Samuel Kimani

• About
• Links
• Blog
• Travel
• People
• Podcasts
• Bookshelf

 

Bookshelf

I recently discovered the joy of reading books. I never quite grasped the importance of reading during my school years, but now, I'm hooked! Starting with novels, I've expanded my horizons to everything.

What drives my reading choices? Two things really:

First, wanting to improve my communication skills (still a work in progress, slowly getting there!).

Second, whenever I learn about someone, I dive into their reading lists. I've explored recommendations from individuals like John Gachora, Patrick Collison, Naval Ravikant, Mohnish Pabrai, and Chip Wilson, among others.

What I'm reading now, plus my completed reads and to-read list, are below.

Would love to hear what books have inspired you! Drop me your recommendations.

Currently Reading

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Crime and Punishment
• The Language and Thought of the Child
• Mind Management, Not Time Management
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Read

Psychology, Mind & Brain 4

• The Art of Manipulation
• Behave
• The Chimp Paradox
• The Absorbent Mind

Thinking, Reasoning & Decisions 3

• Fooled by Randomness
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Critical Thinking Mastery: Transform Your Mindset For Ultimate Personal Growth

Computing, AI & Information 2

• The Dream Machine
• Mindstorms

Science, Nature & Mathematics 3

• A Pattern Language
• The Order of Time
• The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct

Philosophy & Wisdom 2

• The Trouble With Being Born
• Lying

Spirituality & Inner Life 8

• The Book of Life
• The Way to Love
• Awareness
• The Prophet
• Ikigai
• Think on These Things Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Tao Te Ching
• Jesus and the Disinherited

Self-Development & Motivation 8

• The Art of Possibility
• The Inner Game of Tennis
• How To Develop Self-Confidence & Influence People
• The Courage to Be Disliked
• Feeling Is the Secret
• The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
• Psycho-Cybernetics
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Productivity & Habits 1

• Atomic Habits

Business, Strategy & Leadership 12

• Poor Charlie's Almanack
• Never Split the Difference
• The Checklist Manifesto
• Predictable Revenue
• No Rules Rules
• The Lean Startup
• The Magna Carta of Exponentiality
• The Story of Lululemon
• Creativity. Inc
• People Powered
• Nick and Zak's Adventures in Capitalism
• Good to Great

Money, Investing & Crypto 10

• Number Go Up
• The Intelligent Investor
• Too Big to Fail
• The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
• The Fiat Standard: Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization
• The Dhandho Investor
• The Psychology of Money
• The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future
• Inventing Bitcoin
• Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

Health, Fitness & Longevity 3

• Why We Sleep
• The Longevity Paradox
• Glucose Revolution

Relationships & Communication 1

• Nonviolent Communication

Chess, Games & Strategy 1

• The Immortal Game: A History of Chess

Fiction & Literature 3

• Mind-body Problem
• On Tennis
• Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)

Identity, Africa & Travel 3

• The Culture Map
• Land of Second Chances
• A Grain of Wheat

Society, Culture & History 5

• Why Nations Fail
• Age of Ambition
• On the Trail of the Assassins
• Brazil
• The Mind in The Making

Biography & Memoir 23

• Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens
• Unstoppable
• The Master - The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer
• Steve Jobs
• Open
• Tiger Woods
• The Forgotten Highlander
• Invention
• Going Infinite
• Arthur Ashe
• When Breath Becomes Air
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• The Greatest
• Shoe Dog
• Born a Crime
• Diana
• Sure You Are Joking Mr.Feynman
• A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Educated
• "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"
• A Life in Cybernetics: Ex-Prodigy & I Am a Mathematician — Norbert Wiener
• Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind
• Michelangelo and Titian: A Tale of Rivalry and Genius

