Library

01
Player Piano
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Fiction
Published in 1952, the book is about a near-future America where machines and a supercomputer run almost everything, and the people they replaced must figure out what comes next.
Why it stayed with me
The novel is about what happens to people after the machines take over. The book splits its attention between the system that runs without them, the engineers who keep it running, and the displaced majority who collect a salary for make-work like digging ditches and filling them back in. Vonnegut's worry is that even the engineers aren't happy, and the rest have to chase purpose in jobs no machine would bother with. The book reads today like a forecast for the AI moment, with one change: the machines are coming for knowledge work instead of factory work.
“The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings, not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.”
Paul Proteus
02
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Fiction
A future shaped by pleasure, conditioning, and the careful elimination of solitude, published in 1932, sharper with every decade.
Why it stayed with me
Huxley's cautionary tale of scientific progress drew me back even when I don't agree with all the conclusions. The dystopia doesn't look like one. Everyone is comfortable, no one is alone, and the cost hides in plain sight. It sharpened my sense of what we trade away without noticing, especially after long stretches of optimising for comfort and convenience.
“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly — they'll go through anything.”
Mustapha Mond
03
Dune
Frank Herbert
Fiction
Politics, religion, ecology, and the long memory of a desert planet collide across the first book of an unfinished universe.
Why it stayed with me
Dune is worth recommending because it is far more than an epic science-fiction adventure: it uses a vivid desert world, political intrigue, religion, ecology, and personal tragedy to examine how power shapes people and societies.
It challenges readers to distrust charismatic “saviors,” question inherited beliefs, and notice how resource scarcity and institutions can drive exploitation. Its themes of courage, self-awareness, resilience, and learning give the story lasting personal as well as political relevance.
“Fear is the mind-killer.”
The Bene Gesserit Litany
04
Factfulness
Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Ola Rosling
Non-fiction
A data-driven case that the world is in far better shape than most people think, and a catalogue of the instincts that make us believe otherwise.
Why it stayed with me
Hans Rosling made me uncomfortable about how confidently I had been wrong on the basic facts of the world. The book is less about celebrating progress and more about naming the reflexes that distort your view.
“The world cannot be understood without numbers. But it cannot be understood with numbers alone.”
Hans Rosling
05
Atomic Habits
James Clear
Self-help
A practical framework for building habits one percent at a time, with most of the energy going into the environment rather than the willpower.
Why it stayed with me
The shift from 'become a better person' to 'design a better environment' is what makes this book stick. I treated the chapter on habit stacking as a workshop prompt and rewired a few small routines that had been quietly failing.
06
Stillness Is the Key
Ryan Holiday
Self-help
Philosophy
A short, deliberate argument that the ability to be still (to think, to wait, to refuse the noise) is the underrated skill of a good life.
Why it stayed with me
Holiday draws the same lesson from a chess player, a writer, and a Roman emperor without ever sounding preachy. The chapter on controlling your day is the one I marked up and lent out the most.
“Where you stumble, there your treasure lies. In order to possess what you do not have, you must go through the narrow passage.”
Joseph Campbell, quoted in the book
07
Indistractable
Nir Eyal
Self-help
A look at the psychology of distraction and a workable system for keeping your attention on what you chose to do.
Why it stayed with me
Eyal refuses the easy claim that distraction is not your fault and walks you through the moments before you grab your phone. I applied the 'schedule your time, not just your tasks' idea to a week of calendar and watched my output shift. Useful even when you only agree with half of it.
08
Show Your Work
Austin Kleon
Self-help
Creativity
A small, generous book about sharing what you make while you are still making it, written as a sequence of one-page lessons.
Why it stayed with me
Kleon is the antidote to the 'launch with a bang' school of putting work into the world. The whole book reads in an afternoon, and you finish it slightly braver about documenting in public.
“Nobody is going to give you permission to do the thing you want to do.”
Austin Kleon
09
Deep Work
Cal Newport
Self-help
An argument for the economic and personal value of long, unbroken stretches of focused thinking, with rules for building them into a working week.
Why it stayed with me
Newport wrote the book I needed during my first year as an engineering manager, when my calendar had quietly become other people's priorities.
“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”
Cal Newport