Books
A live shelf. What I'm reading, what I've finished, and what's queued up next.
- Currently readingTB
The Beginning of Infinity
David Deutsch · ★★★★★
Philosophy
Deutsch's claim that explanatory knowledge is open-ended is the most optimistic thing I've read in years. Slow going, dense, worth every page.
- Currently readingRa
Reasons and Persons
Derek Parfit · ★★★★★
Philosophy
Personal identity, ethics, future generations — Parfit asks the hardest questions in the calmest voice. The thought experiments rewire you.
- FinishedGE
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas Hofstadter · ★★★★★
Science
The book that turned recursion into a metaphysics. I keep coming back to the dialogues — they're the rare popular philosophy that actually does the work, not just narrates it.
- FinishedTS
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins · ★★★★★
Science
Reframed how I think about agency at every level — from cells to firms to ML training runs. The 'gene's-eye view' generalizes shockingly well.
- FinishedIa
I and Thou
Martin Buber · ★★★★★
Philosophy
A short book that took me months. Buber's distinction between I-It and I-Thou is the cleanest articulation I've found of why purely instrumental relationships feel hollow.
- FinishedA
Antifragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb · ★★★★★
Finance
The convexity framing — systems that gain from disorder — is now a default lens for me. Taleb is occasionally insufferable; the ideas are worth it.
- FinishedBS
Bulleh Shah: The Mystic of Punjab
Bulleh Shah (trans.) · ★★★★★
Poetry
Sufi poetry that does in eight lines what most philosophy does in eight chapters. Read the Punjabi if you can — translation loses the music.
- Want to readPT
Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
E. T. Jaynes · ★★★★★
AI/ML
Long on my list. The Bayesian gospel, written by someone who clearly thought the frequentists had stolen the cathedral.