To Read

Psychology, Mind & Brain 45

• Six-Minute X-Ray: Rapid Behavior Profiling
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts
• Talking to Strangers
• The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
• The Body Keeps the Score
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
• Scientific Theories of Consciousness
• On the Soul (De Anima) — Aristotle
• Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development — Francis Galton
• Principles of Physiological Psychology — Wilhelm Wundt
• The Principles of Psychology — William James
• Conditioned Reflexes — Ivan Pavlov
• The Interpretation of Dreams — Sigmund Freud
• The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess
• Behaviorism — John B. Watson
• Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology — Frederic Bartlett
• Beyond Freedom and Dignity — B. F. Skinner
• Psychology: The Science of Mental Life — George Miller
• Unified Theories of Cognition — Allen Newell
• Principles of Neural Science
• The Future of the Human Mind: A Study of the Potential Powers of the Brain
• The Expectation Effect
• The Upside of Stress
• Dopamine Nation
• Stumbling on Happiness
• Mindset
• The Blank Slate
• Consciousness Explained
• The Freud Reader
• Human Problem Solving — Allen Newell
• Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
• How We Think — John Dewey
• Television and Antisocial Behavior: Field Experiments
• Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)
• Authentic Happiness
• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
• Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile
• Learning and Individual Differences: Advances in Theory and Research
• Motivation and Personality
• Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
• Minds, Brains and Science
• Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain
• The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
• Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings

Thinking, Reasoning & Decisions 8

• Predictably Irrational
• Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
• The Art of Clear Thinking
• The Scout Mindset
• Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
• The Paradox of Choice
• Thinking in Bets
• Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Computing, AI & Information 14

• Clean Code
• Scientific Discovery: Computational Explorations of the Creative Processes
• Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine — Norbert Wiener
• Solvability, Provability, Definability: The Collected Works of Emil L. Post
• Embodiments of Mind — Warren McCulloch
• The Computer and the Brain — John von Neumann
• The Essential Turing — Alan Turing
• Libraries of the Future — J. C. R. Licklider
• The Sciences of the Artificial — Herbert Simon
• The Mathematical Theory of Communication — Claude Shannon
• Defending AI Research: A Collection of Essays — John McCarthy
• The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind
• A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
• The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and Models of Mind

Science, Nature & Mathematics 51

• The Selfish Gene
• Fashionable Nonsense
• Game Theory: Analysis of Conflicts
• On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition
• The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature
• Natural Patterns, Geometry, and Design
• Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does
• The Hidden Geometry of Life: The Science and Spirituality of Nature
• How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity
• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
• Social Evolution
• Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
• Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century
• The Enjoyment of Math
• The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
• A Mathematician's Survival Guide
• The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan
• Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel
• Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation
• Mental Math: Tricks To Become A Human Calculator
• The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics
• Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincaré
• Thinking Mathematically
• The Story Book of Science
• Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History
• Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
• Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code
• Why Evolution Is True
• Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
• Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
• The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
• The Extended Phenotype
• Survival of the Sickest
• Remarkable Creatures
• Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity
• The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes
• Evolution in Four Dimensions
• Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
• The Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe
• Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea
• Cat's Paws and Catapults
• Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America
• Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
• The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
• King Solomon's Ring: New Light on Animal Ways
• On Aggression
• The Study of Instinct
• The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are

Philosophy & Wisdom 36

• The Essential Worldwide Laws of Life
• The Selected Writings of Maurice O'Connor Drury: On Wittgenstein, Philosophy, Religion and Psychiatry
• Meditations
• The Republic
• The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
• Phenomenology of Spirit
• New Science
• Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius
• Beauty: A Very Short Introduction
• A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein
• Critique of Pure Reason
• Confessions — Augustine
• Ethics — Baruch Spinoza
• A Treatise of Human Nature — David Hume
• The Book of Five Rings
• The Denial of Death
• Man's Search for Meaning
• On the Genealogy of Morals
• Fear and Trembling
• Discourses
• Key Writings — Henri Bergson
• The Ruin of Kasch
• Machiavelli's Virtue
• Zera Yacob: Complex Philosophy in Simple Terms
• Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
• A Short History of Decay
• On the Heights of Despair
• The Myth of Sisyphus
• The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are
• Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark
• What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
• African Philosophy: Myth and Reality
• Philosophy and an African Culture
• African Religions and Philosophy
• The Wretched of the Earth
• An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

