Books I've read, or skimmed, or planned to read (and think deserve it)
HEALTH, EXERCISE AND LONGEVITY
Body by Science DougMcGuff
A book that will challenge every previous assumption you had about health and exercise. The author (a medical Doctor) says that 12 minutes a week (yes, it's not a typo) of high intensity weight training (combined with a paleo diet) is all you need to be strong,lean and healthy. It's arguments are quite logical and I'm almost convinced.
Now I believe you can get strong, lean and even moderately muscular with his training routine. I also think that his training has many health benefits and it's great if you are a very busy person.
I'm not 100% sure you can leave out any type of aerobic conditioning if you want sportperfomance or even for health reasons.
Another problem is that if you don't have a Body by science personal trainer and no access to Nautilus equipment it can be hard to progress after the first 2-3 months.
You'll lose motivation, you'll have to reduce range of motion to move heavy weights avoiding to get stuck at the extremes and even at the superslow speed thatMcGuff advice I think you can risk injury.
The author have a website where you can read about the body by science community who mostly shares workouts, diet tips (paleo diet) and an underlining philosophy framework based on Any Rand objectivism.
I don't agree on everything but it's still interesting.
Fantastic Voyage Kurzweil and Grossman
I don't have read the whole book yet, and I'm still not sure on how to evaluate it. It has great merits on establishing a plan for long term health and longevity. The bridge idea, like many ofKurzweil's ideas about accelerating future and the technology singularity are interesting, surprising but maybe not fully accurate.
Kurzweil basically says that if you can survive and maintain yourself healthy for the next 20-30 years, then you'll basically achieve immortality because technology is advancing at fast pace and we will discover many ways to repair our bodies.
Well, what can I say? I'm a bit of atranshumanist myself and I really hope he's right, but I think there are no basis to make such accurate predictions about technologies like artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biology. You can never make accurate predictions about the future.
Many of the health advice on the book are sound, but I think there are some suspicious ideas and I'm sceptical aboutKurzweil's supplements regime (he takes 150 pills a day).
Be careful, first do not harm.
My first rule for longevity is do not die.
Transcend Kurzweil and Grossman
I have only skimmed this book and read a couple of chapters. It seems better than the previous one, less pseudoscience and more science.
Good Calories Bad Calories GaryTaubes
A great book that looks at the science results about nutrition and debunk the low-fat myth. Analyzing studies and the history of nutrition scienceTaubes explain how the low-fat myth was created and why it's too many carbs and sugar that makes us fat.
I like the scientific approach and agree on many of the conclusions, but maybe this book and its followers are too much on the "carbs are evil" side.
I agreed sugar is bad, almost all packaged food are bad and that withcarbs is easy to overeat.
But total calories still matters and I believe heavy meat consumption is not healthy also.
The longest lived populations of the world likeokinawans and sardinians have a diet high in carbs and low in meat. I ate bread and pasta all my life and I'm 63 kg with showing abs.
There is more in nutrition than in this book, and I can't say everything in a review.
Still a great book, but keep an open mind.
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ANDPHYLOSOPHY
Machine Super Intelligence Shane Legg (PhD Thesis)
Do you believe it is possible to mathematically define intelligence ? Well, this guy and his advisor Marcus Hutter have done that. Not an easy read, heavy math and I didn't read and understood the whole thing, but if you have the same intellectual curiosity (you are a big nerd) that I have it's very good.
Ending Aging Aubrey de Grey
Another classic for the transhumanists/singularitians. We still don't know why and how we age (we are not even able to measure age, by the way) but maybe we can rejuvenate ourselves.
Aubrey de Grey has a computer science background and has decided to take and engineering approach : let's not bother on how to stop aging, just try to fix the damages first.
You can keep an old car working for centuries if you want: constant repair and maintenance and changing the broken components.
Can we do the same with our bodies?
This book shows the seven main aging damaging process and how we might be able to undo them.
You can learn some biology and see de Grey ideas.
Can we really achieve eternal youth on a reasonable time frame? I think it's very difficult to say, there are many big if on de Grey proposals and you never now if it will be possible to solve a certain problem in 10 years or in 100 years.
Like I said for Kurzweil book, it's very difficult to make forecasts about science and technology.
How the Brain Might Work Dileep George (Phd Thesis)
Not finished yet. This book illustrate how Numenta works. Numenta is the software framework based on Jeff Hawking neuroscience study and hishyphotesis on how our cortex might work.
