Books

Below is a list of some of the books that have had a large impact on my life/thinking (mostly in recent years) in no particular order:

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, by Michael Pollan
A fascinating take on the modern food system and the rise in "nutritionism." After reading this, I've tried to avoid low-quality vegetable oils (everything but olive, coconut and avocado) and do my best to avoid processed foods.

Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
This book is a fantastic intro to the value of free markets and the link between free markets and free societies. I think everyone should read it if only to hear a defense of capitalism which is becoming less and less prominent. In particular, I remember the chapters on occupational licensing, school choice and a negative income tax (UBI before its time!).

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris
This book is a fascinating take about religion, spirituality, philosophy and consciousness. It opened my eyes to the value of meditation and the value of spirituality in general.

Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals, by Tyler Cowen
This book convinced me that economic growth is far more of a moral imperative than we think, we should care far more about the future, and that effective altruism may be misguided. Fully adopting Tyler's philosophy will lead you to radically change how you view policy debates today.

The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically, by Peter Singer
A great primer on effective altruism which has changed the way I give to charity. While I aspire to many of the ideas in the book, I admit I struggle to follow all of its ideas and have also reconsidered some of them since reading Stubborn Attachments.

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer
I wouldn't say that this book alone convinced me to go vegan, but it was the final nail in the coffin. This book gives a mostly fair and eye opening take on modern factory farming and the author's own journey. Because it's written by a great writer (Foer's only non-fiction book), it reads much better than your traditional book on the topic.

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker
Like many others who have read it, I found this book quite convincing and believe I have undervalued sleep too much. This book, among other things, has pushed me to give up caffeine almost entirely and change my sleeping habits.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths
As someone without a background in CS, it was fascinating to hear about all the ways you can apply CS to everyday decisions. The chapter on the optimal stopping problem and explore/exploit tradeoff was my favorite.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burton G. Malkiel
This is a timeless book on the wisdom of not trying to beat the market that should be apart of any investor's journey.

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, by Stephen E. Ambrose
I loved war books as a kid and this was my favorite. It's remarkable to read about Easy Company, Dick Winters and everything they went through. Thankfully the TV series they made was just as good if not better than the book.