

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The Republic

Plato

Plato's The Republic is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy....

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48 Laws of Power

Robert Greene

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws....

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Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality

Jacob Tomsky

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry....

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Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

Chris Voss

A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home.

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400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons From a Veteran Patrolman

Adam Plantinga

400 Things Cops Know shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat....

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Marie Kondo

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you'll never have to do it again....

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Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About American Law

Jay M. Feinman

Here is an exceptionally clear introduction to law, covering the main subjects found in the first year of law school, giving us a basic understanding of how it all works....

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Arrest-Proof Yourself, Second Edition

Dale C. Carson

This eye-opening book tells you everything you need to know about how cops operate, the little things that can get you in trouble, and how to stay free from the hungry jaws of the criminal justice system....

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