100 Best STEM Books of All Time

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Adam Hart-Davis

When Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time..his publisher told him that every equation he left in would halve the number of readers [source]

Anurag Ramdasan

My first intro into the world of physics and this got me completely hooked!

A.J. Jacobs

Great writer. [source]

Carl Zimmer

Yes. This is a fascinating book on so many different levels. It is really compelling as the story of the author trying to uncover the history of the woman from whom all these cells came. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Fact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species. [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

A grand theory of humanity. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

A bunch of my friends recommended this one to me. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider’s look at the rise and fall of Theranos. The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion. [source]

Andrew Chen

General Partner/Andreessen Horowitz

Finished “bad blood” on the Theranos scandal. Wow. Just wow. It’s a must read for everyone in tech and startups. Just 1-click buy it :) Amazing how far charisma and social proof got them. Here’s the NYT review of the book https://t.co/PyMGxfoG2R [source]

Brad Feld

Co-Founder/Foundry Group

Every entrepreneur and VC should read this book. John Carreyrou has done something important here. Maybe this book will finally put a nail in the phrase “fake it till you make it”, but I doubt it. The amount of lying, disingenuousness, blatant and unjustified self-promotion, and downright deceit that exists in entrepreneurship right now is at a local maximum. This always happens when entrepreneurship gets trendy. Carreyrou just wrote a long warning for entrepreneurs and VCs. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Explains how neglecting sleep undercuts your creativity, problem solving, decision-making, learning, memory, heart health, brain health, mental health, emotional well-being, immune system, and even your life span. [source]

Brad Feld

Co-Founder/Foundry Group

Several friends, who know I both love to sleep and am intrigued with how sleep works, recommended that I read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. It was excellent. While my self-assessment of my sleep habits are very positive, I learned a few things. More importantly, I now have a much better understanding of the “Why” surrounding sleep, especially around sleep’s importance to a healthy and long life. [source]

Alexis Ohanian Sr.

Agree! Best book I've read this year. Wasted so many hours just proving to myself I'd be the last one up working at @reddit and for what??? Stupid. Diminishing marginal returns after enough hours without sleep. https://t.co/cT7fDNBF3A [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

A few months ago, Mr. Obama read “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, about how people make decisions — quick, instinctive thinking versus slower, contemplative deliberation. For Mr. Obama, a deliberator in an instinctive business, this may be as instructive as any political science text. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012. [source]

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Captivating dive into human decision making, marred by inclusion of several/many? psychology studies that fail to replicate. Will stand as a cautionary tale? [source]

Charles T. Munger

Vice Chairman/Berkshire Hathaway

recommends this book in the second edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. [source]

Matt Ridley

Turned evolutionary biology on its head and was written like a great detective story. [source]

Phil Libin

CEO/Evernote

Had a profound influence on me pretty early on. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

The subtitle of the book is “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” and that’s exactly what it is. People write Munroe with questions that range over all fields of science: physics, chemistry, biology. Questions like, “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?” (The answer, it turns out, is “high enough that it would disintegrate before it hit the ground.”) Munroe’s explanations are funny, but the science underpinning his answers is very accurate. It’s an entertaining read, and you’ll also learn a bit about things like ballistics, DNA, the oceans, the atmosphere, and lightning along the way. [source]

Astro Teller

The kids are obsessed with this. They can quote it from memory. They’ve learned probably more science from this book than they have from their science class in the last two years. [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The president also released a list of his summer favorites back in 2015: All That Is, James Salter The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Climate change is a big problem—one of the biggest we’ll face this century—but it’s not the only environmental concern on the horizon. Humans are putting down massive amounts of pavement, moving species around the planet, over-fishing and acidifying the oceans, changing the chemical composition of rivers, and more. Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth’s history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth. Unlike a lot of people who write about the environment, Kolbert doesn’t resort to hype. She just lays out the facts and wraps them in memorable anecdotes. It’s a sobering but engaging and informative read. [source]

Jeff Bezos

Founder/Amazon

"In his autobiography, Walmart's founder expounds on the principles of discount retailing and discusses his core values of frugality and a bias for action — a willingness to try a lot of things and make many mistakes. Bezos included both in Amazon's corporate values," Brad Stone writes. [source]

Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer recommended this book in the book "Tools of Titans". [source]

David Goldberg

What I really liked about A Short History of Nearly Everything is that it gives an excellent account of a lot of the personalities and the interconnectedness of important discoveries in cosmology and elsewhere. He does such a great job of bringing together our understanding of cosmology, evolution, paleontology, and geology in a very, very fluid way. [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. [source]

Steve Jurvetson

Steve Jurvetson recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show". [source]

