The Unsupervised Learning Book List

I’ve been reading more than ever over the last five years, and I get a lot of questions about what I recommend. So here’s my official book list.

I’ll give one sentence about what each is about, but I won’t try to sell it to you. The sell is simply that I’ve read a couple hundred books over the last several years, and these are my ordered recommendations.

Nonfiction


Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior — My favorite book on the merging of Evolutionary Psychology with marketing and personality.
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature  — This book taught me more science about human evolution and human nature than any other.
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow — An unmatched look at the history, present, and future of humanity.
The Real Internet of Things — My book on the future of the Internet of Things and how it’ll merge with society.
Naked Economics — This book completely changed what I understood economics to be, and I’m now fascinated with it as a result.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — A short, spectacular work on the most important lesson of all: worry less about what others think of you.
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty — I was surprised by how good this book is—both in how it’s written and in the way it stresses honesty and a lack of manipulation as its central tenets. Think of it less as a dating book, and more as as a book on becoming comfortable with yourself.
The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics — A stunning education into real-world politics that you can’t unlearn once you are exposed to it.
Hamilton — A remarkable biography that taught me more about America than I’d learned any other way.

Fiction


Ready Player One : An unspeakably fun journey for anyone who lived through—or is a fan of—the eighties geek scene.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect: A Novel of the Singularity : My long-time favorite story around the singularity and its fantasy-injected possibilities.
Lexicon : A brilliant blend of hacking, psychology, and fantasy.
Kill Decision : A novel-based exploration of numerous non-fiction concepts, with miniature drones being the centerpiece.
The Graveyard Book : Supposedly a children’s book, but enough fun for 10 adults put together.

UPDATED: APRIL 2017

Notes


If you don’t like my fiction selections because they’re not as refined as my nonfiction selections, I preemptively agree with you. Let me know what I should read to improve the list.
It’s harder than you think to put books in order like this, especially as you start going down in the list. If it helps, consider it a recommendation of what order to read them in, not a hard statement of ultimate objective quality.
Please send any recommendations. I’d love to improve the list!

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I do a weekly show called Unsupervised Learning, where I curate the most interesting stories in infosec, technology, and humans, and talk about why they matter. You can subscribe here.