Books
Books I enjoy and often read time and time again.
Biographies
Biographies are wonderful. The author invests years of research and I benefit greatly from a dozen hours of reading.
A $30 book is a million dollar education.
Leadership: In Turbulent Times
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, an invaluable guide to the development and exercise of leadership from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Business
Business books inspire and motivate me to take action, overcome obstacles, and achieve goals.
Although it describes manufacturing operations, The Goal is relevant for all types of situations because it is about learning what makes the world tick so that you can improve it.
As the characters "think logically about their problems" they gradually uncover the "cause and effect relationships" between actions and results.
The Goal is one of three books that Jeff Bezos requires his top management team to read. He uses it as a framework for sketching out the future of Amazon.com.
The One Thing is a simple, powerful concept to focus on what matters most in personal and work lives.
The Psychology of Money explores the complex relationship between money and human behavior in an accessible way.
It offers insights into how we perceive and manage our finances, and the impact of emotions on our financial decisions.
Zero to One is a book about how to create a successful startup by focusing on creating a new product or service that has never existed before.
It challenges the conventional ideas about competition and offers timely advice for entrepreneurs.
Computer science
I always have a few computer science books close by. As a student and practitioner I enjoy constant learning.
Classic Computer Science Problems in Python
A great overview of classic problems implemented in Python. Covers many areas, including, but not limited to:
- Adversarial search, common techniques for graphs, genetic algorithms, neural networks, and search algorithms
Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming
These two seminal works by Donald Knuth should be required reading by every software engineer.
The bible of all fundamental algorithms and the work that taught many of today's software developers most of what they know about computer programming.
Fiction
I love fiction because at the heart of every story is a great narrative.
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King's heart-stopping dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination - a thousand page tour de force.
Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market.
A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"
The novel is a retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet in rural Wisconsin. The title character is a mute boy who, after his father is killed, runs away from but then returns to his usurped home, hoping to prove his suspicions that his uncle murdered his father.
Some of the best writing I've ever encountered. A master story teller.
"You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life - both metaphorical and literal.
History
Our lives are nothing but eons of history layered on top of each other.
The definitive book on Lewis and Clark's exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time.
Real estate
I have a deep interest is real estate analytics.
See my Real Estate Analysis project.
I like this book for the depth of real estate analysis it goes into.
The following book I found to be a better fit for what I was looking for, which I used to write real estate analysis software.
What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures
This book opened up a world of real estate analytics I never knew about.
My software, which analyzes single family housing, incorporates these financial measures.