These are the books, essays and articles that I have found most influential, informative or illuminating (even if I don’t endorse the ideas within them).

The red asterisk (*) denotes those that I have found to be the most influential. 

Last updated March 2, 2025

Literature // Fiction

• * The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
• The Fall by Albert Camus
• Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
• * Aztec by Gary Jennings
• * The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
• * Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago
• Cain by José Saramago
• Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
• * Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl

Philosophy // Religion

• Making the Garden by Christopher Alexander
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor
• The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• * The Koran translated by N. J. Dawood
• * The End of Faith by Sam Harris
• Waking Up by Sam Harris
• Free Will by Sam Harris
• This is It by Alan Watts
• * The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
• Does it Matter? by Alan Watts
• The Way of Zen by Alan Watts

Culture // Criticism

• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
• The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
• A Week at the Airport by Alain de Botton
• The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
• Avoid News: Towards a Healthy News Diet by Rolf Dobelli
• * Man for Himself by Erich Fromm
• Lying by Sam Harris
• * The Silent Crowd: Overcoming Your Fear of Public Speaking by Sam Harris
• Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
• * Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth
• * The Witness by Paul Kingsnorth
• Dark Ecology by Paul Kingsnorth
• Savage Gods by Paul Kingsnorth
• Outrage by Ian Nairn
• SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld
• Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
• Is There Still Room for Debate? by Andrew Sullivan
• We All Live on Campus Now by Andrew Sullivan
• The construction of the public in letters to the editor: Deliberative democracy and the idiom of insanity by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen
• * A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace

Science // Technology

• Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins
• Can We Avoid a Digital Apocalypse? by Sam Harris
• The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence by Tim Urban
• The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction by Tim Urban
• Consilience by Edward O. Wilson

Non-Fiction // History

• City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization by David Carrasco
• The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
• * Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
• The Prevention of Literature by George Orwell
• How the Poor Die by George Orwell

Art // Design

• Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick
• Typography for Lawyers by Matthew Butterick
• Just My Type by Simon Garfield
• Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence by Andrew Juniper
• The Practice of Contemplative Photography by Andy Karr and Michael Wood
• The Philosophy of Sustainable Design by Jason F. McLennan
• The Power of Good Design: Beauty as a Force for Change by Jason F. McLennan
• * The Role of Beauty in Green Design: “Pulchraphilia” by Jason F. McLennan
• Embracing Creation by Freeman Patterson