📘 How to Use This Book List

• Pick ~3 books from different categories to keep your learning multidimensional.
• Start with the 5s and 4s — they’re the most impactful and foundational.
• Don’t rush the journey — this list represents six years of reading, exploration, and growth.
• Take notes as you read to deepen understanding and retain insights.
• Turn the ideas into action — experiments, projects, conversations, habits, reflections.
• Connect books across categories to build synergy and see the bigger patterns.
• Try multiple formats (audio, ebook, print) to keep reading frictionless and enjoyable.

⭐ Non-Fiction Rating Scale

Each non-fiction book is judged by how well it performs across these core dimensions:

• Simplicity — How clearly the book explains ideas without dumbing them down.
• Insightfulness — How many “oh damn” realizations it delivers and the quality of those insights.
• Applicability — How easy it is to take the concepts into real life, work, creation, or learning.
• Depth — How thoroughly the book explores its topic, including nuance and complexity.
• Wholeness — Whether the book feels complete, integrated, and balanced rather than lopsided.
• Synergy — How well the ideas connect to other books in its category.
• Timeless Yet Evolutionary — Whether the ideas hold up over time and still push your growth forward.
• Quality of Writing — Clarity, structure, voice, and how enjoyable it is to read.
• Accomplishes Its Purpose — Whether the book actually delivers on what it claims to do.

Final rating (x/5) reflects the overall gestalt of these dimensions, not a mathematical average.

⭐ Fiction Rating Scale

Each fiction book is judged by how well it delivers on the craft of storytelling:

• Conflict & Suspense — How gripping the tension is and whether the narrative momentum pulls you through.
• Description — How vivid, evocative, and efficient the descriptions are.
• Plotting — The structure, pacing, twists, and narrative architecture.
• Characters — Depth, complexity, voice, arcs, and memorability of the characters.
• Prose — Sentence-level artistry, rhythm, clarity, energy, and emotional punch.
• Inspiration — Whether it leaves you thinking, imagining, or feeling long after the final page.

Final rating (x/5) captures the overall artistic impact of the book.

All right, here we go!

📚500+ Book List

Consciousness & Enlightenment

• The Religion of Tomorrow (5/5)
• Awareness (4/5)
• Zen and Now (4/5)
• Tao Te Ching (4/5)
• The Art of Focus (4/5)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (3/5)
• The Tao of Pooh (3/5)
• The Power of Now (3/5)
• The Untethered Soul (3/5)
• Happiness Beyond Thought (3/5)
• Everyday Zen (3/5)

Metaphysics & Epistemology

• Structure of Scientific Revolutions (4/5)
• A Brief History of Everything (3/5)
• Understanding Media (3/5)
• Metaphors We Live By (3/5)
• The Information (2/5)
• Aspiration (2/5)

Mindfulness & Meditation

• Finding Flow (3/5)
• The Victorious Mind (3/5)
• Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self (3/5)
• Focusing (2/5)

Emotional Mastery & Happiness

• Dopamine Nation (4/5)
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (4/5)
• Emotional Intelligence (3/5)
• The Art of Making Memories (3/5)
• Happy Moments (3/5)
• The Power of Moments (3/5)
• Happy (3/5)
• Whole Brain Living (2/5)

Life Purpose

• Transcend (4/5)
• Conscious Accomplishment (4/5)
• The Pathless Path (4/5)
• Man’s Search for Meaning (4/5)
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (4/5)

Systems Thinking

• Thinking in Systems (4/5)
• The Great Mental Models (4/5)
• A Pattern Language (4/5)
• Subtract (2/5)

Conscious Education

• Brave New Words (4/5)
• The Learning Game (4/5)
• How People Learn (4/5)
• Michael Allens Guide to E-Learning (3/5)
• The New College Classroom (3/5)
• Design for How People Learn (3/5)
• Modern PBL (3/5)
• Teaching College (3/5)
• A Mind For Numbers (3/5)
• Grading for Equity (3/5)

Meta-Learning

• The Extended Mind (4/5)
• How We Learn to Move (4/5)
• Ultralearning (4/5)
• Get Better at Anything (3/5)
• Peak (3/5)
• The Victorious Mind (3/5)
• Mastery (3/5)
• Make It Stick (2/5)
• How We Learn Benedict Carey (2/5)

Gamification

• Actionable Gamification (4/5)
• Reality is Broken (4/5)
• The Art of Game Design (4/5)
• 10,000 Hours of Play (3/5)
• Superbetter (3/5)
• Getting Gamers (3/5)
• Video Game of the Year (3/5)
• Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules & Fictional Worlds (3/5)
• Glued to Games (2/5)
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2/5)

