It can be said that one of the earliest and most significant technological advances in all of human history was the invention of written language. It enabled wisdom developed by one generation to be passed on to the next even when they were not physically there to impart the knowledge gained from their experiences.
A father can tell a story and pass his knowledge onto his children if they are both still living, but if he has died as a result of war or any other reason whilst his child is still in their mothers womb or too young to understand the stories being told before their father dies, he can still pass on his knowledge through books he writes to them, that they can read at a later date, when they are ready.
According to history (which could be fact or fiction) Ptolemy II of Egypt decree that all books entering the city of Alexandria be taken to The Library of Alexandria first, where they would be copied, the original kept in its archives and the copy passed on to the owner. He was veracious in acquiring new knowledge, and together with the scholars he paid to study the texts and build on the knowledge they could learn, formed what could be considered the earliest precursor to the modern university.
This is in stark contrast to many of the famous incidences in history of book burning, enacted to destroy knowledge being passed on, usually by a conquering group of people looking to censor and extinguish past cultural, religious or political opposition so they can control the people of the place they have just conquered. Incidences of this are many, from China's Qin Dynasty burning Confucian scrolls and burying alive the Confucian scholars, to the German Nazi government, and most recently the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under both Mao Zedong & Xi Jinping
In striving for the ideal, of being endlessly curious of things we don't yet know, and having a lifelong commitment to continual learning, i have listed below the books i have read in chronological order.
Not all of them contain content i agree with, and that's the point, to read conflicting points of view and things you have not encountered before. Only then will you arrive at a balanced viewpoint. Having considered all arguments and assessed each of their credibility you can be more confident your views are sound.
For example you will see below, when my father gifted me 'On Fire by Naomi Klein' i balanced this out by also reading 'False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg'
It's better to be concerned and informed than blissful and ignorant, and to read things that go against your preconceived beliefs, than to be stuck in an ideological echo chamber.
Feel free to use this list as inspiration, this is my journey and you are welcome to follow me down my own little rabbit hole:
2024
Lyn Alden - Broken Money
Sam Sheridan - Disaster Diaries
Bill Perkins - Die With Zero
2023
Ray Dalio - The Changing World Order
Peter Attia - Outlive
Marian Tupy & Gale Pooley - Superabundance
Alex Gladstein - Hidden Repression
Laffer, Domitrovic & Sinquefield - Taxes Have Consequences
Balaji Srinivasan - The Network State
Douglas Murray - The War on the West
2022
Matthew Reilly - The 1 Impossible Labyrinth
Alex Epstein - Fossil Future
Matthew Reilly - The 2 Lost Mountains
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Nir Eyal - Indistractable
Andrew Doyle - Free Speech
Lee Kuan Yew - From Third World to First
2021
Jared Diamond - Guns Germs & Steel
Michael Pollan - This Is Your Mind On Plants
Paul Cohelo - The Alchemist
Rutger Bregman - Human Kind - A Hopeful History
Josh Rogin - Chaos Under Heaven
Rutger Bregman - Utopia for Realists
James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg - The Sovereign Individual
Nassim Taleb - Anti-fragile
Debra Soh - The End of Gender
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
Darrell Bricker & John Ibbitson - Empty Planet
James Clear - Atomic Habits
Ryan Holiday - Ego is the Enemy
Abigail Shrier - Irreversible Damage
Matthew Walker - Why We Sleep
Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg - How Google Works
Bjorn Lomborg - False Alarm
Michael Shellenberger - Apocalypse Never
Naomi Klein - On Fire
2020
Jocko Willink - Extreme Ownership
Tim Ferris - Tribe of Mentors
Liz Plank - For the love of Men
Kelly Starrett - Deskbound
Douglas Murray - The Madness of Crowds
Ben Horowitz - The hard thing about hard things
Jocko Willink - Way of the warrior Kid
Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China
Adam Grant - Give and Take
David Sinclair - Lifespan
Peter Thiel - Zero to One
Ben Horowitz - What you do is who you are
Christian Davenport - The Space Barrons
Richard Brooks - Bean Counters
Christopher Williams - The Battle for Sky
Jeff Lack - Indulgent
Kristy Shen & Bryce Leung - Quit Like a Millionaire
Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz - Islam & The Future of Tolerance
2019
Stephen Pinker - Enlightenment Now
Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape
Clementine Ford - Fight Like A Girl
Johan Harari - Chasing the Scream
Amanda Duckworth - Grit
Matthew Reilly - The 3 Secret Cities
Graeme Simpson - The Rosie Project
Matthew Reilly - The 4 Legendary Kingdoms
Scott Pape - The Barefoot Investor
2018
Naomi Wolf - The Beauty Myth
Matthew Reilly - The 5 Greatest Warriors
Yuval Harari - Sapiens
Jordan B Peterson - 12 Rules for Life
Louann Brezendine - The Female Brain
Leonard Sax - Why Gender Matters
Seth Godin - We are all weird
2017
Tim Ferris - Tools of Titans
George Orwell - 1984
Em Ruciano - Try Hard: Tales from the life of a needy overachiever
Peter F Drucker - The Effective Executive
Annabel Crabb - The Wife Drought
Hannah Rosin - The End of Men
Wim Hof & Justin Rosales - Becoming the Iceman
Karen Pine - Mind what you wear: The Psychology of Fashion
Tim Samuels - Who Stole My Spear
Jason Fried - Rework: Change the way you work forever
Christopher Sommer - Building the Gymnastic Body
Erin Pizzey - Prone to Violence
2016
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
JD Salinger - Catcher In The Rye
Anna Kendrick - Scrappy Little Nobody
Charlie Hoehn - Play it away: A workaholics care for anxiety
Jojo Moyes - Me Before You
Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
Martin Seligman - Authentic Happiness
Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational
Amy Schumer - The Girl with the lower back tattoo
2015
Mike Moyer - Slicing Pie
Tim Ferris - The 4 Hour Body
2014
Susan Cain - The Quiet
Tim Ferris - The 4 Hour Work Week
Peter Harper - The Little Green Book: A Gardeners Guide to Investing
2013
Michael E Gerber - The E-Myth
Ivanka Trump - Trump Card
Jamie Johnson - Born Rich: Children of the insanely wealthy
Donald Trump - Think Big
Robert Kiyosaki - Unfair Advantage
2012
Tom Wheelright - Tax Free Wealth
Blair Singer - Sales Dogs
Blair Singer - Team Code of Honour
Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad Poor Dad
Ben Graham - The Intelligent Investor