Readings

The fol­low­ing is an incom­plete list, in no par­tic­u­lar order, of books that have shaped my mind over the years:

Admin­is­tra­tive Behav­ior by Her­bert A. Simon
Mod­els of My Life by Her­bert A. Simon

If I read a book and it makes my whole body feel so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry.
If I feel phys­i­cal­ly as if the top of my head were tak­en off, I know that is poetry.
— Emi­ly Dickinson

View with a Grain of Sand by Wis­lawa Szymborska
Under the Glac­i­er by Halldór Laxness
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing
A Menck­en Chrestomathy by H. L. Mencken
Devel­op­ment Projects Observed by Albert O. Hirschman
Exit, Voice, and Loy­al­ty by Albert O. Hirschman
The Anx­i­ety of Influ­ence by Harold Bloom
Sto­ries of Your Life and Oth­ers by Ted Chiang
Eichmann in Jerusalem
Eich­mann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banal­i­ty of Evil by Han­nah Arendt
Pas­sion and Craft by Michael Szen­berg (Ed.)
The Select­ed Let­ters of Ten­nessee Williams (1945-1957)
On Chi­nese Gar­dens by Chen Congzhou

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu

The Con­quest of Hap­pi­ness by Bertrand Russell

Echoes of cries of pain rever­ber­ate in my heart. Chil­dren in famine, vic­tims tor­tured by oppres­sors, help­less old peo­ple a bur­den to their sons, and the whole world of lone­li­ness, pover­ty, and pain make a mock­ery of what human life should be. I long to alle­vi­ate this evil, but I can­not, and I too suffer.
— Bertrand Russell

Riv­er Town by Peter Hessler
Prop­er Doc­tor­ing by David Mendel
Escape from Free­dom by Erich Fromm
The Glass Cas­tle by Jean­nette Walls
The Impor­tance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Democ­ra­cy in Amer­i­ca by Alex­is de Tocqueville
The Catch­er in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Nine­teen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Son­nets from the Por­tuguese and Oth­er Poems by Eliz­a­beth Bar­rett Browning

We assume some of the most pecu­liar and tem­po­rary of our late advan­tages as nat­ur­al, per­ma­nent, and
to be depend­ed on, and we lay our plans accord­ing­ly… On this sandy and false foun­da­tion we scheme
for social improve­ment and dress our polit­i­cal platforms…
— John May­nard Keynes

The Eco­nom­ic Con­se­quences of the Peace by John May­nard Keynes
Cap­i­tal­ism, Social­ism, and Democ­ra­cy by Joseph A. Schumpeter
Mem­oirs of Extra­or­di­nary Pop­u­lar Delu­sions and the Mad­ness of Crowds by Charles MacKay
The Death and Life of Great Amer­i­can Cities by Jane Jacobs
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Nor­rell by Susan­na Clarke

I would rather be ash­es than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a bril­liant blaze than it should be sti­fled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb mete­or, every atom
of me in mag­nif­i­cent glow, than a sleepy and per­ma­nent planet.
— Jack London

The Reck­on­ing by David Halberstam
The Plague by Albert Camus
Sure­ly You’re Jok­ing, Mr. Feyn­man by Richard Feynman
Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University
Pio­neer by Hugh Hawkins
The Mak­ing of Mod­ern Med­i­cine by Michael Bliss
William Osler: A Life in Med­i­cine by Michael Bliss
Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
The Sirens’ Song by Mau­rice Blanchot