Third Group of Books I Read in 2025

 Reading Period: May 03 - Present

1. Empire of the Summer Moon (A), by S. C. Gwynne

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7648269-empire-of-the-summer-moon

    Truly incredible work of non-fiction. The first half is some of the most interesting and engaging material I've come across. The Comanches are legitimately terrifying. Truly a no-holds-barred, honest take on the "Cowboy vs. Indian" dynamic in the early West, one that is sure to upset some readers who prefer to turn a blind eye to reality. S. C. does not omit the white settlers from criticism, the second half of the book turns the "unfiltered, horrific-but-engaging reality" lens toward them. There's disturbing, upsetting content across the board. This book made me feel lucky to be alive during modern times, and truly question if it was worth being alive in the 1800's. Suffering, and life itself, simply felt cheaper back then. Maybe I've treated the techno-optimists too harshly? Probably not, but regardless this is one of the better non-fiction books I've read. The second half is less compelling (honestly, a bit of a slog), but might appeal to readers who care more about characterization.

2. The Rebel (A), by Albert Camus

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11990.The_Rebel

    Albert thoroughly impressed me here. I've always sort of discounted the guy, but wow. What I find most interesting about this book is it's essentially Albert reacting to "current" events and the ideas of his direct contemporaries. He will note that Andre Breton said: "The purest surrealist act is walking into a crowd with a loaded gun and firing into it randomly." Then, Albert will seriously ponder how credible the underlying ideas of this statement are, and deeply discuss how this relates to his ideas (absurdism, etc.). He also reacts to Communism, rebellion, and atheism in thoroughly novel ways. How true is the phrase: "either police rule, or insanity"? How can one rebel in a meaningless universe? Albert is sort of the anti-Cioran for me, where I find his overall outlook/ideas less interesting, but his commentary more engaging and well-written. Certainly worth the read.

3. The Man Who Planted Trees (A), by Jean Giono

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/757438.The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees

    Pretty solid, short audiobook. I'd recommend this to anyone, honestly. I have no idea how Jean could have made this any better, which is becoming exceedingly rare.

4. The Ethics of Ambiguity (P), by Simone de Beauvior

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21119.The_Ethics_of_Ambiguity

    Simone crafts something very interesting: a response to existentialism focused on "ambiguity." She states that "to declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won." In some sense, this is an elaborate framework about freedom and responsibility that, like absurdism, falls to the "who says?" argument posed by both nihilists and the religious. In my opinion, Simone is essentially making the argument that "the meaning of life is to give life meaning," which as I've stated before is a circular and useless argument. She states "It is up to man to make it important to be a man, and he alone can feel his success or failure." Still, like with Camus, you have to appreciate someone arguing against nihilism (a philosophically impossible task), same as you have to respect the dedication of someone fighting a hurricane with a sword. 

    Simone states "Which action is good? Which is bad? To ask such a question is also to fall into naive abstraction. We don't ask the physicist, 'Which hypotheses are true?' Nor the artist, 'By what procedures does one produce a work whose beauty is guaranteed?' Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art. One can merely propose methods." However, this is a stupid argument. The reason science works is it is testable, and we can iterate using the scientific method. We can prove that two plus two equals four, and use mathematics to model the orbit of a planet. In ethics, there is no ability to "ground" any such hypothesis, or any way to truly falsify any claim. Art and beauty are subjective, although one could argue there are certain things humans in general find beautiful. But does that mean beauty of such a sort is objective? Or is it merely subjective with a current social consensus? Is ethical consideration any different? We can test scientific hypothesis, but we can't test moral ones. We can appreciate beauty, but also realize it is in the eye of the beholder. If this is true for ethics, the morality of killing an innocent person is just a matter of taste.

    Still, as with any work of philosophy, the book has some very thought-provoking moments. Simone states about humans and technological progress: "The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces. Though they are masters of the atomic bomb, yet it is created to destroy them." She also has very interesting comments on freedom, such as: "To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision." There is also some compelling discussion on comparing absolute evils (lynching, etc.) to larger-scale oppression (a government suppressing dissent), and the idea that some egregious moral harms are worse than those perpetuated incorrectly for the greater good, which is another phrasing of the repugnant conclusion. Overall, I think this book is altogether very good and worth the read, even if the conclusions it draws aren't defensible. I don't want to discredit Simone for trying, especially since the commentary unrelated to the main thesis is interesting.

