Book Recommendations
Dec 7, 2024
·
3 min read
Life gets busy and it can be hard to find the time and motivation to sit down and read nonfiction. However, many of the most important ideas that frame my perspective on the world and my place in it have come from nonfiction books. If you have the time to explore some of the following, great! If you don’t have time to read the full books, I still recommend Googling these authors / titles. Whether it’s a summary of the book, a YouTube video, or an article or blog post, these people have ideas worth hearing!
Environmental
- What if We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures (2024) by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
- Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet (2022) by George Monbiot
- The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate Change (2020) by Solomon Goldstein-Rose
- The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse (2012) by David Owen
- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014) by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World (2013) by William Norhaus
Data Science
- The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (2020) by Brian Christian
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019) by Caroline Criado-Perez
- Weapons of Math Destruction (2016) by Cathy O’Neil
- The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don’t (2012) by Nate Silver
Global Health / Inequality / Development
- The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (2017) by Jason Hickel
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson
- The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (2013) by Angus Deaton
- Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (2018) by Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Ronnlund, and Ola Rosling
- Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution (2015) by James Ferguson
Human Nature / Behavioral Economics / Public Policy
- Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide (2024) by Samir Chopra
- The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World (2023) by Robert E. Rubin
- The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (2020) by Joseph Henrich
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011) by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (1982) by Mancur Olson
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by Daniel Kahneman
- Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2009) by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
- Predictably Irrational (2008) by Dan Ariely