Seth Godin

Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur

In the last week, I discovered that at least two of my smart friends hadn't read Godel, Escher, Bach. They have now. You should too. [source]

Cory Zue

More recently books like Godel, Escher, Bach and Sapiens have influenced my thinking a lot. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I loved this brilliant book about cancer. [source]

Timothy J. Jorgensen

A tremendous amount of cancer biology comes through in that book through the eyes of the victims and the people up close and personal. [source]

Bradley Voytek

I can’t imagine one day waking up and not knowing who my wife is, or seeing my wife and thinking that she was replaced by some sort of clone or robot. But that could happen to any of us. [source]

Suzanne O'Sullivan

I didn’t choose neurology because of it but the way Oliver Sacks writes about neurology is very compelling. [source]

Tanya Byron

This is a seminal book that anyone who wants to work in mental health should read. It is a charming and gentle and also an honest exposé of what can happen to us when our mental health is compromised for whatever reason. [source]

Michelle Francl

Sam Kean brings the periodic table to life with the stories you didn’t hear in high school chemistry but will wish you did. [source]

Timothy J. Jorgensen

I do like the story of radium. [source]

Larry Page

Co-Founder/Google

Google co-founder has listed this book as one of his favorites. [source]

Sergey Brin

Co-Founder/Google

Brin told the Academy of Achievement: "Aside from making really big contributions in his own field, he was pretty broad-minded. I remember he had an excerpt where he was explaining how he really wanted to be a Leonardo da Vinci, an artist and a scientist. I found that pretty inspiring. I think that leads to having a fulfilling life." [source]

Naval Ravikant

CEO & Co-Founder/AngelList

Learn about the inner mindset and external state of someone who was absolutely brilliant. [source]

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist, Author & Science Communicator

Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? … On the Origin of Species (Darwin) to learn of our kinship with all other life on Earth. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. [source]

Mark Kurlansky

It is one of the most important books written, and I always urge people to read it. [source]

Adam Maloof

For me (and many others) this book forms the foundation for modern biology. It is all about humans’ concept of themselves. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

"Mukherjee wrote this book for a lay audience, because he knows that the new genome technologies are at the cusp of affecting us all in profound ways," Gates wrote. Mukherjee is what Gates calls a "quadruple threat." He's a practicing physician, teacher, researcher, and author. [source]

Amit Paranjape

@vikramsathaye @DrSidMukherjee @kiranshaw Great book. [source]

Bryan Johnson

A great book. [source]

Dallas Campbell

@TheChilterns Even if you profoundly disagree with Clarke, it’s very detailed. The classic is of course ‘The Demon Haunted World’ by Carl Sagan. When I’m Prime Minister it will be compulsory reading at school! Best book on what science is/isn’t and why we think the way we do. 👍 [source]

Edip Yüksel

For Philosophy of Science class, I am now using Carl Sagan's book as the REQUIRED text book. Instead of bombarding students with terminology and names, we should let them enjoy the dancing of synapses in their own 3-pound grey jelly. In this thread I will share quotes from Sagan. https://t.co/rBEPVvEiuO [source]

James Randi

First of all, Carl was my very good friend, and we had a lot of confidences over the years. He was the epitome of the scientific mind and the scientific thinker. In The Demon-Haunted World, one of his later books, he investigates pseudoscience, frauds and fakes, and the mistakes that scientists made over the years. It’s very comprehensive. He had a whole chapter devoted to “Carlos” – or Jose Alvarez, who travelled all over the world doing this act as a fake psychic, and then revealed the whole thing on Australian television. Carl was quite taken with that story, and he and Jose spent a couple of hours together at a scientific conference that they both attended. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2011. [source]

James Altucher

Founder/StockPickr

Gladwell is not the first person to come up with the 10,000 hour rule. Nor is he the first person to document what it takes to become the best in the world at something. But his stories are so great as he explains these deep concepts. How did the Beatles become the best? Why are professional hockey players born in January, February and March? And so on. [source]

Alex Circei

Question: What five books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path & why? Answer: Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life by Richard Branson Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action by Simon Sinek The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Ante Shoda

It explains 14 billion years of the evolution of the universe, a sort of engineering experiment on the largest possible scale. It spans all scales of space and time, describing everything from the largest scales of the universe to the smallest scales of molecules and atoms. It’s a good book for putting everything in perspective. [source]

Anurag Ramdasan

This book helped draft a great perspective on the world and the universe at large and made me a fan of the Cosmos!

