--- title: Book Clusters date: 2026-01-02T13:52:22+08:00 --- Rather than read individual books, why not read clusters on related topics? Using AI to summarize, compare, and fact-check? - [x] Tiny-habits + behavior design wave (2018–2020) - [Atomic Habits (James Clear, 2018)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121378-atomic-habits) - [Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg, 2019/2020 editions)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43261127-tiny-habits) - [The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg, 2012)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit) - [x] Learning faster, remembering more (2014–2020) - [Make It Stick (Peter C. Brown, 2014)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18770267-make-it-stick) - [A Mind for Numbers (Barbara Oakley, 2014)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693655-a-mind-for-numbers) - [Ultralearning (Scott Young, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44770129-ultralearning) - [How to Take Smart Notes (Sönke Ahrens, 2017)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34507927-how-to-take-smart-notes) - [x] Motivation, grit, and “how people get good” (2016–2019). [#](https://claude.ai/chat/ee0c099e-ed4c-46d1-9dcd-111010334375) [Gemini](https://www.s-anand.net/blog/notes/gemini-book-summary-grit-peak-range/) - [Grit (Angela Duckworth, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27213329-grit) - [Peak (Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26312997-peak) - [Range (David Epstein, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range) - [ ] [Hidden Potential (Adam Grant, 2023)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157095669-hidden-potential) - [ ] [Mindset (Carol S. Dweck, 2006)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40745.Mindset) - [ ] [The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle, 2009)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5771014-the-talent-code) - [ ] [Drive (Daniel H. Pink, 2009)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452796-drive) - [x] The “Attention Resistance” and Digital Minimalism (2016–2022) - [Deep Work (Cal Newport, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work) - [Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40672036-digital-minimalism) - [Indistractable (Nir Eyal, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44595007-indistractable) - [How to Do Nothing (Jenny Odell, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42771901-how-to-do-nothing) - [Stolen Focus (Johann Hari, 2022)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57933306-stolen-focus) - [x] Trauma, healing, and therapy “going mainstream” (2014–2022) - [What Happened to You? (Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey, 2021)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53238858-what-happened-to-you) - [The Myth of Normal (Gabor Maté, 2022)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58537332-the-myth-of-normal) - [The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk, 2014)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score) - [No Bad Parts (Richard Schwartz, 2021)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55384168-no-bad-parts) - [My Grandmother’s Hands (Resmaa Menakem, 2017)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34146782-my-grandmother-s-hands) - [Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (Lori Gottlieb, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37570546-maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone) - [It Didn’t Start with You (Mark Wolynn, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26026054-it-didn-t-start-with-you) - [ ] Endurance running as history + meaning + limits (2006-2016) - [The Road to Sparta (Dean Karnazes, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17286794-the-road-to-sparta) - [Born to Run (Christopher McDougall, 2009)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6289283-born-to-run) - [Endure (Alex Hutchinson, 2018)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068622-endure) - [Ultramarathon Man (Dean Karnazes, 2006)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87632.Ultramarathon_Man) - [What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Haruki Murakami, 2007)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2195464.What_I_Talk_About_When_I_Talk_About_Running) - [Running with the Kenyans (Adharanand Finn, 2011)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13147812-running-with-the-kenyans) - [ ] Socialism "after the 20th century": rebuilding the case, testing alternatives, arguing with critics (1944-2021) - [Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism! (Todor Bombov, 2017/2021 editions)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34640476-socialism-is-dead-long-live-socialism) - [The Socialist Manifesto (Bhaskar Sunkara, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41189926-the-socialist-manifesto) - [Why You Should Be a Socialist (Nathan J. Robinson, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43263381-why-you-should-be-a-socialist) - [Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Thomas