Book Reviews

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

I haven't been tracking books for a few years now—building turbopuffer has consumed most of my time. Leaving this here for posterity and to hopefully resume one day.

Why Buddhism is True
Jul 2022
Punished by Rewards
Jun 2022
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
Apr 2022
Data Oriented Design
Mar 2022
Making Numbers Count
Mar 2022
The Beginning of Infinity
Mar 2022
The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann
Feb 2022
Venture Deals
Feb 2022
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
Jan 2022
The Ministry for the Future
Dec 2021
The Wires of War
Nov 2021
When Breath Becomes Air
Nov 2021
Deep Learning for Coders with Fastai and Pytorch
Oct 2021
Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts
Oct 2021
The Whisper in the Night Wind
Oct 2021
The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History
Oct 2021
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
Sep 2021
The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society
Sep 2021
Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
Sep 2021
An Island to Oneself: The Story of Six Years on a Desert Island
Aug 2021
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Aug 2021
Black Edge
Aug 2021
Synesthesia
Jul 2021
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
Jun 2021
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
Jun 2021
Beyond
May 2021
Alone Against the North: An Expedition into the Unknown
May 2021
A Philosophy of Software Design
Apr 2021
Beginners
Apr 2021
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing
Mar 2021
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Mar 2021
Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
Dec 2020
Successful Acquisitions
Nov 2020
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
Nov 2020
A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land
Nov 2020
The Psychology of Money
Oct 2020
Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
Oct 2020
How Innovation Works
Oct 2020
Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
Oct 2020
Streaming Systems
Aug 2020
Liar's Poker
Aug 2020
Hell Yeah or No: what's worth doing
Aug 2020
Deskbound
Aug 2020
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Jul 2020
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
Jul 2020
The End of Policing
Jul 2020
Relevant Search: With Examples Using Elasticsearch and Solr
Jun 2020
Lucene in Action Second Edition
Jun 2020
Multiplayer Game Programming: Architecting Networked Games
Apr 2020
Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases
Apr 2020
Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
Apr 2020
The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History
Apr 2020
Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
Mar 2020
BPF Performance Tools
Mar 2020
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
Mar 2020
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
Mar 2020
Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud
Feb 2020
The Power of Little Ideas
Feb 2020
Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation
Jan 2020
Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems
Jan 2020
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Jan 2020
Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History
Jan 2020
Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #3)
Dec 2019
Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West
Dec 2019
The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution
Dec 2019
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Nov 2019
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Nov 2019
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Nov 2019
Niels Bohr — Et Portræt
Nov 2019
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
Oct 2019
Energy: A Human History
Oct 2019
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry
Oct 2019
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Oct 2019
Measure What Matters
Oct 2019
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Sep 2019
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
Sep 2019
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Sep 2019
Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy
Sep 2019
Kelly: More Than My Share of It All
Aug 2019
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon
Aug 2019
Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
Aug 2019
Tempo: Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision-Making
Aug 2019
Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Aug 2019
What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory
Jul 2019
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Jul 2019
Factor Man
Jul 2019
Becoming
Jun 2019
Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
Jun 2019
Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success
May 2019
For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink
May 2019
The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)
May 2019
The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1)
Apr 2019
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
Apr 2019
The Elementary Particles
Apr 2019
Status Anxiety
Apr 2019
Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice
Apr 2019
Hitchhiking in the axis of evil by thumb through Iran, Irak and Afghanistan
Apr 2019
Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate
Mar 2019
The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts
Mar 2019
Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea Into a Global Business
Mar 2019
Image Performance
Mar 2019
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Mar 2019
Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
Mar 2019