Relationships, Dating & Sex

• The Art of Gathering (3/5)
• Beyond Beliefs (3/5)
• How To Know A Person (3/5)
• The Way Of The Superior Man (3/5)
• She Comes First (3/5)
• Come As You Are (3/5)
• How to Not Die Alone (3/5)
• Models (3/5)
• Magnetic (2/5)
• The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck (2/5)
• The Ethical Slut (2/5)
• Polysecure (2/5)
• How To Win Friends And Influence People (1/5)

Humor & Charisma

• The Art of Witty Banter (3/5)
• Talk (3/5)
• New Comedy Bible (2/5)

Career

• The Lean Startup (4/5)
• The Start-Up of You (4/5)
• The Pathless Path (4/5)
• The E-Myth Revisited (3/5)
• Anything You Want (3/5)

Leadership & Management

• Reinventing Organizations (5/5)
• The Trusted Advisor (4/5)
• Dare to Lead (4/5)
• Traction (3/5)
• The 48 Laws of Power (3/5)
• Managing the Professional Service Firm (2/5)
• Teams That Work (2/5)

Psychology

• Design of Everyday Things (4/5)
• Thinking Fast and Slow (4/5)
• The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols And Self (4/5)
• Antifragile (4/5)
• The Black Swan (4/5)
• Skin In The Game (4/5)
• The Body Keeps The Score (4/5)
• Introduction to Ecological Psychology (4/5)
• Drive By Daniel H. Pink (4/5)
• Fooled By Randomness (3/5)
• The Road to Character (3/5)
• The Selfish Gene (3/5)
• The Social Animal (3/5)
• Plays Well With Others (3/5)
• Behave (3/5)
• The Nature Fix (3/5)
• The Psychology of Dungeons & Dragons (3/5)
• Under the Influence (3/5)
• How to Raise a Healthy Gamer (3/5)
• Games People Play (3/5)
• Attitude Is Everything (2/5)
• Rationality (2/5)
• Hooked Nir Eyali (2/5)
• Predictably Irrational (2/5)
• What Every Body is Saying (2/5)
• Influence (2/5)
• The Female Brain (2/5)

Philosophy

• A Little History of Philosophy (3/5)
• Argumentation (3/5)
• Wisdom of Hypatia (3/5)
• The Trial of Socrates (2/5)
• Stoicism & The Art of Happiness (2/5)
• Enchiridion (2/5)
• Analects of Confucius (1/5)

Religion

• The Reason for God (2/5)

Writing & Reading

• On Writing Well (5/5)
• The Elements of Eloquence (4/5)
• Write Useful Books (4/5)
• Conflict & Suspense (4/5)
• How To Read a Book (4/5)
• Elements of Fiction Writing Conflict & Suspense (4/5)
• Elements of Fiction Writing Description (4/5)
• Elements of Fiction Writing Plotting (4/5)
• The Art of Reading (3/5)
• Plot & Structure (3/5)
• Description & Setting (3/5)
• Writing to Learn (3/5)
• Bird by Bird (3/5)
• The Art & Business of Ghostwriting (3/5)
• Show Your Work (3/5)
• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t (3/5)
• The Boron Letters (2/5)
• Draft No. 4 (2/5)
• Intuitive Editing (2/5)
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2/5)
• The Anatomy of Story (2/5)

Creativity & Art

• Understanding Comics (5/5)
• Steal Like an Artist (4/5)
• This is Your Brain on Music (4/5)
• Slide:ology (4/5)
• The Non-Designer’s Design Book (4/5)
• The Laws of Creativity (3/5)
• Graphic Design: The New Basics (3/5)
• Laws of UX (1/5)

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

• Building a Second Brain (4/5)
• Reading Like a Writer (2/5)
• Duly Noted (2/5)
• Mind Map Mastery (2/5)
• How to Take Smart Notes (2/5)

Science

• We Have No Idea (4/5)
• An Immense World (4/5)
• Finding the Mother Tree (4/5)
• Burn: The New Science of Calorie Burning (3/5)
• The Cancer Code (3/5)
• The Selfish Gene (3/5)
• Food: A Cultural History (3/5)
• The Secret World of Weather (2/5)

Productivity & Habit Change

• Deep Work (4/5)
• Four Thousand Weeks (4/5)
• Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (4/5)
• Atomic Habits (4/5)
• Slow Productivity (3/5)
• Feel-Good Productivity (3/5)
• The Power of Habit (3/5)
• Getting Things Done (2/5)
• The 4-Hour Work Week (2/5)
• Indistractable (2/5)

