Nonfiction

  • Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson

    I don’t usually read best-selling political books of the moment. They feel too tied to whatever news cycle is happening right now, and I’d rather read something that has aged a bit.

    But it feels like we’re at a genuine inflection point in American politics. The party coalitions that formed in the late 60s and early 70s—now going on 50 years old—are breaking down.

  • Consolations by David Whyte

    Consolations is a collection of short essays and poems. Each entry is just a page or two—a few hundred words at most. But Whyte packs an incredible amount of meaning into that small space.

  • Discourses by Epictetus

    I picked up The Discourses by Epictetus from Standard Ebooks, then ended up buying the print Penguin edition as well. Stoic philosophy has had waves of popularity over the years, and I love that the most recent wave has brought a blossoming of new translations, resources, and accessible texts.

  • Useful Not True by Derek Sivers

    The core premise is straightforward: humans create stories and frameworks that aren’t literally true, but are still incredibly useful. Not useful in a “white lie” kind of way. Useful in a “this is how civilization actually functions” kind of way.

  • America’s Great Forest Trails by Tim Palmer

    I picked up America’s Great Forest Trails by Tim Palmer after seeing it on a shelf at my local bookstore. It’s a coffee table reference book highlighting America’s great forest trails—of which we have thousands and thousands of miles.

  • Deep Tech by Pablos Holman

    Deep Tech by Pablos Holman is a book by one of the most perennial hard tech entrepreneurs in America. Holman is known for his work at Blue Origin and Intellectual Ventures, and he currently runs a venture capital firm focused on what he calls “hard tech” — using technology to solve problems in the physical world rather than in the software or digital world that has been the focus of Silicon Valley for so long.

  • How To Read The Bible by Harvey Cox

    How to Read the Bible by Harvey Cox is an accessible, nuanced, and genuinely creative introduction to engaging with the best-selling and most influential single book in the world.

  • Antimemetics by Nadia Asparouhova

    The core premise of antimemetics is deceptively simple: we live in an age where ideas spread faster than ever, and yet some ideas don’t spread at all. Not because they’re obscure or unimportant — but because of something specific about their nature.

    Asparouhova calls these antimemes.

  • Camping Georgia by Jimmy Jacobs

    Camping Georgia by Jimmy Jacobs is a Falcon Guide focused on finding good tent camping spots at established campgrounds throughout Georgia.

  • Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss

    I picked up Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss after getting so much value from The 4-Hour Work Week. That book did an excellent job helping me reframe and understand the world of business and productivity, so I figured this would be another solid read.

  • Network State by Balaji Srinavasen

    The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan is a book I picked up mainly because my work is tech-adjacent, and for a while this book was everywhere among the tech elite. Even though it seemed ridiculous on the cover, I wanted to understand what my peers were paying attention to.

  • Behave by Robert Sapolsky

    I picked up Behave out of frustration. The popular discourse around brain chemistry had gotten to be too much. Dopamine…

  • The Woman Behind The New Deal by Kirstin Downey

    Perkins may have had more direct impact on the everyday lives of ordinary Americans than almost anyone else in the 20th century. The 40-hour work week. The minimum wage. Social Security. Child labor laws. Unemployment insurance. These aren’t abstractions — they are the literal architecture of how Americans work, save, retire, and survive hard times. Frances Perkins built most of that architecture.

    That was a serious underestimate.

  • Superbloom by Nicholas Carr

    Superbloom by Nicholas Carr is the latest book from the author of The Shallows and The Glass Cage. It’s about how technologies of connection tear us apart—or more precisely, how they scale up both the best and worst of human nature to unprecedented heights.

  • American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag

    I picked up American Philosophy, A Love Story after reading Kaag’s earlier book Hiking with Nietzsche and coming across several of his essays in The Atlantic. John Kaag is, in my opinion, one of the most talented working writers who also happens to be an actual practicing professor of philosophy. That combination — the rigor of the academic and the accessibility of a great essayist — makes him worth following closely.

  • Hiking with Nietzsche by John Kaag

    I picked up Hiking with Nietzsche after reading John Kaag’s book on American philosophy. He’s a fabulous writer who uses personal anecdotes to weave deeper, more modern, and more personal connections to big philosophical ideas.