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Mar 2019
Usability Engineering
Feb 2019
Time Is Money: The Business Value of Web Performance
Feb 2019
Game Engine Black Book, Wolfenstein 3D
Feb 2019
The Complete Guide to Rails Performance
Feb 2019
The Art of Application Performance Testing
Feb 2019
High Performance Browser Networking
Feb 2019
Designing and Engineering Time: The Psychology of Time Perception in Software
Feb 2019
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Jan 2019
Eksil
Jan 2019
The North Water
Dec 2018
The Course of Love
Dec 2018
The Rats in the Walls
Dec 2018
The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
Dec 2018
Daughter of Fortune
Dec 2018
Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World
Dec 2018
The Book Thief
Dec 2018
The Victorian Internet
Dec 2018
Between Cross and Crescent: Jewish Civilization from Mohammed to Spinoza
Oct 2018
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box
Oct 2018
The Selfish Gene
Oct 2018
Some Thoughts About Relationships
Oct 2018
How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers
Oct 2018
It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
Oct 2018
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
Sep 2018
The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life
Sep 2018
Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
Sep 2018
The Wright Brothers
Sep 2018
Turkey: A Short History
Aug 2018
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)
Aug 2018
The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems
Aug 2018
Managing Oneself
Aug 2018
Anna Karenina
Aug 2018
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
Jul 2018
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE
Jun 2018
Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet
Jun 2018
Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built
Jun 2018
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Jun 2018
Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
May 2018
Metaphors We Live By
May 2018
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
May 2018
The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World
May 2018
The Little Book of Tourists in Iceland: Tips, tricks, and what the Icelanders really think of you
Apr 2018
Alexander the Great
Apr 2018
The Little Book of the Icelanders: 50 miniature essays on the quirks and foibles of the Icelandic people
Apr 2018
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
Apr 2018
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Mar 2018
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Mar 2018
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Mar 2018
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)
Mar 2018
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Mar 2018
Artemis
Mar 2018
American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
Mar 2018
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility
Mar 2018
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Feb 2018
The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance
Feb 2018
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Feb 2018
The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
Feb 2018
Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts
Jan 2018
The Internet of Money
Jan 2018
Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies
Jan 2018
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked The Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, And Emerged Triumphant From Two Centuries Of Controversy
Jan 2018
Sourdough
Jan 2018
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
Jan 2018
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
Dec 2017
Principles: Life and Work
Dec 2017
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Dec 2017
Ready Player One
Dec 2017
Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery Book 1)
Dec 2017
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Dec 2017
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
Nov 2017
Six Thinking Hats
Nov 2017
Rory Sutherland: The Wiki Man
Nov 2017
The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact
Oct 2017
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
Oct 2017
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Oct 2017
Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen
Oct 2017
Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
Sep 2017
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Sep 2017
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
Sep 2017
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3)
Sep 2017
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2)
Aug 2017
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Aug 2017
Chaos Engineering
Aug 2017
The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life
Aug 2017
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Aug 2017
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
Aug 2017
The Way to Wealth
Aug 2017
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Aug 2017
The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase
Aug 2017
The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
Jul 2017
Remote: Office Not Required
Jul 2017
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Jul 2017
Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Debacles
Jul 2017
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
Jul 2017
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Jul 2017
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
May 2017
Flowers for Algernon
Apr 2017
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Apr 2017
Slaughterhouse-Five
Apr 2017
The Investment Checklist: The Art of In-Depth Research
Apr 2017
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Mar 2017
The Martian
Mar 2017
What Makes Sammy Run?
