Books

DK The Essential Manager's Handbook
Spring: 2023
Sometimes a little too "buzz-wordy", this book is a great a guide to all possible events that could arise as a manager. Currently 50% through, and really getting a good knowledge of managerial theory, as well as practical ways to become a better leader and manager.

Agrawal, Ajay; Gans, Joshua; Goldfarb, Avi Power and Prediction
Started: Spring 2023
An interesting take into the incredible value of AI technology, and comparisions of AI to previous technological discoveries. The book kinda repeats itself really quickly however, and has a few logical leaps I can't easily stomach. On the fence whether to complete or abandon, but simultaneously working through The Essential Manager's Handbook.

Bennatan, E.M. On Time Within Budget: Software Project Management Practices and Techniques, 3rd Edition
Finished: Fall 2022
Old book, so was curious how relavent it would be to now, but ended up being really really useful. Especially relavent with my role at CraniUS, learning formal project management techniques, relavent development standards, and methods to estimate time, decompose projects, and other project management items were really helpful as most of my current role is project management. A formal training like this was invaluable, still keep this book on my desk and reference it frequently.

Woodford, Susan Looking at Pictures: Art Essentials Series
Finished: Summer 2022
Got this book while travelling and seeing the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Really helped me appreciate art further.

Elliot, George Middlemarch
Started: Spring 2022 Finished: Winter 2022
I took FOREVER on this book, but absolutely loved reading it! Great memories reading this book, at the park in Madison, WI every weekend. At home over winter breaks. While travelling. Such a beautiful book, but does take time to read and digest. Such a great description of even minor human feelings; George Elliot (or who she really is) can paint amazing pictures of human nature.

Mitzenmacher, Michael. Upfail, Eli Probabily and Computing, Randomized Algorithms and Probabilistic Analysis
Finished: Summer 2021
Great book. Read this slowly and spent a lot of time working out the math mentioned in the book. Really great introduction and deep dive into facinating algorithms. Inspiration for the algorithms package on the previous page

Spencer, Joel and Alon, Noga The Probabilistic Method
Abandoned: Spring 2021
Spent a lot of time understanging every single word in this advanced graduate level book. The probabilistic method is mathematical magic. The original goal was to gain such an intuition into the probabilistic method that I could at a glance determine whether certain problems were worth solving / feasible or otherwise. Got more than 50% of the way through, when I started to lose the content, and eventually was reading to read, and not actually appreciating or learning from the text. Decided to stop.

Kessey, Ken One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Finished: Spring 2020
Great book. Read with friends as part of a Covid book club. Really captivating read.

Narang, Rishi K. Inside the Black Box
Abandoned: Fall 2019
Really have enjoyed so far. Wish there was more math, but can appreciate the higher-level dicussions. Ended up becoming too dry and not relavent to my interests, so stopped reading.

Bennett, Michael and Bennett, Sarah. F*ck Feelings
Abandoned: Fall 2019
Started reading this book, really interested in learning some of the chaotic advice it might offer. Each chapter, however, was the exact same format, and I felt like I was just reading a cookie cutter book. Gave up part-way though.

Harvard Business Review. On Mental Toughness
Finished: Fall 2019
Had a wealth of good insight, but couldn't help but feel a sickness in my stomach after hearing about "synergy", "innovation", "resilliance" and other abused business words.

Hope, Bradley. Billion Dollar Whale
Finished: Fall 2019
Comically rediculious, hearing the story of the 1MDB scandal, and Jho Low's parties was absolutely wild. Book repeated things at times awkwardly, and felt like every chapter was forcing a bad mini cliff-hanger, but its entertainment made up for it. Finished in less than a week.

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead
Finished: Summer 2019
Huge book, but really fantasic read. Rand puts incredible detail into her books, and love seeing the similarities between this and Atlas Shrugged. Her novels always inspire me.

Pietila, Antero. The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins
Finished: Spring 2018
This book is awesome. Caught my eye, and am going to have the opportunity to meet the author and get it signed. Love learning about the history of the school, especially as I am able to recognize the places mentioned in Baltimore.

Moore, Christopher. Lamb
Finished: Winter 2018
Excited to read this and add another fiction book to the bucket. Was very funny, really enjoyed it. The ending was a little abrput, but thought the book was terribly clever.

Le Guin, Ursula. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Finished: Winter 2018
I guess I can't count this as a true book, but this quick short story was undoubtedly worthy enough to add to the list. Really questioning idea that isn't easy to think about. Offers a lot of thinking material.

Scott, Steve. The Miler
Finished: Winter 2018
Read this book in literally 3 days. A buddy of mine's dad gave it to me to read. Steve described his life and times training for the mile and 1500. Really inspiring and helped get me super excited for this track season. The book isn't a Pulitzer Prize winner in any way, but the way he rawly described his expirences was very entertaining. Has been a while since I have read a running book.

Christian, Brian. Griffiths, Tom. Algorithms to Live By
Finished: Winter 2018
Right off the bat, loved the algorithmic approach to solving simple problems. The book raised many interesting questisons and really described problems and their solutions in the exact way I would have approached it. Great book that really expanded my mind to day-to-day optimizations. Also, inspired a few more projects I'm going to start looking at.

Taleb, Nassim. Fooled by Randomness
Finished: November 2018
After reading "Superforcasting" by Tetlock, was interested to hear the author of the alternate opinion. Thought it was interesting his approach to finance and how he thinks most of our changes day to day are simply random noise. Taleb also mentioned economist Harry Markowitz, whose work looks immensely interesting.

Galbraith, John. A Short History of Financial Euphoria
Finished: Fall 2018
A little repetative but the point cannot be said enough. We make the same mistake over and over. Especially relavent now as I believe we are on the cusp of another bear market.