Piketty, 2013/2014)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18736925-capital-in-the-twenty-first-century) - [The Nordic Theory of Everything (Anu Partanen, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28014216-the-nordic-theory-of-everything) - [The Road to Serfdom (Friedrich Hayek, 1944)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299215.The_Road_to_Serfdom) - [ ] Coaching-centered leadership and building high-performing teams (1998-2019) - [Trillion Dollar Coach (Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42118073-trillion-dollar-coach) - [High Output Management (Andrew S. Grove, 1983)](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/324750.High_Output_Management) - [The Coaching Habit (Michael Bungay Stanier, 2016)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29342515-the-coaching-habit) - [Radical Candor (Kim Scott, 2017)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939161-radical-candor) - [The Making of a Manager (Julie Zhuo, 2019)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38821039-the-making-of-a-manager) - [Multipliers (Liz Wiseman, 2010)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8310410-multipliers) - Nexus and the history of information networks: media, power, and the AI turn (2010-2024) - Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Yuval Noah Harari, 2024) - The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (James Gleick, 2011) - The Master Switch (Tim Wu, 2010) - The Shallows (Nicholas Carr, 2010) - The Square and the Tower (Niall Ferguson, 2017) - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff, 2019) - "Remarkable service" leadership playbook (1993-2022) - Unreasonable Hospitality (Will Guidara, 2022) - Setting the Table (Danny Meyer, 2006) - Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service (The Disney Institute, 2001; updated editions later) - Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh, 2010) - The Experience Economy (B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore, 1999) - Raving Fans (Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles, 1993) - Science graphics, visual explanation, and evidence-based information design (1983-2023) - Building Science Graphics (Jen Christiansen, 2023) - The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Edward Tufte, 1983) - Visual Explanations (Edward Tufte, 1997) - The Truthful Art (Alberto Cairo, 2016) - Storytelling with Data (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, 2015) - Show Me the Numbers (Stephen Few, 2004) - Superforecasting and the craft of good judgment under uncertainty (2001-2018) - Superforecasting (Philip E. Tetlock & Dan Gardner, 2015) - The Signal and the Noise (Nate Silver, 2012) - Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke, 2018) - How Not to Be Wrong (Jordan Ellenberg, 2014) - Fooled by Randomness (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2001) - The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007) - Explanations, progress, and the Popperian worldview (1963–2018) - The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (David Deutsch, 2011) - Conjectures and Refutations (Karl Popper, 1963) - The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Karl Popper, 1934; English 1959) - The Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch, 1997) - Enlightenment Now (Steven Pinker, 2018) - Decision-making, noise, and cognitive bias (2011–2021) - Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) - Superforecasting (Tetlock & Gardner) - Noise (Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein) - Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke) - Happiness → meaning → the good life (2016–2023) - The Happiness Trap (ACT-based) - The Power of Meaning (Emily Esfahani Smith) - The Good Life (Waldinger & Schulz) - Build the Life You Want (Brooks & Winfrey) - Relationships + attachment + communication (2010–2018) - Attached (Levine & Heller) - Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg) - Crucial Conversations - The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work (Gottman) - Longevity / healthspan “protocol” wave (2017–2023) - The Telomere Effect (Blackburn & Epel, 2017) - Lifespan (David Sinclair, 2019) - Outlive (Peter Attia, 2023) - Sleep finally gets its “public health” moment (2016–2018) - Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker, 2017) - The Sleep Revolution (Arianna Huffington) - Sleep Smarter (Shawn Stevenson, 2016) - The Power of When (Michael Breus, 2016) - The Sleep Solution (W. Chris Winter, 2017) - Metabolic health, obesity, and food environment (2015–2023) - The Obesity Code (Jason Fung) - How Not to Die (Michael Greger) - Ultra-Processed People (Chris van Tulleken) - Exercise as medicine + movement as mood (2008–2020) - Spark (John Ratey) - Born to Run (McDougall) - The Joy of Movement (Kelly McGonigal) - Modern management craft: feedback, coaching, teams (2016–2019) - The Coaching Habit (Michael Bungay Stanier) - Radical Candor (Kim Scott) - The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle) - The Fearless Organization (Amy Edmondson) - Execution systems: OKRs and operating cadence (2015–2018) - Measure