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What notable people are reading right now

Newest first. Every entry is something a named person said in public, quoted verbatim, with a link to the post or page it came from. Nothing here is inferred from a vibe, and nothing is paraphrased. Most recent: 11 Oct 2026.

Positive verdicts only

The bar next to each date shows how long ago it was said: 7d is days, 4yr is years.

Arvind Narayanan recommends it

Breakneck by Dan Wang

I liked Dan Wang's uh, Breakneck. A lot of echoes of abundance as well. But this idea of thinking about a lawyerly society versus an engineering society was I thought a really good and succinct way to capture a lot of the macro and micro differences.

on a podcast · 9 Oct 2026 · Report

Arvind Narayanan recommends it

Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie

So maybe in keeping with that, I really like Hannah Ritchie's book, Not the End of the World. She has a newer book, but this one's from 2024 and I still like it very much. The subtitle is something like how we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet. It's an optimistic take on climate, which is of course usually full of doom and gloom stories, so I really liked it for that reason.

on a podcast · 9 Oct 2026 · Report

David Robinson recommends it

The Sabbath by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

And then, third and most importantly, I guess, if you were going to pick one, it would be uh, it would be The Sabbath by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

on a podcast · 7 Oct 2026 · Report

David Robinson recommends it

Little Witch Hazel by Phoebe Wahl

Um, Little Witch Hazel. It's a picture book by Phoebe Wahl. It's just absolutely beautiful and my daughter's eyes light up every time we pull it off the shelf. Um, so if there are parents out there looking for a good one, I would recommend.

on a podcast · 7 Oct 2026 · Report

David Robinson recommends it

The Challenger Launch Decision by Diane Vaughan

Uh number one, the Challenger launch decision. Um so, this is a book about why the Challenger exploded, and it's by Diane Vaughan, who's a social scientist. And I thought I knew the story of why the Challenger blew up. I thought what happened was middle managers cut corners, and there was this rubbery O-ring that got brittle in the morning cold, and it snapped. And the idea was these people were foolish.

on a podcast · 7 Oct 2026 · Report

Noah Smith recommends it

Permutation City by Greg Egan

People who think AI is conscious need to read Permutation City and think about the implications

on X · 4 Oct 2026 · Report

Debbie Millman recommends it

Hunger by Roxane Gay

But more recently, in 2017, I started reading a book called Hunger by Roxang Gay. And when I read that book, I fell in love with the author, sight unseen, just reading her words. So much so that I reached out to her. I wanted to get her on my podcast. She said no. I tried to stay in touch. She was very squirly about it. And then through a mutual friend, she got wind that I was actually not a crazy person.

on a podcast · 2 Oct 2026 · Report

Debbie Millman recommends it

The Voice That Is Great Within Us by Hayden Carruth

So number one, it's a book of poetry called The Voice That is Great Within Us. It's by Hayden Kuth and it is a remark remarkable collection of 20th century poetry. That's where I first became aware of my favorite poem of all time which is a poem by Charles Olsen called Maximus to Himself. P.S. I name my dog Maximus. [snorts] That's number one.

on a podcast · 2 Oct 2026 · Report

Bill Gates recommends it

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Well, one I literally binged this weekend was The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. That's, you know, fiction, very touching, uh uh very upbeat. Apropos of what we just discussed, uh there's a one called Into the Woodchipper by Nicholas Eneric, which talks about how somebody didn't go to a party one weekend and they decided instead to put USAID into the woodchipper.

on a podcast · 29 Sep 2026 · Report

Gergely Orosz liked it

GPU glossary by Modal

Very much enjoying this “GPU glossary” mini-book by Modal I got from @can when stopping by at their NYC office

on X · 27 Sep 2026 · Report

Gergely Orosz liked it

Typescript by Boris Cherny

Holy shit I was going through my old books and found the book I used to brush up on Typescript from 2019, and all my highlights in it It’s was by some random dev I never heard of back then, but remember it was a v good book This “random dev” is @bcherny 🙃

on X · 25 Sep 2026 · Report

Jensen Huang recommends it

Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout

I I really loved Al Ries's and Jack Trout's um book on positioning. Uh it it's a really wonderful book about how people see It's It's a book about marketing strategy um more than that, actually. It's just It's a book about strategy. And and how people see the world and how people see products and how you present products and how you how how you see your own strategies.

