Tim O’Reilly's Book Recommendations

"Almost every economist learned from Intermediate Microeconomics."

"Sometimes there was just a line in Night Train to Lisbon that changed my life in some way."

"A time machine into this place when our financial economy went crazily wrong."

"The introduction alone [...] will make the hair stand up on your arms."

"Talks about the interplay of culture and life, the way that what we read can enrich what we experience, and what we experience can enrich what we read."

"[A] business classic."

"I love The Kabir Book."

"I love @DanielGNewman’s new book Unrig. It’s a graphic “novel” explaining how to unrig the US's broken democracy. Here’s an excerpt: The history of voting rights and voter suppression--explained in comics."

"I’d loved [this] little book."

"A wonderful book."

"In terms of classics, you can’t do better than [this author] for understanding the human soul."

"A time machine into how people felt about the world in [1915]."

"You read The Warden and you go, 'Oh, my God, I’m reading a novel about the moral quandaries of an 1850s British cleric, and it’s fricking fascinating.'"

"About the great railroad bubbles of the 1860s."

"Everybody knows Charles Dickens, but only a certain number of people will have read Trilby."

"A personal passion project of a Boston lawyer."

"Influenced me deeply."

"[Gets you] into the world of psychedelia and that era of the ‘70s."

"An imagined story of early psychoanalysis about a guy who was a predecessor to Freud."

"[This book] isn't just about how to create a more successful entrepreneurial business, it's about what we can learn from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do."

"If you care about the future being brought to us by AI, this is the one indispensable book of 2018."

"@amyjccuddy A Swim In A Pond In The Rain, by George Saunders. The best book on how to read carefully and think about what you read that I have ever encountered. Also introduced me to some wonderful deeply humane classics of Russian literature."

"This is indeed a very good book about one of the most remarkable touchstone figures in the evolution of so much of modern culture. I've known @stewartbrand for decades, and still learned so much more about him and his leadership."

"@monicabyrne13 11. :-). My brother and I used to have breath holding contests as kids, and I once got to 2 1/2 minutes. But that's nothing. The world champion freediver can make it to over 9 minutes passively, and 4 1/2 while swimming. BTW, I love the book Breath"

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"Definitely one of [the series that have shaped my life]."

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"Like a time machine with the casual racism."

"I love this book. So readable, so insightful, so actionable. There is also a really interesting connection between this book and @DrIbram's How To Be An Anti-Racist, namely that many establishment beliefs & policies originate as justifications for self-interest by powerful people"

"It had a catalogue in the back of interests to internet sites. If you tell that to this site, you’ll get earthquake information. [...] There were only 200 web sites."

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"When I got this book out of the library at age 12, my father remarked, It's sinful that so large a book should be devoted to science fiction. Little was he to know that this book, full of wonderful concepts about how to come to grips with a world out of our control, would play so large a role in his son's life. After I graduated from college, a friend who was editing a series of critical monographs about science fiction asked me if I'd like to write a book about Frank Herbert. I agreed, and it was that choice that set me on the path to becoming a writer. In the course of writing the book, I got far deeper into Herbert's ideas than I had reading his books growing up. The core message of all Herbert's work is that we can't control the future, but we can control our response to it, surfing the edge of change and risk."

"I learned [that 20 of these poems] do nothing for me, and there’s this one that just goes 'Bang!'"

"I just finished Stuart Russell’s marvelous book on AI safety Human Compatible, and I can’t recommend it highly enough!"

"Most people who know me have heard me quote from this book."

"This is a fascinating book, full of thought-provoking questions (one to a page) that will help you think more deeply about the challenges facing humanity and the opportunities in science and technology. It is a great one-a-day vitamin to spark your thinking."

"Tim O’Reilly mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast."

"It’s this sort of proto-feminist novel about these women who made choices that were unconventional in who they would marry."

"[The authors] dive deep into how Amazon has become the company to study if you want to succeed in 21st-century business."

"Robert Caro's book Working succeeds on so many levels: brilliant lessons on the art of researching and writing, a teaser for his great biographies, an endearing autobiography. A quick and delightful read. I can't recommend it highly enough."

"Michael Lewis’ latest book, The Fifth Risk, highlights just how bad things might get if we continue to neglect and undermine the machinery of government. It’s not just the political fracturing of our country that should concern us; it’s the fact that government plays a critical role in infrastructure, in innovation, and in the safety net. That role has gradually been eroded, and the cracks that are appearing in the foundation of our society are coming at the worst possible time."

"Maybe it’s too intellectual for some people, but [...] go find a couple of poems of [this author]."