Philosophy of Mind - a beginner guide Edward Feser
Still have to read this. I decided that to best understand artificial intelligence I also have to familiarize with the different philosophical positions on the consciousness problem
On Intelligence Jeff Hawkins
The theory behind Numenta. Just begun to read this. It contains a workinghyphotesis on the neurocortex.
FINANCE
Fooled by randomness Nassim Taleb
It seems a finance book, but it's really an epistemology book. I agree on almost everything and I found many thing that I always though about people cognitive biases, The author is a bit full of himself, but maybe he can afford that.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street Burton Malkiel
THE finance book. I really really like this one. It can make a beginner understand the basis of how financial markets work and what's the best attitude toward investing. Great.
A Mathematician Plays the stock Market J.A.Paulos
Just began to read this one.
ECONOMICS AND HOW THE WORLD WORKS
How To Lie With Statistics Darrell Huff
Principles.of.Economics Gregory Mankiw
A very good book if you want to learn the basics of economics. Quite long (over 700 pages) but easy, low in math, it's a beginner book. I read it because I have an engineering background and wanted to learn some economics and the economic thinking and terminology. The author is free market oriented and conservative in politics. I don't agree on many things, but if you accept the underlying hypothesis you can't ignore economic reasoning.
After this book I started reading many internet resources to learn more about the different economics schools of thought.
Very good if you want to start.
How we got here Andy Kessler
An history of how the modern world get to this point. mainly technology and financial markets.
MBA in a day Steven Stralser
Why people pay about 100.000 $ to get an MBA at a top business school ? What the hell do they teach which is so valuable ? For an Italian, where university education is almost free, spending so much to study seems totally crazy. So I got curious to learn what an MBA guy knows and I ignore.
Of course I cannot learn everything from these kind of books, of course the signaling and network part of the MBA is what people value the most, but still I plan to continue reading this book.
Just started now.
Outliers Gladwell Malcom
Rework Jason Fried , DavidHeinemer Hansson
Getting Real Jason Fried , DavidHeinemer Hansson
Some Vault Career Guides
FICTION
Il nome della Rosa Umberto Eco
Comici Spaventati Guerrieri Stefano Benni
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, PSYCHOLOGY AND MARKETING
The_4-Hour_Workweek TimothyFerriss
The Game Neil Strauss
Think and grow rich Napoleon Hill
How to win friends and influence people DaleCarneagie
Mastery George Leonard
The way of the superior Man David Deida
Full Fact Book of Cold Reading Ian Rowland
The 48 laws of power Robert Greene
Frogs into princes Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Steve Andreas
Beliefs RobertDilts
The Sectret of Creating your future Tad James
Using your Brain for a Change Richard Bandler
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND PROGRAMMING
Algorithmics The Spirit of Computing D. Harel
An introduction to computing, a bit science a bit divulgative for the layman. Really liked it
Introduction To The Theory Of Computation Michael Sipser
A very good book on theoretical computer science, read half of it and understood many things that at university seemd totally pointless.
Programming Collective Intelligence Toby Segaran
Programming Ruby Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
The Pragmatic Programmer Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
Agile Web Development with Rails Sam Ruby,Dave Thomas, DavidHeinemer Hansson
Design Patterns in Java Steven john Metsker
Seo Book Aaron Wall
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,MACHINE LEARNING AND STATISTICS
These books are highly technical and are about machine learning and artificial intelligence. I have not read them yet, just some chapters of some of them. The problem is that to learn such books filled with math equations and pseudocode you really need time and concentration, and unfortunately I have a full time job.
Machine Learning Tom Mitchell
An introduction to machine learning. Easier than the other ones, I've read some chapters.
Reinforcement Learning - An Introduction Sutton,Barto
An introduction to machine learning. Quite simple and based on understanding, not on maths.
Probability Theory - The logic of science E.T.Jaynes
A statistic and epistemology book. It explain Bayesian statistics.
Pattern Recognition and Machine learning Christopher Bishop
The book on machine learning. Not an easy read, but complete and up to date.
Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms David MacKay
Seems very good, I'll read it one day. machine learning and information theory.