5. Wind and Truth (P), by Brandon Sanderson

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203578847-wind-and-truth

    I've always argued against those who claim that Brandon Sanderson is sort of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" version of fantasy. I was a staunch lover of the original three arcs of the MCU, so enamored with the film series leading up to Infinity War, and through End Game, that I found critics of the series spiteful and condescending. However, after the disastrous run of Marvel movies since this initial stopping point, it is easier to claim that the critics, all along, had a bit of a point. Certainly, the addition of low-quality, formulaic content does nothing except tarnish some of the old films, and disengage my interest from consuming future content. That being said, I loved Wind and Truth. I would defend the book's merits against what seems to be fairly widespread criticism, even now. However, I will not make the same mistake again: there are clearly cracks forming. The entire Kaladin storyline was underwhelming, and certainly corny enough to ruin my immersion at multiple points. Frankly, the only storyline that was of any interest to me was Adolin's, which was a beacon of light in an otherwise underwhelming set of character arcs.

    Brandon also took some unfortunate notes from the MCU's handbook, as he tired tying in current events and "modern-day teenager-speak" into an already long 1,300+ page novel. This includes some ham-fisted political takes (including disastrous line from Kaladin -"No, I am his therapist") that could have been way more effective and subtle. There's also a throwaway story about accepting transgender individuals, and a gay romance that I don't believe was foreshadowed. I honestly do not care about these things being added, especially since it may be Brandon's way of pushing away from his Mormon background and seriously trying to advocate for a better and more empathetic America, but it is still strange. I can almost picture a line of female characters forming at the final battle and saying something like "don't worry guys, us girls can handle this." I don't believe that this is Brandon's Endgame (great pun), but the fact that I can imagine it scares me. He's crafted extremely compelling female characters, courageous gay characters, and through his storylines he's displayed important lessons about mental health and friendship. In becoming more and more explicit, he takes away from his intended messaging and creates a worse product.

    Now, this book is still incredible. Why? Because of how impressive the scope is. The task Brandon has set out for himself is so impressive, so audacious, that you have to simply stare in awe. Whatever you could criticize about a character's storyline or a specific chapter, the overall narrative is something no one else is even attempting to do right now. Sure, I really hated some of the decisions he made at the end (the Gav storyline especially), but the sheer weight of the end of this five book arc still hits like a sledgehammer. This book was not really a conclusion, unfortunately, and it will be criticized for being mostly build-up fodder to the next five books. But the journey has been worth it so far, and I cannot wait for the series to continue. The Cosmere, at long last, is now in play.

6. Breakfast with Seneca (A), by David Fideler

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56769533-breakfast-with-seneca

    Unfortunately, this is just not that good of a book. Stoicism is interesting, but there are very obvious flaws with the philosophy and it should not be taken as a religion. Seneca is not a godly/religious figure. David, unfortunately, treats him as such. I'd rather read a book that engages in any amount of criticism, and this is book has none (except for critics of Seneca/Stoicism). There are better ways to learn about Stoicism, I see this only appealing to very unsophisticated thinkers who are sure to be misled by David's confidence.

7. Slow Productivity (A), by Cal Newport

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197773418-slow-productivity

    I like Cal, but I don't think he has anything left to say. There was some variety between So Good They Can't Ignore You, Deep Work, and Digital Minimalism. This is basically a less compelling version of Deep Work, and honestly I wouldn't say this was worth the read. Still, I'd highly recommend So Good They Can't Ignore You (it's fine to skip the rest).

8. The Count of Monte Cristo (A), by Alexandre Dumas

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7126.The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo

    Incredible. Without hesitation I moved this to my top 10 books of all-time. It's insane that this was written in 1846, given that it's better than almost all other fiction I've read. Now, I wasn't totally surprised at how good the book was; most of my most respected recommenders cite the book as their favorite. I knew that I would like it. However, I did not know the level of ferocity with which I would be compelled to finish. The book drags a little bit in the middle (when the Count is in Rome), so I put the book down for about six months. Once I picked it back up, I finished the rest in a day. In some sense this was both an exhausting read and worth every minute. A true "classic," in every sense of the word.

