Thursday, August 30, 2012

My Obsessive Reading



I have an "indexing gene." I love checklists and reference data. I used to catalogue the creative credits for my favorite comic books, in pencil, on 3" x 5" index cards, during the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous dogsled races televised in the mid-seventies. I thought it was fun. Like most collectors, I would also make ultra-detailed "want lists" of missing, desired issues, and reading lists of favorite authors.

For a time in the nineties, I joined legendary comic fan Jerry Bails' indexing apa (amateur press association), apa-i. I 've contributed to the online Grand Comic Book Database., Askart, and other databases -- the ultimate versions of my old catalog card system.

These days, when I finish a nonfiction book, I write down the title and author(s) in a notebook. Sometimes I forget, but usually I record the books soon after reading. In true OCD fashion, I have to actually finish a book in order to record it. Partially finished books don't count. Believe it or not, just seeing the title/author information again helps me recall much of what I've read.

I originally read popular science and math books for the nonfiction genre, but after the 2008 financial crisis meltdown, I realized I knew nothing of business, and went on a business, economics, and investing book jag. Then in 2010, I shifted gears again to the current trend of mainly psychology and neuroscience reads. The "Behavioral Economics" business books made a nice bridge to these psychology books. I think my "psychology phase" is winding down now. What's next? Probably learning theory.

For "extra credit," I have typed out my list of my obsessesive fact-based reading conquests. You might enjoy reading a few of them yourself, so I have roughly categorized them. Frankly, after typing out this list, I'm a bit blown away at how much material I've consumed so far, and this doesn't even count all the comics, art books, magazines, and crime novels. I'm sure I've also missed a few books that I forgot to record. Here's the list, alphabetized by author.

Biography/Memoir/Military/Pop Culture
The Wire: Truth Be Told - Rafael Alvarez and David Simon
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest - Stephen E. Ambrose
Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany - Stephen E. Ambrose 
D Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II - Stephen E. Ambrose
The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45 - Stephen E. Ambrose
Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness - Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
Under Cover: An Illustrated History of American Mass-Market Paperback - Thomas L. Bonn ; Foreword by John Tebbel

Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs
Running with Scissors: A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs
The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) - Robert A. Caro
Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) - Robert A. Caro
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - Robert A. Caro
From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes from a Jazz Life - Bill Crow
Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller - Burke Davis
Miles: The Autobiography - Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe
Django Reinhardt - Charles Delaunay
I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron
Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography - Joel Engel
Grant Green: Rediscovering the Forgotten Genius of Jazz Guitar - Sharony Andrews Green  

Searching for Robert Johnson: The Life and Legend of the "King of the Delta Blues Singers" - Peter Guralnick
Summer of '49 - David Halberstam
The Fifties - David Halberstam  

Howard Hughes: The Secret Life - Charles Higham
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World - A. J. Jacobs
Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece - Ashley Kahn
Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum - James Lester
Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs - A Parody by Fake Steve Jobs (Daniel Lyons)
The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History - Peter Maas 
Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia - Peter Maas
Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz - Donald L. Maggin
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War - William Manchester
Jim Thompson: Sleep with the Devil - Michael J. McCauley
Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker - James McManus

Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die - Francis M. Nevins
Hardboiled America: Lurid Years of Paperbacks - Geoffrey O'Brien
Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta - Robert Palmer
Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell - Francis Paudras 
Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper - Art Pepper and Laurie Pepper
Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings - Peter Pettinger
Goodfellas - Nicholas Pileggi  
Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson - Robert Polito
Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet - Lewis B. Puller Jr.
Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton - Howard Reich and William M. Gaines
The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes 
A Bridge Too Far: The Classic History of the Greatest Battle of World War II - Cornelius Ryan 
The Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D-Day - Cornelius Ryan
Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man - Gordon F. Sander
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash - Jean Shepherd
Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters - Jean Shepherd    
Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage - Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew
Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America - John William Tebbel   
Off the Wall (David Berkowitz) - Charles Willeford
Something About a Soldier - Charles Willeford
Business/Economics/Finance/ Investment
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More - Chris Anderson
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions - Dan Ariely
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home - Dan Ariely
Corporate Cults: The Insidious Lure of the All-Consuming Organization - Dave Arnott
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart - Ian Ayres
The Numerati - Stephen Baker
The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Great Financial Scandal - Malcolm Balen
The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics - Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein 
Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the Life-Changing Science of Behavioral Economics - Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk - Peter L. Bernstein
Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street - Peter L. Bernstein 
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio - William Bernstein
The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk - William J. Bernstein
The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between - William J. Bernstein
A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation - Richard M. Bookstaber
The Poker Face of Wall Street - Aaron Brown
Frozen Desire: Meaning of Money - James Buchan
Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food Taming Our Primal Instincts - Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan
Mean Markets and Lizard Brains: How to Profit from the New Science of Irrationality - Terry Burnham
The Whiz Kids: The Founding Fathers of American Business and the Legacy They Left Us - John A. Byrne
How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities - John Cassidy
25 Myths You've Got to Avoid If You Want to Manage Your Money Right: The New Rules for Financial Success - Jonathan Clements
You've Lost It, Now What? How to Beat the Bear Market and Still Retire on Time - Jonathan Clements
The Perfect Store: Inside eBay - Adam Cohen
Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk - Satyajit Das
Inventing Money: The Story of Long-Term Capital Management and the Legends Behind It - Nicholas Dunbar   
The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing: A Book for Procrastinators, the Financially Challenged, and Everyone Who Worries About Dealing with Their Money - Paul B. Farrell
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - Niall Ferguson
The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street - Justin Fox
One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy - Thomas Frank
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went - John Kenneth Galbraith
The Age of Uncertainty - John Kenneth Galbraith
The Great Mutual Fund Trap: An Investment Recovery Plan - Gregory Baer and Gary Gensler
The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream - Jacob S. Hacker
The Reckoning - David Halberstam  
Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line - Ben Hamper
The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford
The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers - Robert L. Heilbroner
The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency - Robert Kanigel
Code Name Ginger: The Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World - Steve Kemper
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
Moneyball - Michael Lewis
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine - Michael Lewis
The Blind Side - Michael Lewis
Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing - Roger Lowenstein
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management - Roger Lowenstein
Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004 - Maggie Mahar
No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller - Harry Markopolos
More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places - Michael J. Mauboussin 
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash - Charles R. Morris
Die Broke: A Radical Four-Part Financial Plan - Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine
The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It - Scott Patterson
Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism - Kevin P. Phillips
Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street - William Poundstone
Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) - William Poundstone
Winning the Cash Flow War: Your Ultimate Survival Guide to Making Money and Keeping It - Fred Rewey
The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth - Brian Ross
Company Man: The Rise and Fall of Corporate Life - Anthony Sampson
The Mind of the Market - Michael Shermer
Irrational Exuberance - Robert J. Shiller
Crashproof Your Life : A Comprehensive, Three-Part Plan for Protecting Yourself from Financial Disasters - Thomas A. Schweich
Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods -- and How Companies Create Them - Michael J. Silverstein, Neil Fiske and John Butman
The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read: Maximize Your Retirement Savings...the Smart Way! - Daniel R. Solin
The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read: Maximize Your Retirement Savings...the Smart Way! - Daniel R. Solin
The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read - Daniel R. Solin
The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness - Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life - Richard H. Thaler
The History of Money - Jack Weatherford
What Goes Up: The Uncensored History of Modern Wall Street as Told by the Bankers, Brokers, CEOs, and Scoundrels Who Made It Happen - Eric J. Weiner
Wall Street Versus America: A Muckraking Look at the Thieves, Fakers, and Charlatans Who Are Ripping You Off - Gary Weiss
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science - Charles Wheelan and Burton G. Malkiel
The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital and the Betrayal of Work - William Wolman and Anne Colamosca
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power - Daniel Yergin  
Diet/Health/Medicine/Neuroscience /Psychology/Self-Help
Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness - Daniel G. Amen
Healing Anxiety and Depression - Daniel G. Amen and Lisa C. Routh
10 Simple Solutions to Panic: How to Overcome Panic Attacks, Calm Physical Symptoms, and Reclaim Your Life (The New Harbinger Ten Simple Solutions Series) - Martin M. Antony and Randi E. McCabe
Prozac and the New Antidepressants: What You Need Know About Prozac Zoloft Paxil Luvox Wellbutrin Effexor Serzone Vestra Celexa St. John's Wart and Others - William S. Appleton M. D.
Art and Visual Perception - Rudolf Arnheim
NeanderThin: Eat Like a Caveman to Achieve a Lean, Strong, Healthy Body - Ray Audette
The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts - Lee Baer  
Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial - Alison Bass
Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves - Sharon Begley
When in Doubt, Make Belief: An OCD-Inspired Approach to Living with Uncertainty - Jeff Bell
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment - Tal Ben-Shahar
Coping with Anxiety: 10 Simple Ways to Relieve Anxiety, Fear and Worry - Edmund J. Bourne and Lorna Garanao
The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook - Edmund J. Bourne
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior - Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman
Getting Past OK: The Self-Help Book for People Who Dont Need Help - Richard Brodie
Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme - Richard Brodie
Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy - David D. Burns
When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life - David D. Burns
Syndrome X: The Complete Nutritional Program to Prevent and Reverse Insulin Resistance - Jack Challem, Burton Berkson and Melissa Diane Smith
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not - Robert Burton
Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts: How to Gain Control of Your OCD - David A. Clark and Christine Purdon  
Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool - Taylor Clark
The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat - Loren Cordain
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain - Antonio R. Damasio
IBS For Dummies - Carolyn Dean and L. Christine Wheeler
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science - Norman Doidge
Coping with OCD: Practical Strategies for Living Well with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Troy DuFrene and Bruce Hyman
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder For Dummies - Charles H. Elliott Ph.D. and Laura L. Smith Ph.D.
Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies - Charles H. Elliott Ph.D. and Laura L. Smith Ph.D.
Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life - Paul Ekman
Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage - Paul Ekman
Thanks: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier - Robert Emmons
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside - Katrina Firlik
Stop Obsessing!: How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions - Edna B. Foa and Reid Wilson 
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety: A Guide to Breaking Free from Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - John P. Forsyth and Georg H. Eifert
Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life - Barbara Fredrickson
Stumbling on Happiness - Daniel Todd Gilbert
The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (The Wrightsman Lectures, V. 9) - E. H. Gombrich
Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty - Jonathan Grayson
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease - Gary Greenberg
InsomniacGayle Greene
The Intelligent Eye - Richard L. Gregory
Mirrors in Mind - Richard L. Gregory
Odd Perceptions Richard L. Gregory
Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average - Joseph T. Hallinan
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - Chip Heath and Dan Heath
On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits - Wray Herbert
Sleep Disorders For Dummies - Max Hirshkowitz, Patricia B. Smith and William C. Dement
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life - Steven Johnson
Sleep Apnea - The Phantom of the Night: Overcome Sleep Apnea Syndrome and Snoring - T. Scott Johnson, William A. Broughton, Jerry Halberstadt and B. Gail Demko
Man and His Symbols - Carl Gustav Jung
Apprentice to Genius: The Making of a Scientific Dynasty (neuroscience and neuropharmacology)  - Robert Kanigel
Who Switched Off My Brain? Revised: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions - Caroline Leaf Ph.D.
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life - Joseph LeDoux
Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are - Joseph LeDoux
How We Decide - Jonah Lehrer 
Proust Was a Neuroscientist - Jonah Lehrer
The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God - David J. Linden
The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good - David J. Linden
Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry - T. M. Luhrmann
The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want - Sonja Lyubomirsky
101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist's Quest for Memory (Gary Lynch) - Terry McDermott
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School - John Medina
The Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky
Psychology Today: Taming Bipolar Disorder (Psychology Today Here to Help) - Lori Oliwenstein
The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves - Annie Murphy Paul
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide to Getting Well and Staying Well - Fred Penzel
Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control - Christopher Peterson, Steven F. Maier and Martin E. P. Seligman
The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing: The Experience and Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Judith L. Rapoport
Shadow Syndromes: The Mild Forms of Major Mental Disorders That Sabotage Us - John J. Ratey M. D. and Catherine Johnson Ph.D.
Be Different: My Adventures with Asperger's and My Advice for Fellow Aspergians, Misfits, Families, and Teachers - John Elder Robison
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's - John Elder Robison
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment - Martin E. P. Seligman
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being - Martin E. P. Seligman   
Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life - Martin E. P. Seligman
What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement - Martin E. P. Seligman
Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior - Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Beverly Beyette
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force - Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley
Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are - Sebastian Seung
Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life - Allen Shawn 
The Other Side of Normal: How Biology Is Providing the Clues to Unlock the Secrets of Normal and Abnormal Behavior - Jordan W. Smoller
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things - Gail Steketee 
The Impulse Factor: An Innovative Approach to Better Decision Making - Nick Tasler
Overcoming Health Anxiety - David Veale
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America - Robert Whitaker   
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies - Rob Willson and Rhena Branch
Don't Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks - Reid Wilson
Math:
A Tour of the Calculus - David Berlinski

Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World - David Berlinski 

The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World - David Berlinski
First You Build a Cloud: And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of LifeK. C. Cole
Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the CosmosK. C. Cole
The Universe and the Tea Cup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty K. C. Cole
Archimedes' Revenge: The Joys and Perils of Mathematics - Paul Hoffman
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth - Paul Hoffman
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - Robert Kanigel
The Fractal Geometry of Nature - Benoit Mandelbrot
A Beautiful Mind (John Nash) - Sylvia Nasar
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper - John Allen Paulos
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences - John Allen Paulos
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem - Simon Singh and John Lynch
Science:
Bursts: The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do, from Your E-mail to Bloody Crusades - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means - Albert-László Barabási
Forward Through the Rearview Mirror: Reflections on and by Marshall McLuhan - Paul Benedetti and Nancy DeHart 

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin 
Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness - John Briggs  
Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen - Mark Buchanan
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
The Meaning of it All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist - Richard P Feynman
What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character - Richard P. Feynman 
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures - Malcolm Gladwell
Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything - James Gleick
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard FeynmanJames Gleick
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood - James Gleick
What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Information Frontier - James Gleick
Alan Turing: The Enigma - Andrew Hodges and Douglas Hofstadter
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software - Steven Johnson
Chances Are . . .: Adventures in Probability - Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World - Kevin Kelly
Naked To The Bone: Medical Imaging In The Twentieth Century - Bettyann Kevles
John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More - Norman Macrae
The Gutenberg Galaxy - Marshall McLuhan 

The Medium is the Massage - Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore and Shepard Fairey
Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life - Leonard Mlodinow 
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives - Leonard Mlodinow 
What the Numbers Say: A Field Guide to Mastering Our Numerical World - Derrick Niederman and David Boyum
Universal Foam: Exploring the Science of Nature's Most Mysterious Substance - Sidney Perkowitz
Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge - William Poundstone
The Prisoner's Dilemma - William Poundstone
The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century - David Salsburg
Fringes of Reason (Whole Earth) - Ted Schultz

Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended ConsequencesEdward Tenner

Philosophy/ Sociology
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream - Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - Eric Hoffer
The Age of Alienation - Bernard Murchland


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