Outline:
Marcus’s Reading List
This page serves as a record of books I’ve read and some that I might recommend. It’s easy to consume books and then forget both that I read them and what I learned from them. This list is my way of keeping track and reflecting on the knowledge gained.
If you’re curious about how I decide which books to read, I have written about my process in detail elsewhere.
Guide
- ♂️ for the book I am currently reading
- for books I didn’t finish
- for audiobooks
2025
- ♂️ Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill
- Superyacht Success: The insider’s guide to the yachting industry by Brendan O’Shannassy ⛵
- The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos
- California Soul by Keith Corbin ️
- Your Table is Ready by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina ️
- Dove by Robin Lee Graham ⛵
- A Waiter in Paris by @ChisholmEdward ️
- The Mom Test by @robfitz
- Blind Man’s Bluff by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew ⛵
- Five Decembers by James Kestrel
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
- Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner
2024
- L.A. Noir by John Buntin
- The Castle on Sunset by Shawn Levy
- Outside the Box by Marc Levinson
- Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade ⛵
- Megayacht True Stories of Adventure, Drama, and Tragedy at Sea by Doug Hoogs ⛵
- Running Against the Tide by Captain Lee ⛵
- Superyacht Captain by Brendan O’Shannassy ⛵
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
2023
- Fast Fiction, VOL 2 Man vs. Machine by Scotty Cornfield
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The Snowball by Alice Schroeder
- Black Edge by @sheelahk
- How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars by @GallagherBilly
- How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis
- Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
- Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
- Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
- Casino Royal by Ian Fleming
- Status and Culture by @wdavidmarx
- Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
- Endurance by Alfred Lansing
2022
- Everything I Need I Get from You by Kaitlyn Tiffany
- Action Park by Andy Mulvihill
- How to Decide by @AnnieDuke
- Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart
- The Manager’s Path by @skamille
- Setting the Table by @dhmeyer ️
- The Tiger by @JohnVaillant
- Titan by Ron Chernow
- Set for Life by @STrenchBP
- Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
- The Craft by John Dickie
- Ghost in the Wires by @kevinmitnick
- Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson
- Pimp by Iceberg Slim
2021
- The Making of a Manager by @joulee
- The Passionate Programmer by @chadfowler
- Working Backwards by @cbryar & @BillCarr89
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain ️
- The Alchemist by @PauloCoehlo
- The Spy and the Traitor by @BenMacintyre1
- Red Notice by @Billbrowder
- Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich
- Creativity, Inc. by @edcatmull
- Breath by @MrJamesNestor
- Clean Code by @UncleBobMartin
- Nudge by @R_Thaler & @CassSunstein
- Working Backwards by @cbryar & @BillCarr89
2020
- Lives of the Stoics by @RyanHoliday
- Greenlights by @McConaughey
- Clean by @jameshamblin
- Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley
- Never Split the Difference by @VossNegotiation
- I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by @TuckerMax
- The Mole People by Jennifer Toth
- Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang
- American Kingpin by @NickBilton
- The Future We Choose by @CFigueres & @TomCarnac
- The Machine That Changed the World by James P. Womack
- The Wedge by @SGCarney
- Purple Cow by @ThisIsSethsBlog
- The Pragmatic Programmer – 20th Anniversary Edition by @pragdave & @PragmaticAndy
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- Remote by @JasonFried
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
- The Dichotomy of Leadership by @JockoWillink
- Talking to Strangers by @Gladwell
- City of Thieves: A Novel by David Benioff
- Annelies Hartmann Hampel Memoirs by Annelies Hartmann Hampel
- The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by @PeterThiel
- Fight Club by @ChuckPalahniuk
- The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood by Thomas R. King
2019
- It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by @JasonFried
- Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by @Schwarzenegger
- The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
- The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life by Epictetus
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by @SleepDiplomat
2018
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by @Nireyal
- Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
- This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
- Linchpin by @ThisIsSethsBlog
- Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feyman by Richard P. Feynman
- Mate: Become the Man Women Want by @TuckerMax
- Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son by
- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
2017
- Ego Is the Enemy by @RyanHoliday
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
2016
- The Power Of Habit by @cduhigg
2015
- Paper Towns by @JohnGreen
- The Zen of Steve Jobs by Caleb Melby
- Vagabonding by @RolfPotts
2014
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Kite Runner by @KhaledHosseini
- As A Man Thinketh by James Allen
- The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by @RyanHoliday
- Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Lone Survivor by @MarcusLuttrell
- A Dog in a Hat by Joe Parkin
- Losing My Virginity by @RichardBranson
2013
- The 4-Hour Chef by @tferriss
- The 4-Hour Workweek by @tferriss
- Ender’s Game by @OrsonScottCard
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson ⛵
1999
- Learned to read