Craig Barrett

Former CEO/Intel

This book didn’t really change my mind, but rather reinforced the concept of the power of the individual. At a time when we depend more and more on big institutions to solve our business and social problems the real solutions are crafted by individual actions and initiative. This is true in the business world, where ideas from individual researchers or entrepreneurs can create mega companies overnight, and in the social sector, where such actions as high performing charter schools run circles around a moribund K-12 education system. Best we all remember that the next meaningful advances will come from individual initiative rather than massive governmental programs. After all, Google, Facebook, Uber, microloans and countless other success stories were not products of big government. [source]

Dan Christensen

@EconTalker @cable_co1 The Martian... hey it can’t all be economics and it’s a great book [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. [source]

Mark Kurlansky

I love this book. Brian Greene makes quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity really make sense, so you can understand something which nobody seems to understand [source]

Steven Gubser

The book works at many levels – I gave a copy to my mom when it came out, and I also received very positive impressions about the book from Norman Ramsey, who is a Nobel Prize physicist at Harvard. So it’s a great achievement, and part of why it’s a great achievement is that it covers not only string theory but also the accepted pillars of 20th-century theoretical physics, namely, quantum mechanics and relativity. [source]

Tom Clarke

This book is perhaps the public debut of string theory – an attempt to explain how the best of the big and the small theories might be linked to explain the entire universe. [source]

Kirk Borne

New Perspective on Fermat's Last Theorem: https://t.co/YeaHQ6iadB by @granvilleDSC @DataScienceCtrl #abdsc #Mathematics See the best-selling book "Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem": https://t.co/dqenmvUw0A by @SLSingh https://t.co/deyMhQTQLU [source]

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

The book is great because Simon Singh has this ability to write about the driest and most complex scientific or mathematical concepts and issues, and somehow make them come alive. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

You don't have to take a course to learn physics. If you're hardcore, read the Feynman book and do the problems. [source]

David Bainbridge

I think that he is one of the most intelligent people to live in the 20th century. Yet at the same time, surprisingly, he is an amazingly good teacher. This is quite an unusual combination. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

The writing is funny, smooth, and accessible -- not what you might expect from a book about math. What Ellenberg has written is ultimately a love letter to math. If the stories he tells add up to a larger lesson, it’s that 'to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason' -- and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time. [source]

Auston Bunsen

I’ve got a few, one book that really impacted me early on as someone coming from a middle-class family was “Rich dad, Poor dad”. Since then I’ve read many books but one that really stands out is “How not to be wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg which really reignited my appetite & appreciation for math. [source]

Nick Ganju

Written for an audience of people who have historically been intimidated by math … and introduces things in a very simple way, and then works up to more complex concepts. [source]

Jon Najarian

I believe both the corona virus and ebola have a bat connection. Scary, but great book on ebola: Hot Zone by Richard Preston https://t.co/jGEjbrB7pZ [source]

Pierre Haski

@ChuBailiang The hot zone, it made my days during SARS in Beijing, a great book! https://t.co/8E8AYgIhp7 [source]

Naval Ravikant

CEO & Co-Founder/AngelList

I also recently finished The Power of Habit, or close to finish as I get. That one was interesting, not because of its content necessarily, but because it’s good for me to always keep on top of mind how powerful my habits are. … I think learning how to break habits is a very important meta-skill that can serve you better in life than almost anything else. Although you can read tons of books on it, the reality is you’re never going to learn how to break bad habits until you just break them. [source]

Blake Irving

CEO/GoDaddy

You know, there's a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Simple read book about just how to build positive habits that can be I think I what I'd call you know whether in your personal life or whether in your business life to help you build you know, have a loop that can build your success and that's one I mean there are so many great books out there. [source]

Alden Mills

More recent books that have had a significant impact on me are The Power of Habit and The Diamond Cutter. Both represent different forces for me – the former helps me tactically with making incremental improvements in my life. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

It's a history of science book that explores the question of whether science and technology make consistent forward progress or whether progress comes in bursts related to other social forces. I tend to think that science is a consistent force for good in the world. I think we'd all be better off if we invested more in science and acted on the results of research. I'm excited to explore this theme further. [source]

Tim O'Reilly

Founder/O'Reilly Media

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn introduced the term "paradigm shift" to describe the changeover from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy. But the book is far more than a classic in the history of science. It's also a book that emphasizes how what we already believe shapes what we see, what we allow ourselves to think. I've always tried to separate seeing itself from the stories I tell myself about what I see. Pattern recognition is impeded if you are trying to overlay an existing pattern on the facts rather than letting the facts sit quietly until they tell their own story. That's General Semantics again. [source]