Introduction to Machine Learning Ethem Alpaydin
The Elements of Statistical Learning Hastie,Tibshirani,Friedman
Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach Russel,Norvig
The reference book for artificial intelligence. Complete, good and BIG
The Quest for Artificial Intelligence Nils Nilsson
An history of artificial intelligence
WRITING
On writing well William K. Zinsser
Learning to write is closely connected with learning to communicate and thinking clearly. I'm halfway this book. Unfortunately English is not my mother tongue, so it's not easy for me to apply the book insights.
POKER
Dan Harrington - Harrington On Holdem VOLUMI 1 E 2
Theory of poker DavidSklansky
COMICS AND FUN
Dylan Dog comics
Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo siincazzano (vol 1 & 2) Gino & Michele
CHESS
I've read many chess books on my childhood. I'll write a list of the best ones, but that's of course depends on your chess level and understanding.
Body by Science Doug
A book that will challenge every previous assumption you had about health and exercise. The author (a medical Doctor) says that 12 minutes a week (yes, it's not a typo) of high intensity weight training (combined with a paleo diet) is all you need to be strong,lean and healthy. It's arguments are quite logical and I'm almost convinced.
Now I believe you can get strong, lean and even moderately muscular with his training routine. I also think that his training has many health benefits and it's great if you are a very busy person.
I'm not 100% sure you can leave out any type of aerobic conditioning if you want sport
Another problem is that if you don't have a Body by science personal trainer and no access to Nautilus equipment it can be hard to progress after the first 2-3 months.
You'll lose motivation, you'll have to reduce range of motion to move heavy weights avoiding to get stuck at the extremes and even at the superslow speed that
The author have a website where you can read about the body by science community who mostly shares workouts, diet tips (paleo diet) and an underlining philosophy framework based on Any Rand objectivism.
I don't agree on everything but it's still interesting.
Fantastic Voyage Kurzweil and Grossman
I don't have read the whole book yet, and I'm still not sure on how to evaluate it. It has great merits on establishing a plan for long term health and longevity. The bridge idea, like many of
Kurzweil basically says that if you can survive and maintain yourself healthy for the next 20-30 years, then you'll basically achieve immortality because technology is advancing at fast pace and we will discover many ways to repair our bodies.
Well, what can I say? I'm a bit of a
Many of the health advice on the book are sound, but I think there are some suspicious ideas and I'm sceptical about
Be careful, first do not harm.
My first rule for longevity is do not die.
Transcend Kurzweil and Grossman
I have only skimmed this book and read a couple of chapters. It seems better than the previous one, less pseudoscience and more science.
Good Calories Bad Calories Gary
A great book that looks at the science results about nutrition and debunk the low-fat myth. Analyzing studies and the history of nutrition science
I like the scientific approach and agree on many of the conclusions, but maybe this book and its followers are too much on the "
I agreed sugar is bad, almost all packaged food are bad and that with
But total calories still matters and I believe heavy meat consumption is not healthy also.
The longest lived populations of the world like
There is more in nutrition than in this book, and I can't say everything in a review.
Still a great book, but keep an open mind.
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND
Machine Super Intelligence Shane Legg (PhD Thesis)
Do you believe it is possible to mathematically define intelligence ? Well, this guy and his advisor Marcus Hutter have done that. Not an easy read, heavy math and I didn't read and understood the whole thing, but if you have the same intellectual curiosity (you are a big nerd) that I have it's very good.
Ending Aging Aubrey de Grey
Another classic for the transhumanists/
Aubrey de Grey has a computer science background and has decided to take and engineering approach : let's not bother on how to stop aging, just try to fix the damages first.
You can keep an old car working for centuries if you want: constant repair and maintenance and changing the broken components.
Can we do the same with our bodies?
This book shows the seven main aging damaging process and how we might be able to undo them.
You can learn some biology and see de Grey ideas.
Can we really achieve eternal youth on a reasonable time frame? I think it's very difficult to say, there are many big if on de Grey proposals and you never now if it will be possible to solve a certain problem in 10 years or in 100 years.
Like I said for Kurzweil book, it's very difficult to make forecasts about science and technology.