What Matters (John Doerr) - Radical Focus (Christina Wodtke) - The 4 Disciplines of Execution (McChesney et al.) - Startups & product-building playbook wave (2011–2016) - The Lean Startup (Eric Ries) - Zero to One (Peter Thiel, 2014) - Sprint (Knapp et al.) - Hooked (Nir Eyal) - The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz, 2014) - Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull, 2014) - Strategy “clarity” wave (2011–2017) - Good Strategy Bad Strategy (Rumelt) - Playing to Win (Lafley & Martin) - The Innovator’s Dilemma (Christensen) - Seven Powers (Hamilton Helmer) - Incentives, misalignment, and corporate pathology (2015–2020) - Misbehaving (Thaler) - The Undoing Project (Lewis) - The Man Who Solved the Market (Zuckerman) (if you like finance angle) - No Rules Rules (Hastings & Meyer) - “Why nations succeed/fail” + institutions (2012–2015) - Why Nations Fail (Acemoglu & Robinson) - The Dictator’s Handbook (Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) - Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall) - Big History and the “Sapiens” Effect (2014–2021) - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari, 2014) - The Better Angels of Our Nature (Pinker) - The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2015) - Homo Deus (Yuval Noah Harari, 2016) - The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow, 2021) - Geopolitics reboot (2012–2020) - The Revenge of Geography (Robert Kaplan, 2012) - Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall, 2015) - The Future is Asian (Parag Khanna) - Connectography (Parag Khanna, 2016) - Inequality, capitalism, and who wins (2012–2019) - Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Thomas Piketty, 2013/2014) - Winners Take All (Anand Giridharadas) - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff) - The Price of Inequality (Joseph Stiglitz, 2012) - Inequality: What Can Be Done? (Anthony Atkinson, 2015) - After Piketty (Heather Boushey et al., 2017) - Race, systems, and social structure (2019–2020) - How to Be an Antiracist (Ibram X. Kendi) - White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo) - Caste (Isabel Wilkerson) - Social contagion, networks, and how behavior spreads (2009–2013) - Connected (Christakis & Fowler) - Contagious (Jonah Berger) - The Righteous Mind (Jonathan Haidt) - AI and the future of work (2017–2023) - Life 3.0 (Tegmark) - AI Superpowers (Kai-Fu Lee) - The Alignment Problem (Brian Christian) - The Coming Wave (Mustafa Suleyman) - Climate “this is the constraint” wave (2014–2021) - The Sixth Extinction (Kolbert) - Drawdown (Hawken, ed.) - The Uninhabitable Earth (Wallace-Wells) - How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Gates) - Physics/cosmology for humans (2014–2017) - Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Rovelli) - The Big Picture (Sean Carroll) - Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Tyson) - Modern Stoicism and Ego Management (2014–2019) - The Obstacle Is the Way (Ryan Holiday, 2014) - Ego Is the Enemy (Ryan Holiday, 2016) - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck (Mark Manson, 2016) - Stillness Is the Key (Ryan Holiday, 2019) - The “Wood Wide Web”: Plant and Fungal Intelligence (2015–2021) - The Hidden Life of Trees (Peter Wohlleben, 2015) - The Overstory (Richard Powers, 2018) - Entangled Life (Merlin Sheldrake, 2020) - Finding the Mother Tree (Suzanne Simard, 2021) - Breathwork and Respiratory Health (2015–2020) - The Oxygen Advantage (Patrick McKeown, 2015) - Just Breathe (Dan Brulé, 2017) - Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (James Nestor, 2020) - The Microbiome and Gut-Brain Axis (2014–2016) - Missing Microbes (Martin Blaser, 2014) - The Good Gut (Justin & Erica Sonnenburg, 2015) - 10% Human (Alanna Collen, 2015) - I Contain Multitudes (Ed Yong, 2016) - The Psychedelic Renaissance (2018–2021) - How to Change Your Mind (Michael Pollan, 2018) - The Psychedelic Renaissance (Ben Sessa, 2012/2018 edition) - Acid Revival (Danielle Giffort, 2020) - This Is Your Mind on Plants (Michael Pollan, 2021) - CRISPR and the Gene Editing Revolution (2017–2021) - A Crack in Creation (Jennifer Doudna & Samuel Sternberg, 2017) - The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee) - Hacking Darwin (Jamie Metzl, 2019) - Editing Humanity (Kevin Davies, 2020) - The Code Breaker (Walter Isaacson, 2021) - The Meritocracy Trap (2019–2020) - The Meritocracy Trap (Daniel Markovits, 2019) - The Tyranny of Merit (Michael Sandel, 2020) - The Cult of Smart (Fredrik deBoer, 2020) - The Crisis of Democracy and Authoritarianism (2018–2020) - How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, 2018) - Fascism: A Warning (Madeleine Albright, 2018) - The People vs. Democracy (Yascha Mounk, 2018) - Twilight of Democracy (Anne Applebaum, 2020) - The Gender Data Gap and Invisible Labor (2019–2021) - Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Perez, 2019) - Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters (Deborah Stone, 2020) - The Authority Gap (Mary Ann Sieghart, 2021) - The “Unicorn” Fall: Corporate Fraud and Failure (2018–2021) - Bad Blood (John Carreyrou, 2018) - Super Pumped (Mike Isaac, 2019) - Billion Dollar