Full listing of Recommended Reading from our newsletter. Updated weekly

If you have ideas we should consider, send your book, blog, and other recommendations to [email protected] and we will try to include them in our newsletter. Also indicate if its OK to cite you as the source of the recommendation and the name or email you want to use. Try to recommend items that force the reader to think!

The recommendations page is a work in progress. Since many readers have been asking it, I wanted to get something up quickly and then improve it.

The days when Elon Musk was cool
One of our most popular posts.

Remarkable People Podcast
Hear from real thought leaders across culture, big issues, and anything else important.

Fortune’s Formula
The story of the Kelly Formula, still in use today at casinos and Wall Street.

The Billionaire’s Apprentice
Insider trading and the downfall of Raj Gupta, former chair of McKinsey & Co.

The Seven Deadly Stupidities
Learn from the failures of others. Written by….. me.

The Generative AI Con
My favorite tech contrarian, Ed Zitron, goes off, big time.

Fooled by Randomness
The first in Caleb’s series and the “Black Swan” book. All his books are excellent.

Secrets
First-person account of the release of the Pentagon Papers. Well written story about what it’s really like to be a DC insider.

OpenAI is a Bad Business
Ed Zitron is a technology contrarian and not afraid of, well, anything.

Launch Key
Weekly newsletter full of wisdom on how to launch a business.

Losing the Signal
The untold story of the rise and fall of Blackberry.

The Rot Economy
Blog post from technology contrarian Ed Zitron on how big tech only cares about profits, not innovation.

Thinking in Bets
Poker champ turned consultant teaches us how to evaluate risk.

Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
Definitive account of the failures of the Secret Service.  

The Nightingale
I learned more about World War II from this book of historical fiction than everything else I have read on the subject.

The Fifties
The stories of McDonald’s, Holiday Inn, U-2 spy planes, and other business and cultural events that shaped the world we live in today. By David Halberstam (my favorite author).

When Genius Failed
The collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, and how it almost brought down the global financial system.

The Secret Race
Lance Armstrong’s teammate, Tyler Hamilton, blows open the cycling doping scandal from the inside. Well written and honest.

Steve Jobs
Complete biography by Walter Isaacson.

Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust
The story of Bernie Madoff and the biggest financial fraud ever.

Too Big to Fail
Definitive account of the 2008 financial crisis that still reverberates today.

The Subprime AI Crisis
Technology contrarian Ed Zitron summarizing all that AI is not

Run the Storm
Detailed account of the sinking of cargo ship El Faro

The Vanishing of Flight MH 370
Full account of what is known about the mystery

The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Journalists cover the Enron story end-to-end. The definitive account.

The Art of the Start 2.0
By Guy Kawasaki, original marketing evangelist at Apple

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
From the author of The Black Swan. You will learn to think differently after reading this.

Weaving the Web
The original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web (by Berners-Lee)

Zero to One
Billionaire Peter Thiel on why the bulk of the value is created early in any venture

The Monk and the Riddle
“The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living”

The Psychology of Money
Lessons on money and life. I have given this book to a dozen people.

Thirteen Days
First person account of the Cuban missile crises, written by Robert F. Kennedy. Also, a good movie.

Sputnik: The Shock of the Century
How the events of one weekend changed the world

The Right Stuff
The birth of the U.S. space program.