Second 10 Books I Read in 2025

Reading Period: March 23 - May 03

1. History and Utopia (P), by Emil Cioran

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455488.History_and_Utopia

    In some sense, I have probably exhausted Cioran's work. I find him compelling and brilliant, but there is something about his writing style (and the translation) that makes it difficult to engage with additional material of his. It seems that Cioran's overall life philosophy is extremely compelling (and hilarious), but he lacks a diverse array of new ideas that makes his broader work seem a bit saturated.

2. The Conscious Mind (A), by David Chalmers

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144960.The_Conscious_Mind

    Extremely compelling and important book. Pure, unfiltered philosophy. The kind that risks boredom, but upon reflection exposes brilliance. It's interesting to me that there aren't more writers solely focused on the hard problem of consciousness. It seems to me the most important problem imaginable, and the most interesting. David has certainly been very influential in my own writing/thinking, and I'm shocked that this is the first book of his I've read. Looking forward to diving deeper into his ideas moving forward.

3. Elantris (A), by Brandon Sanderson

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68427.Elantris

    I could definitely tell that this was Brandon's first book. Some of the writing is sloppy, and a lot of the dialogue is corny (to a level that runs the immersion). That being said, the storyline and the world-building is incredible, and there's something particularly endearing about reading Brandon's first book. I sort of got a better sense of how far he's come as a writer, and where he's unlikely to improve.

4. The Hope of Elantris (A), by Brandon Sanderson

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10852065-the-hope-of-elantris

    There were a few loose ends from Elantris that needed to be tied up (the weapon cart, etc.). That being said, that's probably just something that could have been fixed during editing, and I don't think this novella is that great as a stand-alone.

5. Mortality (A), by Christopher Hitchens

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13529055-mortality

    Pretty depressing. During my initial phase of questioning religion, Christopher was somewhat influential on me. I found him more mean-spirited and less convincing than the other "four horseman of the non-apocalypse," but certainly more entertaining. Reading this narrative about the end of his life was, quite simply, sad. He still maintains his wit and humor, and the last-minute jabs at religion were funny. But despite all of the failings of organized religion, at least the devout have the ability to pass into nothingness with a smile.

6. The Last Messiah (P), by Peter Wessel Zapffe

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22060860-the-last-messiah

    Incredible, 10/10. Such a short, impactful read. For my own reference, as I'm sure I'll re-read these sections whenever I'm in the mood for some existential terror, here is the first chapter:

"One night in long bygone times, man awoke and saw himself. He saw that he was naked under cosmos, homeless in his own body. All things dissolved before his testing thought, wonder above wonder, horror above horror unfolded in his mind. Then woman too awoke and said it was time to go and slay. And he fetched his bow and arrow, a fruit of the marriage of spirit and hand, and went outside beneath the stars. But as the beasts arrived at their waterholes where he expected them of habit, he felt no more the tiger’s bound in his blood, but a great psalm about the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive. That day he did not return with prey, and when they found him by the next new moon, he was sitting dead by the waterhole."

    And here is the last:

"If we continue these considerations to the bitter end, then the conclusion is not in doubt. As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change. As its numbers mount and the spiritual atmosphere thickens, the techniques of protection must assume an increasingly brutal character. And humans will persist in dreaming of salvation and affirmation and a new Messiah. Yet when many saviours have been nailed to trees and stoned on the city squares, then the last Messiah shall come. Then will appear the man who, as the first of all, has dared strip his soul naked and submit it alive to the outmost thought of the lineage, the very idea of doom. A man who has fathomed life and its cosmic ground, and whose pain is the Earth’s collective pain. With what furious screams shall not mobs of all nations cry out for his thousandfold death, when like a cloth his voice encloses the globe, and the strange message has resounded for the first and last time:   

– The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth’s is a pond and a backwater.

– The sign of doom is written on your brows 

– How long will ye kick against the pin-pricks?

– But there is one conquest and one crown, one redemption and one solution.

– Know yourselves

– Be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.

And when he has spoken, they will pour themselves over him, led by the pacifier makers and the midwives, and bury him in their fingernails. He is the last Messiah. As son from father, he stems from the archer by the waterhole."

7. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (P), by David Eagleman

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4948826-sum

    Pretty interesting read, and certainly up my alley. A collection of fictional short stories about the afterlife, such as one where you can only talk to people you interacted with in real life:

"The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive."

    There are 40 total scenarios, all interesting. The ending of every chapter feels profound, but I wouldn't classify this book as very profound when taken as a whole. Still worth the read.

8. Nausea (A), by Jean-Paul Sartre

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298275.Nausea

    It took me a couple years to get to finally finishing this book. Some of it is incredible, meaning stop on the sidewalk to rewind sort of incredible. However, taken as a whole I found the book somewhat disappointing, I'm not sure I find Jean-Paul that compelling as a writer (perhaps I had too high of expectations).

9. Better to Never Have Been (A), by David Benatar

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/660518.Better_Never_to_Have_Been

    'My life is amazing, but I recently had a papercut. Thus, I wish I was never born.'

    Negative utilitarianism is very interesting to me. As someone who finds anti-natalism both compelling and hilarious, I honestly think David did a terrible job arguing for it here. I was expecting great things along the lines of a Cioran or Ligotti, but I believe my high-school self could have given more compelling arguments than David. He simply makes assumptions, refuses to back them up (besides implying that they are "obviously true"), and then he makes a conclusion. It's a horrible way to craft a narrative, and makes for an extremely underwhelming book. David states that a life of steadily declining achievement is "worse" than the opposite, as the trajectory of a life can make it better or worse than another, even if the "utils" are the same. Why? If you have a horrible 10 years, and amazing 10 years after, or the opposite, but the total level of pleasure/utils/well-being is equal, why is one better than the other? Because David simply states that believing anything else is silly? He makes these sort of unfounded claims over and over again.

    

    Some say it's worse to kill a fetus than a 20 year old, since a fetus has a longer life remaining to be lived. David says that we can tell that this logic is obviously wrong, since most of us believe it is worse to kill a 20 year old. What? Having your "philosopher hat" on for even a moment makes this book unbearable. David claims that there is a big harm in existing, but killing yourself should never be done. Why? If good and bad are evenly distributed, but bad is 10x less "good" than good because David says so, both living and existing seem pretty bad. Why not kill yourself, philosophically speaking?

    

    Nevertheless, I do think negative utilitarianism does pose some actual important points. It's difficult to think about the repugnant conclusion or population ethics if you are a util-maxxing utilitarianism, and people like David rightly point out how many utilitarian beliefs are illogical. There are just simply more impressive authors out there to hear this sort of criticism from.

10. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (A), by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12075.Tractatus_Logico_Philosophicus

    Honestly, I barely comprehended most of this. Without a final LLM summary, I would have missed a lot of the important ideas conveyed.

First 10 Books I Read in 2025

 Reading Period: January 01 - March 23

1. The Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation (P), by Joshua Levy

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48753169-the-holloway-guide-to-equity-compensation

    Simple book, very comprehensive overview of startup equity. I've been increasingly applying my financial expertise to the world of startups, and this was certainly a useful resource.

2. The Moral Circle (A), by Jeff Sebo

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213395476-the-moral-circle

    Jeff and I have a different set of arguments regarding digital minds. His are inherently probabilistic. If there is only a one in 1,000 chance of digital consciousness, isn't the scale big enough that this issue should be one of our top issues? This thinking is fair, and entirely rational, but I tend to avoid it in my own writings. Why? Well, I think it sort of anchors the audience into thinking that digital consciousness is unlikely. In reality, we have no idea, and there don't seem to be obvious reasons that consciousness must be a biological phenomenon. 

    

    Jeff also states that "morality is a marathon, not a sprint." I think this is certainly true, and thus it is unfortunate that we may have so little time before AGI. Which means we have to get moving! One last point on the book's content: Jeff states that how we treat silicon beings during our time in power may shape how they treat us during their time in power. For a few technical reasons I think this is incorrect, and somewhat of an unfortunate anthropomorphization. To expand on this, I mean that AI alignment is either going to work or it won't, and misaligned AI are unlikely to "punish" humans who treated digital minds poorly, any more than they are to "reward" humans who are emphatic towards digital minds. For this to happen would require creating a form of AI that to me seems unlikely, and if we can instill that sort of empathy in AI, have we not likely solved the alignment problem? Still, there may be some interesting ways in which this claim may be correct in a roundabout way. Perhaps focusing so clearly on empathy and treating AI development with the care that would be required to develop conscious beings (instead of calculators) is really the safest path forward for everyone.