on a podcast · 23 Sep 2026 · Report

Jensen Huang recommends it

Computer Architecture by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson

I The The book that that made a huge impact on me was uh computer architecture from Hennessy and Patterson, a quantitative approach. Uh it was the first computer architecture book that that reduced the complexity, the abstract idea of computer architecture uh down to engineering. And I I love it when when people take complicated concepts and reduce it into something that you could do something about.

on a podcast · 23 Sep 2026 · Report

Matt Sheehan recommends it

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

And the last one, just for fun, uh Zadeie Smith's On Beauty. You know, you had Zadeie on the show. I just I think she's the goat. I think she's the best. And On Beauty is uh just a hilarious novel of an academic family. And um you know, her ability to to pierce into the psychology and the insecurities of of each of us [music] and and put that on blast in a way is just I don't know, it just brings me a lot of joy.

on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report

Matt Sheehan recommends it

From the Soil by Fei Xiaotong

It's called From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. It's a book by a Chinese sociologist in the 30s and 40s guy named Faoong who was trained in the west, went back to China, applied kind of western sociological paradigms to studying Chinese villages and agriculture. And it's just one of the most insightful books about Chinese culture. So, I'd encourage people to to seek that one out. I read it every 3 or four years.

on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report

Matt Sheehan recommends it

Country Driving by Peter Hessler

So the first China book is Country Driving by Peter Hler, New Yorker correspondent in a lot of way for people of my generation who went over there and lived there. He's kind of like the godfather.

on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report

Tobias Lütke loved it

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

I mean obviously I am a meditations fan. I know stoicism is falling out of favor a little bit right now but like it's been um a lifelong thing for me and um I have a copy of uh meditations in most rooms I spend time in.

on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report

Tobias Lütke loved it

The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant

I almost always will mention the lessons of history which is I just think the densest like the highest token quality book in existence like given for the length

on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report

Francis Fukuyama recommends it

The God Test by Robert Wright

Uh the God Test. Um I think it actually, you know, he's been covering artificial intelligence really since the 1980s. He interviewed uh Jeffrey Hinton way back then. uh he's got the best explanation of how LLMs work for a lay person that I know of.

on a podcast · 11 Sep 2026 · Report

Francis Fukuyama recommends it

Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman

Uh the second one is Mark Dunkelman's why nothing works where he puts everything [snorts] in a bigger historical context a swing between uh Jeffersonianism where power is pushed down as far as possible to the people and a Hamiltonian vision where the government itself is the uh is the engine of change. and he argues that we've been in a Jeffersonian period ever since the 1960s and we need to switch to a more Hamiltonian uh perspective.

on a podcast · 11 Sep 2026 · Report

Francis Fukuyama recommends it

Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka

One is Jennifer Pala's uh recoding America. I think she is the most insightful in a way critic of what's wrong with the American bureaucracy but she does it from a sympathetic standpoint. she understands why bureaucracy and government are necessary and how you know it could actually be reformed to do things better.

on a podcast · 11 Sep 2026 · Report

Terence Eden loved it affiliate

ActivityPub by Evan Prodromou

Evan Prodromou has the unenviable task of making the whole ecosystem easy to understand. Thankfully he does that well. Things are logically laid out, there are comprehensive descriptions of even the most obscure parts of the spec, and it builds up nicely from the fundamentals.

on shkspr.mobi · 1 Sep 2026 · Report

Branko Milanovic loved it

The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by Odd Arne Westad

It is a quick read, an excellent book whose main virtue is not, in my opinion, direct analogy with the World War I, but a treatment of how in a multipolar world relatively small international events, misunderstandings, idiosyncratic fits of leaders, “hubris and fear” (as Westad often writes), resentment of the elite and of the public prodded by the media, can produce colossal miscalculations which then produce even more colossal wars and, in the era of the weapons of mass destruction, may end the civilization.

on branko2f7.substack.com · 31 Aug 2026 · Report

Robin Wigglesworth recommends it

Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

Uh, I think I'm going to go with Leak Ahmed's Lords of Finance. Uh, it's just a fabulous book about this kind of tumultuous interwar period, uh, in the run-up to the Great Depression.