Politics, Government, And Culture

• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (4/5)
• Amusing Ourselves to Death (4/5)
• Lost Connections (4/5)
• Stolen Focus (4/5)
• Chasing the Scream (4/5)
• Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun (4/5)
• The Culture Map (4/5)
• Bullshit Jobs (4/5)
• New Power — Jeremy Heimans (3/5)
• The Cancelling of the American Mind (3/5)
• The Bias That Divides Us (3/5)
• Zombies In Western Culture (3/5)
• Coddling of the American Mind (3/5)
• The Shallows (2/5)
• Blueprint (2/5)
• Through the Language Glass (2/5)

History

• Sapiens A Brief History Of Everything (4/5)

Money

• The Psychology of Money (4/5)
• Your Money: The Missing Manual (2/5)
• Rich Dad Poor Dad (2/5)
• Money: Master the Game (2/5)

Business, Marketing & Sales

• The Lean Startup (5/5)
• A Marketer’s Guide to Category Design (4/5)
• The Start-Up of You (4/5)
• 100 Million Dollar Offers (4/5)
• Made to Stick (3/5)
• Building a StoryBrand (3/5)
• 100 Million Dollar Leads (3/5)
• The Mom Test (3/5)
• Oversubscribed (2/5)
• Ca$hvertising (2/5)
• Pitch Anything (2/5)
• Dotcom Secrets (2/5)
• Pre-Suasion (1/5)
• Hidden Psychology of Social Networks (1/5)

Content Creation

• Understanding Comics (5/5)
• Storyworthy (4/5)
• The Art & Business of Ghostwriting (3/5)
• The Art and Business of Online Writing (3/5)
• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t (3/5)
• Show Your Work (3/5)
• The YouTube Formula (2/5)

Health & Nutrition

• Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, And Wear Cows (5/5)
• Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy (4/5)
• Animal Liberation Now (3/5)
• In Defense of Food (3/5)
• Cooked (3/5)
• Burn (3/5)
• The Complete Guide to Fasting (2/5)
• Fast This Way (2/5)

Coaching & Therapy

• No Bad Parts (4/5)
• Coach the Person, Not the Problem (4/5)
• The Inner Game of Tennis (3/5)
• You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For (4/5)
• Focusing (2/5)
• Nimble: A Coaching Guide (2/5)

Biography, Memoire, & Journalism

• Educated (5/5)
• Meditations (4/5)
• Alive: The Story of The Andes Survivors (4/5)
• A Walk In The Woods (4/5)
• Blood, Sweat, And Pixels (4/5)
• Leonardo Da Vinci (3/5)
• Sid Meier's Memoire (3/5)
• The River of Doubt (3/5)
• The Fisherman And The Dragon (3/5)
• Crypto Confidential (3/5)
• Walden (3/5)
• Confessions of a Teenage Gamer (2/5)
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (2/5)
• The Rosie Project (2/5)
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (2/5)
• Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (2/5)
• Elon Musk (2/5)

Poetry

• Poems For The Lost (3/5)
• Letters To My Imagination (2/5)

Sci-Fi

• The Martian (4/5)
• Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy (4/5)
• Dune (3/5)
• Three Body Problem (3/5)
• Ready Player One (3/5)
• The Fold (2/5)
• Project Hail Mary (2/5)
• Neuromancer (2/5)
• Parable of the Sower (2/5)

Fiction (General)

• Siddhartha (5/5)
• 1984 (4/5)
• Crime & Punishment (4/5)
• What Makes Sammy Run (4/5)
• The Secret History (3/5)
• The Stand (3/5)
• Narcissus and Goldmund (3/5)
• Notes from the Underground (3/5)
• Demian (3/5)
• The Devil and the Dark Water (3/5)
• God’s Debris (3/5)
• Notes from the Underground (3/5)
• A Man Called Ove (3/5)
• The Phantom Tollbooth (3/5)
• American Gods (3/5)
• Bartleby The Scrivener (2/5)
• Lessons In Chemistry (2/5)
• The Alchemist (2/5)
• The Great Gatsby (2/5)
• Anna Karenina (2/5)
• The Oddysey (2/5)

Fantasy

• The Age of Madness Trilogy (5/5)
• Game of Thrones Series (5/5)
• Small Gods (5/5)
• Mistborn Trilogy (4/5)
• The Stormlight Archive (4/5)
• First Law Trilogy (4/5)
• Dresden Files (4/5)
• Gates of Fire (4/5)
• Tress of the Emerald Sea (4/5)
• The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (4/5)
• Warbreaker (3/5)
• The Lord of The Rings (3/5)
• The Hobbit (3/5)
• Best Served Cold (3/5)
• Geometry for Ocelots (3/5) 
• Jade City (3/5)
• Witcher 3 Series (3/5)
• Elantris (3/5)
• Six of Crows (3/5)
• Edgedancer (3/5)
• Red Rising (2/5)
• Wheel of Time (2/5)
• Vinland Saga (2/5)
• The Left Hand of Darkness (2/5)
• The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook (2/5)