1/ The most influential books on me with the approximate age I read them
2/ Dune by Frank Herbert (14) - My first (and still favorite) sci-fi book. Inspired me to read sci-fi as a teenager and to want to be a writer. I wrote a 50 page fan fiction novel after finishing it.
3/ The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (16) - showed me the absurdity of life, the universe and everyhing and suggested that it was fine to just laugh at it and move on.
4/ Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (18) - First big history book I ever read. Made me fall in love with the genre and sent me looking for answers.
5/ The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi (19) Made me question the interpretation of events that authority figures in my life gave. Inspired me to write more.
6/ The Communist Manifesto by Marx (19) - Explained much of the injustice pointed out in Gun, Germs and Steel in a way that I found compelling at that point of my life. Compelled me to move to Argentina and study labor movement in Latin America.
7/ Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens (20) Read while I was backpacking around South America. Made me believe that it was ok to change my mind and hold views others saw as self-contradictory. I admired his intellectual courage.
8/ The Black Swan by @nntaleb (21) Cracked my world view. Truly opened me to the possibility that every authority figure in my life up to that point had no idea what they were talking about and I could/had to figure it out on my own
9/ The Four Hour Work Week by @tferriss (21) -Kept me from going to law school out of lack of better options. Made me believe that there were more options for careers than I had initially thought.
10/ On the Shortness of Life by Seneca (22) - Helped me see the finiteness of life and to keep it ever present in my mind. Gave me courage to make non-traditional choices
11/ Drive by Dan Pink (22) Made me prioritize finding work that gave me a sense of mastery, purpose, and autonomy
12/ Principles by @RayDalio (23) Made me believe I could bootstrap my way into a life I wanted to live and gave me a manual to do it.
13/ Good, Bad and Evil by Nietszche (23) - Challenged many truths that were so deeply enmeshed in my cultural upbrining I thought they were laws of the Universe. Made me wonder what else did I assume was true that might now be.
14/ Antifragile by Taleb (23) A new lens for understanding risk. Got me deeply interested in complex adaptive systems and how they behave.
15/ Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse (25) - Changed the way I related to the world in a profound way. Helped me to understand what play truly was.
16/ Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger (25) Got me interested in mental models and investing.
17/ Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff (26) - Showed me that we understand abstract concepts entirely through metaphors relating them to physical events. Helped me understand how powerful writing that changed someone's metaphors could be.
18/ Seeing Like a State (27) - Opened a new way of seeing the world that made me question many assumptions about "progress" and modernity.