Andra Zaharia

I’ve gone through quite a few experiences brought on or shaped by what I’ve learned from books. A particularly unexpected one happened in college when our public relations teacher asked us to read a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. As a humanities student, you can imagine that I wasn’t thrilled I’d have to read a book on science, but what followed blew my mind at the time. In the book, Kuhn argues that human knowledge does not accumulate incrementally, but increases in leaps, through paradigm shifts which are brought on by crises and scientific revolutions. This was one of the first books that prompted me to think about how I want to evolve in the context of all the fast-paced changes happening around me. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Harari’s new book is as challenging and readable as Sapiens. Rather than looking back, as Sapiens does, it looks to the future. I don’t agree with everything the author has to say, but he has written a thoughtful look at what may be in store for humanity. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a big reader of paleontology or anthropology – not good words for us dyslexics! – but I enjoy learning about how society has unfolded and history has developed in an exciting, easy to read way. The sequel, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is a fascinating look into the future too. While these aren’t traditional business or leadership books, they are all about people – and learning how to work with, live with, interact with people and get the best out of them is what leadership is all about. [source]

Vinod Khosla

Co-Founder/Sun Microsystem

Not that I agree with all of it, but it is still mind-bending speculation about our future as a follow-up to a previous favorite, Sapiens. It’s directionally right. [source]

Doug McMillon

CEO/Walmart

Here are some of my favorite reads from 2017. Lots of friends and colleagues send me book suggestions and it's impossible to squeeze them all in. I continue to be super curious about how digital and tech are enabling people to transform our lives but I try to read a good mix of books that apply to a variety of areas and stretch my thinking more broadly. [source]

Chris Oliver

This is a great book talking about how you can use computer science to help you make decisions in life. How do you know when to make a decision on the perfect house? Car? etc? It helps you apply algorithms to making those decisions optimally without getting lost. [source]

Emi Gal

When asked what books he would recommend to young people interested in his career path, mentioned Algorithms to Live By. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2011. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

I didn't read actually very many general business books, but I like biographies and autobiographies, I think those are pretty helpful. Actually, a lot of them aren't really business. … I also feel it’s worth reading books on scientists and engineers. [source]

Ed Zschau

Ed Zschau recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show". [source]

Adam Maloof

James Gleick is a former science writer for the New York Times and in this book Gleick describes the science of chaos, and how complex systems can also be interpreted in terms of simple rules and simple (but interacting) behaviours. [source]

Pedro G Ferreira

It turns out that even simple equations can have such complicated behaviour that, in practice, it’s impossible to predict the outcome, which is described as ‘chaotic’. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Thing Explainer is filled with cool basic knowledge about how the world works. If one of Munroe’s drawings inspires you to go learn more about a subject—including a few extra terms—then he will have done his job. He has written a wonderful guide for curious minds. [source]

Kate Lee (St Paul's Girls' School)

It’s about how to explain things using the simplest terms you possibly can, using only the top 1,000 words in the English language. It’s just ingenious. So many people will try and sound clever by using lots of fancy words, but this is exact opposite. It is being clever by using the most straightforward language you possibly can, without sacrificing accuracy. It’s beautifully drawn and beautifully written, and it makes me smile a lot. [source]

Adam Wagner

@CCriadoPerez @MumsnetTowers I love this - the book, Poppy, the mug - it's so well composed! [source]

Asher Wolf

Tell me your best thing today. Mine was an amazing book and greeting card arrived in the post from the wonderful @MmeEmmeline https://t.co/GpEs2lg037 [source]

Caitlin Moran

@CCriadoPerez mate, I bow in admiration. it's an AMAZING, game-changing book. [source]

Walter Isaacson

Author

This is the clearest explanation of Newton and Einstein available, and Greene does it with a great sense of humour and wonderful visual thought experiments. [source]

Sean M Carroll

It covers issues that don’t get attention in other places, such as the nature of time, the nature of space and really gives you a profound understanding of the universe. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the co-opted science, which people can read a book called Bad Science, which is by a doctor named Ben Goldacre. It’s great. [source]

Bryan Callen

Great book, yeah. [source]

Charles Poliquin

You would stop making those dumb comments if you read this book. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Of the five books I finished over vacation, the one that impressed me the most – and that is probably of broadest interest – is Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by science writer Joshua Foer. This is an absolutely phenomenal book that looks at memory and techniques for dramatically improving memory. Foer actually mastered these techniques, which led him to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. His book gives fascinating insights into how the mind works. [source]

Chelsea Handler

It has changed my life and made me embarrass myself much less when meeting someone twice. [source]

Deborah Blum

This book focuses not so much on the scientists but more on the consequence and meaning of memory for the rest of us. Within the framework of a memory championship, Foer looks at this almost obsessive interest in learning, how to remember everything. He asks the really interesting philosophical question, which is, are we defined by what we remember? [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Anyone who wants to discuss how artificial intelligence is shaping the world should read this book. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