Plato. Dialogues of Plato (Bantam Classic)
Finished: Fall 2018
Really interesting book. Loved hearing the Socratic method in action, and how he logically persues his arguments.

Tetlock, Philip. Superforcasting
Finished: Summer 2018
Loved this book. I have dabbled in superforcasting when I was younger, and really liked how he explained the intuition behind the wisdom of crowds and how Brier Scores are calculated. Really really liked the idea, and want to see it expanded. The "Black Swan" counter attack is interesting (Taleb), but I liked seeing how Fermi problems are broken apart.

Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code
Finished: Summer 2018
Went through this book really quickly. Very captivating and learned a lot about art and religious history. Super entertaining plot. Great read.

Dalio, Ray. Princples
Finished: Spring 2018
This book was thick but worth it. A buddy of mine gave this to me as a gift, and after going through the first chapter or so, I fell in love. Dalio and I share many similar opinions about efficiency and ways to be productive, and I felt like it was myself writing the pages. There were some parts that I thought were a little preachy or I didn't competely agree with, but was a fascinating read.

Mueller, John. Machine Learning for Dummies
Finished: Spring 2018
Not sure I finished reading this either. There reached a point I was only reading code, and not any content. However, learned a lot about ML and got to do many practice problems. Really helped, and inspired my interest and persuit for the summer at Bridgestone.

Gawande, Atul. The Checklist Manifesto
Finished: Spring 2018
Very interesting. Kinda repetitive, but loved hearing how Gawande discovered the necessity of checklists. Really inspired me to look at inefficient industries and try and find more efficient solutions.

Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein (or the Modern Prometheus)
Finished: Spring 2018, Fall 2016
Read it twice, one for HS and one for college. I know I say this alot, but I loved this book. Might be one of my favorites. I really like Frankenstein and his ardent persuit of excessive knowledge.

Gleick, James. Chaos: The Making of a New Science
Finished: Winter 2018
Really enjoyed the beginning of this - learning about chaos was fascinating. Loved how we have the technology now to predict the future, we just need the ability to measure the world as it is now percisely. The rest was a little dry, but really enjoyed it.

Graham, Benjamin. The Intelligent Investor
Finished: (Mostly) Winter 2018
Enjoyed reading this. When I was younger, was a huge fan of technical analysis and playing with finance charts, but enjoyed reading something that told me all that was crap and that value investing is the best approach. Not sure if I finished this; I think I only got 75% through. It got very technical and I just became bored -- wasn't learning anything. However, the values and meaning of investing, and the ability to use it as a guidebook has not been lost.

Roca, Paco. El Invierno Del Dibujante
Finished: Winter 2017
Interesting graphic novel. Loved the illustrations. Great to get to work on Spanish while reading a classic.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow
Finished: Fall 2017
I actually didn't like this that much. Thought it was a little repetative, and just found myself wishing I were done with it. Don't know why. Have no regrets reading it, the idea of Behavioral Economics is super fascinating and definately a necessity. However, just though it dry.

Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist
Finished: Summer 2017
What a cute book. Enjoyed the message a lot and the story. Quick read.

Rand, Ayn. Anthem
Finished: Summer 2017
Interesting book. Liked the plot, but really heavy on her philosophy. Enjoyed it a lot though.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World
Finished: Spring 2017
Very interesting. Just strange. Made me feel a weird type of uncomfort.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest
Finished: Spring 2017
Don't remember much.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment
Finished: Spring 2017
This book really struck with me. A little dry and long, but really loved seeing Raskolnikov's inner struggle after committing the crime.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged
Finished: Fall 2016
The greatest book I have ever read without a doubt. Philosophy aside, Rand created an excellent novel. The way she build up the characters was amazing. I wanted to be Dagny Taggart, Henry Rearden, and John Galt all at the same time. It was a mystery novel while spreading an interesting message. Really amazing.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath
Finished: Spring 2016
Don't remember too much, but I do remember the dreariness of the Joad's trip to California.

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights
Finished: Spring 2016
Appreciated the beauty of the work, but was pretty dry at times. Don't remember much other than that - Heathcliff was an interesting character.

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein
Finished: Spring 2016
Quick memorization is sweet - used this to get second at a pi-memorization contest (200 digits).

Bascomb, Neal. The Perfect Mile
Finished: Winter 2015
Learning about the persuit of the first sub-4 minute mile was super fascinating. Bascomb did a good job describing the athletes and their upbringing, really inspired me as an athlete in High School.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
Finished: Fall 2015
Good day 'ol sport. Everyone wants to be Gatsby, but no one actually wants to be Gatsby. Outside can be luxary and fun, but inside can be devistated.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Finished: Summer 2015 (Est.)
Don't remember exactly when I finished this. Thought it was pretty funny, but was really just a grammar book in disguise.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman
Finished: Spring 2015
Very depressing. Work can consume. Obsesion of people.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn
Finished: Fall 2014
Good book. American classic - enjoyed the adventure.

Hand, David. The Improbability Principle
Finished: 2014
Don't remember too much about this, other than one small idea: miracles happen more often than one would believe.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird
Finished: Spring 2014
Really enjoyed this book. Atticus Finch is awesome. Boo Radley and the entire concept was entertaining. Good book.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet
Finished: Fall 2013
The play, I learned a lot from. However, I learned the most from my English teacher --- learning about the Elizabethan Era, iambic pentameter, and Shakespeare's poetic style.

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief
Finished: Spring 2014
Terribly sad, but easy read. Enjoyed it immensely. Sad accordian players and the sense of fear in Nazi Germany.