Spirituality & Inner Life 8

• The Kybalion: Centenary Edition
• The Four Agreements
• The Power of Now
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
• The Gift: Poems by Hafiz
• Already Free
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
• Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

Self-Development & Motivation 19

• The Defining Decade
• How to Talk to Anyone
• The 48 Laws of Power
• Make Your Bed
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Think and Grow Rich
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Power of Positive Thinking
• 12 Rules for Life
• Girl, Stop Apologizing
• Girl, Wash Your Face
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
• Who Moved My Cheese?
• Can't Hurt Me
• You Can Just Do Things: The Power of Permissionless Action
• How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
• A Guide to Confident Living
• The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live, and Love
• The School of Life: An Emotional Education

Productivity & Habits 5

• The 5 AM Club
• The Power of Habit
• The 80/20 Principle
• Deep Work
• Getting Things Done

Business, Strategy & Leadership 10

• 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
• Never Get a Real Job
• The 4-Hour Workweek
• Zero to One
• Leaders Eat Last
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• So Good They Can't Ignore You
• The Innovator's Dilemma
• Start With Why

Money & Personal Finance 6

• The Millionaire Expat
• The Smart Money Woman
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Your Money or Your Life
• The Richest Man in Babylon
• The Joys of Compounding: The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning

Health, Fitness & Longevity 5

• The 4-Hour Body
• Bigger Leaner Stronger
• Born to Run
• The New Rules of Lifting
• Outlive

Relationships & Parenting 8

• The Self-Driven Child
• 0 to 25: Leading the Next Generation
• Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man
• The 5 Love Languages
• Getting the Love You Want
• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
• How to Raise a Reader
• Healthy Loving Relationships

Chess, Games & Strategy 5

• Behind Deep Blue
• Thought and Choice in Chess
• Capablanca's Endgame Technique
• Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall
• Modern Poker Theory: Building an Unbeatable Strategy Based on GTO Principles

Fiction & Literature 44

• Snow Crash: A Novel
• Zorba the Greek
• The Name of the Wind
• The Midnight Library
• Greatest Short Stories of Anton Chekhov
• The Brothers Karamazov
• On the Road
• The Dharma Bums
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Shantaram
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Green Hills of Africa
• The Complete Short Stories — Ernest Hemingway
• The Old Man and the Sea
• A Moveable Feast
• Travels with Charley: In Search of America
• Evolution
• The Norton Anthology of English Literature
• Late Essays: 2006–2017
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Child of Chaos (Warhammer 40,000)
• Project Hail Mary
• Lonesome Dove
• Catch-22
• The Night Circus
• The House in the Cerulean Sea
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Road
• Wuthering Heights
• Dune
• The Book Thief
• A Gentleman in Moscow
• East of Eden
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Rebecca
• Good Omens
• Jane Eyre
• The Stand
• American Gods
• Six of Crows
• The Alchemist
• The Lies of Locke Lamora
• Piranesi

Writing & Creativity 10

• Ernest Hemingway on Writing
• Writing Down the Bones
• How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
• Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory
• The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
• The Bloomsbury Introduction to Creative Writing
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Identity, Africa & Travel 9

• Americanah
• Travelling While Black
• The Art of Crossing Cultures
• We Are All Birds of Uganda
• Homegoing
• Dark Star Safari
• The Shadow of the Sun
• Travels — Michael Crichton
• Majuu: Life Between Two Worlds

Society, Culture & History 14

• Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
• The Rational Optimist
• Maintenance of Everything: Part One
• In Pursuit of the Common Good
• The Coddling of the American Mind
• The Revolt of the Public
• The Better Angels of Our Nature
• The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry
• The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
• Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture
• Titian's Touch: Art, Magic and Philosophy
• Learning to Look: Dispatches from the Art World
• The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Biography & Memoir 9

• Breaking Through: My Life in Science
• Up from Slavery
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
• Emergence: Labeled Autistic
• A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
• Theodor Geisel: A Portrait of the Man Who Became Dr. Seuss
• Before & Laughter
• A Life of Picasso I: The Prodigy, 1881–1906