How the Brain Might Work Dileep George (Phd Thesis)
Not finished yet. This book illustrate how Numenta works. Numenta is the software framework based on Jeff Hawking neuroscience study and his
Philosophy of Mind - a beginner guide Edward Feser
Still have to read this. I decided that to best understand artificial intelligence I also have to familiarize with the different philosophical positions on the consciousness problem
On Intelligence Jeff Hawkins
The theory behind Numenta. Just begun to read this. It contains a working
FINANCE
Fooled by randomness Nassim Taleb
It seems a finance book, but it's really an epistemology book. I agree on almost everything and I found many thing that I always though about people cognitive biases, The author is a bit full of himself, but maybe he can afford that.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street Burton Malkiel
THE finance book. I really really like this one. It can make a beginner understand the basis of how financial markets work and what's the best attitude toward investing. Great.
A Mathematician Plays the stock Market J.A.
Just began to read this one.
ECONOMICS AND HOW THE WORLD WORKS
How To Lie With Statistics Darrell Huff
Principles.of.Economics Gregory Mankiw
A very good book if you want to learn the basics of economics. Quite long (over 700 pages) but easy, low in math, it's a beginner book. I read it because I have an engineering background and wanted to learn some economics and the economic thinking and terminology. The author is free market oriented and conservative in politics. I don't agree on many things, but if you accept the underlying hypothesis you can't ignore economic reasoning.
After this book I started reading many internet resources to learn more about the different economics schools of thought.
Very good if you want to start.
How we got here Andy Kessler
An history of how the modern world get to this point. mainly technology and financial markets.
MBA in a day Steven Stralser
Why people pay about 100.000 $ to get an MBA at a top business school ? What the hell do they teach which is so valuable ? For an Italian, where university education is almost free, spending so much to study seems totally crazy. So I got curious to learn what an MBA guy knows and I ignore.
Of course I cannot learn everything from these kind of books, of course the signaling and network part of the MBA is what people value the most, but still I plan to continue reading this book.
Just started now.
Outliers Gladwell Malcom
Rework Jason Fried , David
Getting Real Jason Fried , David
Some Vault Career Guides
FICTION
Il nome della Rosa Umberto Eco
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, PSYCHOLOGY AND MARKETING
The_4-Hour_Workweek Timothy
The Game Neil Strauss
Think and grow rich Napoleon Hill
How to win friends and influence people Dale
Mastery George Leonard
The way of the superior Man David Deida
Full Fact Book of Cold Reading Ian Rowland
The 48 laws of power Robert Greene
Frogs into princes Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Steve Andreas
Beliefs Robert
The Sectret of Creating your future Tad James
Using your Brain for a Change Richard Bandler
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND PROGRAMMING
Introduction To The Theory Of Computation Michael Sipser
A very good book on theoretical computer science, read half of it and understood many things that at university seemd totally pointless.
Programming Collective Intelligence Toby Segaran
Programming Ruby Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
The Pragmatic Programmer Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
Agile Web Development with Rails Sam Ruby,Dave Thomas, David
Design Patterns in Java Steven john Metsker
Seo Book Aaron Wall
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,MACHINE LEARNING AND STATISTICS
These books are highly technical and are about machine learning and artificial intelligence. I have not read them yet, just some chapters of some of them. The problem is that to learn such books filled with math equations and pseudocode you really need time and concentration, and unfortunately I have a full time job.
Machine Learning Tom Mitchell
An introduction to machine learning. Easier than the other ones, I've read some chapters.
Reinforcement Learning - An Introduction Sutton,Barto
An introduction to machine learning. Quite simple and based on understanding, not on maths.
Probability Theory - The logic of science E.T.
Pattern Recognition and Machine learning Christopher Bishop
The book on machine learning. Not an easy read, but complete and up to date.
Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms David MacKay
Seems very good, I'll read it one day. machine learning and information theory.
Introduction to Machine Learning Ethem Alpaydin
The Elements of Statistical Learning Hastie,Tibshirani,Friedman
Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach Russel,Norvig
The reference book for artificial intelligence. Complete, good and BIG
The Quest for Artificial Intelligence Nils Nilsson
An history of artificial intelligence
WRITING
On writing well William K. Zinsser
Learning to write is closely connected with learning to communicate and thinking clearly. I'm halfway this book. Unfortunately English is not my mother tongue, so it's not easy for me to apply the book insights.
POKER
Dan Harrington - Harrington On Holdem VOLUMI 1 E 2
Theory of poker David
COMICS AND FUN
Dylan Dog comics
Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo si
CHESS
I've read many chess books on my childhood. I'll write a list of the best ones, but that's of course depends on your chess level and understanding.