Loser (Reeves Wiedeman, 2020) - The Cult of We (Eliot Brown & Maureen Farrell, 2021) - New Urbanism and Walkable Cities (2012–2019) - Walkable City (Jeff Speck, 2012) - Happy City (Charles Montgomery, 2013) - Streetfight (Janette Sadik-Khan, 2016) - Soft City (David Sim, 2019) - Silk Roads and “history as networks”: trade routes, exchange, and the Eurasian pivot (2008–2018) - The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2015) - The New Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan, 2018) - Empires of the Silk Road (Christopher I. Beckwith, 2009) - A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World (William J. Bernstein, 2008) - The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (David Abulafia, 2011) - The Modern Synthesis forming: evolution meets genetics and math (1930–1942) - The Causes of Evolution (J. B. S. Haldane, 1932) - The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (R. A. Fisher, 1930) - Genetics and the Origin of Species (Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1937) - Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (Julian Huxley, 1942) - What Evolution Is (Ernst Mayr, 2001) - Forecasting science’s consequences: biotech futures and moral whiplash (1924–2005) - Daedalus; or, Science and the Future (J. B. S. Haldane, 1924) - The World Set Free (H. G. Wells, 1914) - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) - Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, 1962) - The Singularity Is Near (Ray Kurzweil, 2005) - Erudite historical mystery: monasteries, manuscripts, and ideas as suspects (1977–1993) - The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1980) - Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco, 1988) - The Club Dumas (Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 1993) - A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters, 1977) - Labyrinth (Kate Mosse, 2005) - Chemistry as memoir, ethics, and survival: science told as literature (1975–2016) - The Periodic Table (Primo Levi, 1975) - If This Is a Man / Survival in Auschwitz (Primo Levi, 1947) - Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (Oliver Sacks, 2001) - The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean, 2010) - Lab Girl (Hope Jahren, 2016) - Insight under pressure: intuition, expertise, and how people actually decide (1998–2015) - Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights (Gary Klein, 2013) - Sources of Power (Gary Klein, 1998) - Blink (Malcolm Gladwell, 2005) - Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman, 2011) - Superforecasting (Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner, 2015) - Awe and everyday transcendence: the science of wonder and its effects (2006–2023) - Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (Dacher Keltner, 2023) - The Happiness Hypothesis (Jonathan Haidt, 2006) - Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) - The Book of Delights (Ross Gay, 2019) - Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013) - Introversion, temperament, and the “extrovert ideal” (1996–2012) - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (Susan Cain, 2012) - The Highly Sensitive Person (Elaine N. Aron, 1996) - The Introvert Advantage (Marti Olsen Laney, 2002) - The Introvert’s Way (Sophia Dembling, 2012) - Personality (Daniel Nettle, 2007) - Why societies diverge: geography, germs, institutions, and big-history arguments (1997–2021) - Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond, 1997) - Why Nations Fail (Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2012) - The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (David S. Landes, 1998) - Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall, 2015) - The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow, 2021) - Presence, mindfulness, and “waking up” from mental noise (1975–2014) - The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle, 1997) - The Miracle of Mindfulness (Thích Nhất Hạnh, 1975) - Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994) - Waking Up (Sam Harris, 2014) - 10% Happier (Dan Harris, 2014) - Therapy made legible: human stories, clinical craft, and change (1989–2020) - Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (Lori Gottlieb, 2019) - Love’s Executioner (Irvin D. Yalom, 1989) - The Gift of Therapy (Irvin D. Yalom, 2001) - Good Morning, Monster (Catherine Gildiner, 2019) - Group (Christie Tate, 2020) - Classic success psychology: ambition, persuasion, and “prosperity” narratives (1903–1937) - Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill, 1937) - How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie, 1936) - The Richest Man in Babylon (George S. Clason, 1926) - The Science of Getting Rich (Wallace D. Wattles, 1910) - As a Man Thinketh (James Allen, 1903) TODO - The Panda's Thumb (Stephen Jay Gould, 1980) - Pluto's Republic (Peter Medawar, 1983) - The Science of the Artificial (Herbert A. Simon, 1969) - Weapons and Hope (Freeman Dyson, 1984) - Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics (Nancy Forbes & Basil Mahon, 2017) - Art in the age of mechanical reproduction - Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Mitchel Resnick, 1994)