Here are some of my favorite books with ★★★★ ratings.
Scroll down through the annual lists. If a book is on this list, you can safely assume it will serve you well.
Anything below a 9 doesn’t make it.
You can check my full reading list here.
2019
10/10★
American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment
9/10★
The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin
The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America
Game Over, Press Start to Continue: How Nintendo Conquered the World
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s
2018
10/10★
Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Total Focus: Make Better Decisions Under Pressure
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money
9/10★
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
How Money Got Free: Bitcoin and the Fight for the Future of Finance
Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires
2017
10/10★
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
9/10★
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice
How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
2016
10/10★
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
American Desperado: My Life–From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset
9/10★
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and the New Science of Desire