A compelling guide to the challenges and choices in our quest for a great future of life, intelligence and consciousness—on Earth and beyond. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Elon Musk is a man after my own heart: a risk taker undaunted by setbacks and ever driven to ensure a bright future for humanity. Ashlee Vance's stellar biography captures Musk's remarkable life story and irrepressible spirit. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

I'm fascinated by Elon Musk, I own a Tesla, I read Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon Musk. I think he's a very interesting charachter. [source]

Andrea Loubier

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future as this was still in the first couple of years of me starting my own company, Mailbird and it was inspiring and visionary. It helps you go from a small voice in a big corporate company, to thinking big and voicing your wild opinions and creating plan to work towards it. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

President Obama is spending his Hawaiian vacation playing golf, getting together with high school friends and reading a handful of dark novels set in foreign lands, according to a book list released by the White House Wednesday. The presidential reading list includes … two works of non-fiction for the trip: … "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End" by Dr. Atul Gawande. [source]

Malcolm Gladwell

Writer & Journalist

American medicine, Being Mortal reminds us, has prepared itself for life but not for death. This is Atul Gawande's most powerful--and moving--book. [source]

Indra Nooyi

Board of Directors/Amazon

Just finished "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande. A beautifully written book. Captivating. [source]

Alex Bellos

Unlike Ifrah, Charles Seife is a brilliant popular science writer who has here written the ‘biography’ of zero. And even though he doesn’t talk that much about India, it works well as a handbook to Ifrah’s sections on India. Because Seife talks about how zero is mathematically very close to the idea of infinity, which is another mathematical idea that the Indians thought about differently. Seife gives you the context and it explains why, really, without zero, you can’t do anything. The difficulty of understanding zero is similar to the difficulty of understanding infinity. The Greeks had no zero, Roman numerals have no zero, and they had no infinity. He plays with this idea that we were afraid of infinity and then gradually we learnt not to be afraid of it. [source]

Bryan Johnson

Chronicles how hard it was for humanity to come up with and hold onto the concept of zero. No zero, no math. No zero, no engineering. No zero, no modern world as we know it... [source]

Sam Harris

I highly recommend. It really is the most accessible discussion of brain science you will find. [source]

Vinod Khosla

Co-Founder/Sun Microsystem

Among the best insights into our brain and behavior. A top of the charts for me for this year, along with Scale. [source]

Bryan Johnson

Bryan Johnson recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

Brian Burkhart

This book is essentially a biography of all the people who’ve led to the technology of today—it’s fascinating. The most important point of the book is everything is one long, connected chain. There isn’t just one person or one industry that makes anything happen—it all goes way back. For example, the communication theory I have espoused and taught throughout my career is from Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. Yeah, I’ve got my own spin on it—instead of ethos, pathos and logos, we say “know, feel, and do.” But it’s still based on their philosophies. Reading this book, I realized it’s not just someone like Steve Jobs who’s responsible for the era we live in. Rather, it’s Steve Jobs plus a whole lot of people from the last 200-plus years. [source]

Chris Fussell

The history of how great ideas evolve. [source]

Chris Oliver

I'm currently reading Innovators by Walter Isaacson. I love reading books like this because you learn about the lives of people who have created amazing things. It teaches you that their lives were often much harder than you realize and the struggles you're going through are very similar to what they had to go through before they were successful. It's really inspirational. [source]

Marcus Chown

When Feynman was at Cal Tech, this wealthy couple who’d grown up in the same New York neighbourhood as he had said, Look, you’ve won this Nobel Prize, now explain to ordinary people what for. And Feynman said, No, it’s too complicated. But eventually he did this series of public lectures, and that was the book. It’s a tiny book and in it he describes the whole of quantum electrodynamics without a single equation. [source]

Ryan Shea

@jaltma @AriannaSimpson Incredible book. Perhaps my favorite physics book. [source]

Antonio Eram

This book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. [source]

Mark O'Connell

I wouldn’t be the first to look at him this way but I read Kurzweil’s work as essentially a work of religious mysticism. I think there’s no other way to read it, really. [source]

Steve Aoki

It opened me up to the idea of science fiction becoming science fact. [source]

Paula Boddington

How the use of algorithms has affected people’s lives and occasionally ruined them. [source]

Ramesh Srinivasan

This book is a really fantastic analysis of how quantification, the collection of data, the modelling around data, the predictions made by using data, the algorithmic and quantifiable ways of predicting behaviour based on data, are all built by elites for elites and end up, quite frankly, screwing over everybody else. [source]