Mar 2017
Stories of Your Life and Others
Mar 2017
The Lessons of History
Mar 2017
The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess
Mar 2017
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Mar 2017
Ego Is the Enemy
Mar 2017
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Feb 2017
And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East
Jan 2017
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Jan 2017
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
Dec 2016
The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
Dec 2016
The Essential Yusuf Idris: Masterpieces of the Egyptian Short Story
Dec 2016
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
Dec 2016
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Nov 2016
Never Split the Difference
Oct 2016
Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body
Sep 2016
Leaders Eat Last
Aug 2016
The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love
Jul 2016
Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and The Man Who Reinvented Food
Jul 2016
Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health
Jul 2016
Man's Search for Meaning
Jul 2016
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
Jun 2016
Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking
May 2016
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
May 2016
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
May 2016
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Apr 2016
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Apr 2016
The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why
Apr 2016
Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week
Apr 2016
Between the World and Me
Apr 2016
High Output Management
Mar 2016
We Learn Nothing
Mar 2016
Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed
Mar 2016
Mexico: A History
Feb 2016
Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide: A Distributed Real-Time Search and Analytics Engine
Feb 2016
The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World
Feb 2016
The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas
Jan 2016
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Jan 2016
Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal
Jan 2016
Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
Dec 2015
The Ultimate Diet 2.0. Advanced Cyclical Dieting for Achieving Super Leanness.
Dec 2015
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
Dec 2015
The Art and Craft of Tea
Dec 2015
Become the next American Ninja Warrior: The Ultimate Guide on How to Prepare and Win the next American Ninja Warrior Obstacle Race
Nov 2015
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Nov 2015
Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
Nov 2015
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Nov 2015
100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation
Nov 2015
Convict Conditioning 2: Advanced Prison Training Tactics for Muscle Gain, Fat Loss and Bulletproof Joints
Oct 2015
Convict Conditioning: How to Bust Free of All Weakness Using the Lost Secrets of Supreme Survival Strength
Oct 2015
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Oct 2015
Developing the Leader Within You
Oct 2015
The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor
Oct 2015
Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
Sep 2015
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
Sep 2015
The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long Term Health
Aug 2015
Outliers: The Story of Success
Jul 2015
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Jul 2015
The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus into Your Life
Jul 2015
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
Jul 2015
The Psychology of Computer Programming
Jul 2015
Modern Romance
Jul 2015
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Jun 2015
Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law
Jun 2015
The Magic of Thinking Big
Jun 2015
Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World
Jun 2015
Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain - for Life
Jun 2015
Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
Jun 2015
ZooKeeper: Distributed process coordination
May 2015
The Truth about Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-Of-The-Matter Facts You Need to Know
May 2015
Meditations
May 2015
Mastery
May 2015
Unix Network Programming, Volume 1: Networking APIs - Sockets and XTI
May 2015
The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and Unix System Programming Handbook
May 2015
The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America
Apr 2015
Vim and Vi Tips: Essential Vim and Vi Editor Skills
Apr 2015
Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
Apr 2015
Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction
Apr 2015
Lying
Apr 2015
Ikigai
Apr 2015
Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code
Apr 2015
Desert Encounter
Apr 2015
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Apr 2015
Algorithms in a Nutshell
Apr 2015
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Apr 2015
The Timeless Way of Building
Apr 2015
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Apr 2015
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Apr 2015
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Apr 2015
Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
Apr 2015
Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity
Apr 2015
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
Apr 2015
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Mar 2015
Complete Calisthenics - The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Exercise
Mar 2015
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Jan 2015
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs
Jan 2015
Steve Jobs
Jan 2015
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
Jan 2015
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It
Jan 2015
Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food
Jan 2015
Competitive Programming 3
Jan 2015
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Dec 2014
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
Dec 2014
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
Oct 2014
The Design of Everyday Things
Feb 2014
The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources
Jan 2014
Modernist Cuisine at Home
Jan 2014
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Jan 2013
Tryghedsnarkomaner
Jan 2012
Hunger
Jan 2012
The Old Man and the Sea
Jan 2011
Hus og hjem
Jan 2011
Headhunters
Jan 2011
Crime and Punishment
Jan 2011
Angels & Demons
Jan 2010
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
Jan 2009
Until I Find You
Jan 2009
Revolution
Jan 2009
Liberty
Jan 2009
The World According to Garp
Jan 2008
The Da Vinci Code
Jan 2008
The Hotel New Hampshire
Jan 2007