  • Field Guide To The Cohutta Wilderness by Javier Velazquez

    A Field Guide to the Cohutta Wilderness by Javier Velazquez is a book I have wanted to exist in the world for so long that a couple years ago, I started sketching out whether I could write it myself. I am deeply grateful to the author for putting in the time and effort to create a proper field guide to the natural and environmental history of the Cohutta Mountains.

  • Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke

    The book argues that our brains weren’t designed for the modern world. We evolved in an environment of scarcity, where pleasure was rare and hard to come by. Now we live in what Lembke calls a “dopamine tsunami” – unlimited access to anything that feels good, all the time, right at our fingertips.

  • A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz

    A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz is a history travelogue that focuses on the nearly 300 years between Columbus’s discovery of America and the Declaration of Independence.

  • Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill

    Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill is a 1914 book on Christian mystical practice. It’s available for free on Standard Ebooks, which is one of my favorite resources on the internet for beautifully formatted public domain books.

  • The Soccer Book by DK

    The Soccer Book provides a comprehensive breakdown of the world’s most popular sport, combining technical analysis with historical context and modern gameplay evolution.

  • Books Read in 2025

    Everything I read in 2025! It was a weird year for book selection. It was much more of a “cluster read” than a deliberate choice. But – serendipity felt good.

  • America’s National Historic Trails by Karen Berger

    America’s National Historic Trails is a lovely coffee table book that covers some of the hidden gems of America’s recreation & preservation systems (i.e., lesser known than the National Park system or National Scenic Trails system)

  • Natural History by DK

    I absolutely love DK books. In a world of AI and infinite access to information, they are geniuses at keeping…

  • The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey

    Nixey’s “The Darkening Age” reveals how Christian zealots systematically destroyed classical civilization after gaining power – an excellent, well-researched read.

  • Heretic by Catherine Nixey

    Heretic by Catherine Nixey is about the hundreds, if not thousands, of versions of Christianity that flourished in the hundreds…

  • Books Read In 2024

    This year was a pretty random year with what I read. It was purely driven by interests at the moment rather than any plan or queue.

  • Blighted by Margaret Stagmeier

    Blighted by Margaret Stagmeier is a book about the housing crisis that plagues American cities, with a specific focus on…

  • Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

    Slow Productivity by Cal Newport challenges the frenzied pace of the modern workplace, suggesting that our relentless rush to be…

  • Loserville by Clayton Tutor

    “Loserville” by Clayton Tutor examines Atlanta’s turbulent relationship with its professional sports teams. Beginning in the 1960s, the city’s leaders used sports to redefine Atlanta’s image, but struggled with poor team performances and weak support. Despite this, sports have significantly contributed to Atlanta’s identity and development.

  • American The Beautiful? by Blythe Roberson

    “American The Beautiful? by Blythe Roberson is a travel book across America’s National Parks but falls short in style and pacing, resembling TikToks instead of traditional travel writing. Despite extensive park visits and commentary on America’s contradictions, the lack of context and background detracts from the experience, unlike works by Bill Bryson.”

  • Status Game by Will Storr

    “Status Game” by Will Storr offers a nuanced exploration of how humans organize in social hierarchies, striving for status through various games. It discusses the impact of prestige, dominance, and humiliation games on society, relationships, and leadership. Storr emphasizes understanding these dynamics to foster cooperation and mitigate conflicts.

  • What’s Our Problem by Tim Urban

    What’s Our Problem? by Tim Urban is a thought-provoking book that introduces a new framework for understanding our chaotic political…

  • The Gulf by Jack Davis

    The Gulf by Jack Davis is a comprehensive exploration of the Gulf of Mexico’s historical, cultural, and environmental significance. The…

  • Eight Bears by Gloria Dickie

    Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie is a compelling exploration into the lives of the eight…

  • Indistractable by Nir Eyal

    Indistractable is a book that reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction and shares a 4-step model to become…

  • The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

    The Fifth Risk is a non-fiction book that examines the transition and political appointments of the Donald Trump presidency, especially…

  • Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku

    Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku is a popular science book that explores the concept of parallel universes and the possibility…

  • World 3.0 by Pankaj Ghemawat

    World 3.0 challenges the popular notion that the world is flat and fully globalized, arguing that differences and distances are…

  • Deep South by Paul Theroux

    Deep South is a travel memoir by Paul Theroux, where he recounts his road trips taken in Mississippi, South Carolina,…

  • Northland by Porter Fox

    Northland is a travelogue by Porter Fox, who spent three years exploring the 4,000-mile border between Maine and Washington. He…