   Regardless, Jeff is an inspiration. I met him a few days before reading this book, and I would say that it is quite impressive that Jeff can stand in front of a crowd and talk about such "radical" ideas. His ability to press so far into caring about the "bots" not only keeps me going, it fueled me in the first place.

3. Venture Deals (P), by Brad Feld

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11865558-venture-deals

    Pretty incredible guidebook, filled to the brim with useful content. What matters in a term sheet? Economics and control. What's the deal with early-stage financial models? The only thing to know with certainty is that they will be wrong. Is a bridge loan a bridge to the next round? Or is it a pier that drops into the ocean? These questions, and a lot more, are all answered. The informal language is a massive benefit. For example, Brad states that "if you care about information rights for your shareholders, you are nuts. You should run a transparent organization as much as possible in the twenty-first century. If you can't commit to sending your shareholders a budget and financial statements, you shouldn't take on outside investors." Such clarity of communication is the books biggest strength, especially since the topic in general is so dense. Well worth the read, possibly multiple times if you work in the space.

4. Neural Networks and Deep Learning (P), by Michael Nielsen

 Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24582662-neural-networks-and-deep-learning

    Many instances of something seeming extremely complex, but are actually just explained by simple but powerful set of ideas. Michaels book guides us through all of these simple but powerful ideas. It is interesting to think through perceptron mathematics and gradient descent, but what I found most interesting was observing how my own mental model of neural networks changed during my reading of this book. It is hard to really start visualizing the process of backpropagation, but once you begin to, it becomes pretty strikingly straightforward. Probably the most interesting topic in the book came up late, when Michael discussed sort of the reason scale was so surprising. Occam's razor was at work in deep learning initially, when people were trying to stay small and create the most optimal solution. Turns out, more compute and more data simply make the models better, who knew? Also, the concept of universality is interesting. Basically, no matter what function we want to compute, there is a neural networks that can do the job. I'd recommend this book to anyone with even a slight interest in deep learning.

5. Langchain Crash Course (P), by Greg Lim

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59713693-gpt-3

    Not worth the read. I was interested in learning more about Langchain, but I would have been better served reading five minutes worth of online documentation instead. 

6. GPT-3, by Shubham Kublik

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59713693-gpt-3

    Given how much time I've actually spent with LLMs, this book certainly wasn't worth the read. It was essentially a basic overview of how to use the OpenAI API, circa 2022.

7. Chess Story (P), by Stefan Zweig

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59151.Chess_Story

    Damn, this was shockingly good. Not many authors can cram a moving storyline, compelling characters, and a thought-provoking ending into a book that is less than one hundred pages. Stefan more than succeeded here. The ending battle of wits between Czentovic and Dr. B. displays such raw psychological intensity that it stands with some of the best fiction. Certainly worth the read.

8. The Mom Test (P), by Rob Fitzpatrick

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52283963-the-mom-test

    A fairly short and simple business book. The mom test: ask questions to your customer in a roundabout way that avoids false positive (“oh that’s a nice idea sweetie. I’d certainly buy a cookbook app that you made.”). The book is filled with handy tips, such as: “People know what their problems are, but they don’t know how to solve those problems” and “if they haven’t looked for ways of solving it already, they’re not going to look for (or buy) yours.” Probably only worth reading if you haven’t already read a ton of business books.

9. Bluets (P), by Maggie Nelson

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6798263-bluets

    This book was certainty interesting. I was a bit thrown off by the random, sharp sexuality, but I don't believe there was much that was out of place in this book. It was an intriguing, experimental book that I'm sure many would enjoy. That being said, it was not for me. Through no fault of my own, and through no fault of Maggie, I simply didn't connect with this one. The last few sentences of the book are incredible, but I actually think it is worth otherwise skipping altogether. Here is the end:

    "I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. 'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.' All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light."

10. Managing Oneself (A), by Peter Drucker

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2477223.Managing_Oneself

    I'd skip this, read something like High Output Management instead.