on a podcast · 28 Aug 2026 · Report

Robin Wigglesworth recommends it

The Prize by Dale Russakoff

Um my second book, uh Daniel Jurgens's the prize. It's a history of the oil market. It's kind of the model for a lot of similar books that came first, but Jurgen's kind of the OG. Uh, it's I I love those histories that kind of tell a history of the world. This is almost a history of the 20th century, but through a completely different angle. So, it tells it through the oil market. It's tremendous.

on a podcast · 28 Aug 2026 · Report

Robin Wigglesworth recommends it

Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

Um, I think the obvious first place, the first book is is Barbarians at the Gate. I I genuinely think it's kind of the gold standard of of narrative business journalism today, but really it's kind of like um a history of American business over the past century told through the prism of this private equity deal and all the crazy characters involved. It is astonishing.

on a podcast · 28 Aug 2026 · Report

Annie Lowrey recommends it

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

And then my third hobby horse book, which I think people talk about this book all the time, but I feel like a lot of people have never actually read it, is Gender Trouble by Judith Butler. It will blow your hair back. The reason that we [laughter] don't laugh, I'm a huge listener of Manosphere podcasts along with yours. I'm a really big listener of Joe Rogan and the reason I bring it up all the time is I'm like, has Joe read Gender Trouble?

on a podcast · 25 Aug 2026 · Report

Annie Lowrey recommends it

My Silent War by Kim Philby

And this is a book called My Silent War by Kim Philby. So Kim Philby is a spy, prominent British spy and uh he almost becomes the head of MI6. He's a Soviet agent. He's a Soviet agent and he eventually defects to the Soviet Union and drinks himself to death in Moscow. And you know, I think that there was perhaps some expectation of like a warm reception there for all that he had done for the Soviet cause.

on a podcast · 25 Aug 2026 · Report

Michael Grunwald liked it

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis wrote a chilling book called The Fifth Risk about the first Trump Administration’s utter indifference to good government—it begins with Jared Kushner throwing out months of transition prep work because he hated Chris Christie—and that was the Golden Age of Pericles compared to this mess.

on michaelgrunwald.substack.com · 25 Aug 2026 · Report

Brad Setser recommends it

How to Win a Trade War by Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown

And the third book, a book that exceeded my expectations, is, you know, How to Win a Trade War or by Chad Bown and Soumaya Keynes. Whatever side of the trade debate you're on, you're going to learn something. It is not a polemic. It is, I think, the best guide to a world where people are thinking about trade in terms of vulnerabilities, not just in terms of opportunities. Brad Setser, thank you very much.

on a podcast · 21 Aug 2026 · Report

Brad Setser recommends it

The Volatility Machine by Michael Pettis

Um uh it's called The Volatility Machine by Michael Pettis. It is It is a thin book. It is not an easy read. Uh it is actually not even about China, even though Pettis is now very well known for his work on China. It's about how to think about financial vulnerabilities in the global economy and in emerging economies in particular. I think [snorts] it's a modern classic.

on a podcast · 21 Aug 2026 · Report

Brad Setser recommends it

The Party by Richard McGregor

Uh it's by a friend of mine, Richard McGregor, uh long time um [snorts] Beijing correspondent for the Financial who wrote a book called The Party. And he really showed that you can't understand modern China without understanding the modern Chinese Communist Party.

on a podcast · 21 Aug 2026 · Report

Bryan Caplan loved it

Modern Times by Paul Johnson

I’ve loved it since I was a teenager, but professional historians typically rolled their eyes in disdain when I mentioned it.

on betonit.ai · 19 Aug 2026 · Report

Janna Levin loved it

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

I fully imagine that his Ministry for the Future—which opens with the most harrowing, unrelenting depiction of a deadly heatwave—will be the warning and plea needed for the world to actually create a Ministry for the Future.

on jannalevin.substack.com · 18 Aug 2026 · Report

How this list is built

These records come from rcmnd, a sibling project that collects public recommendations under one rule: a verbatim quote and a source URL, or it does not exist. A watcher reads public posts on a timer and a model finds a sentence — it is never allowed to write one. Every candidate is then checked character-for-character against the original post before it is stored. ybooks reads that database and shows you the books.

Browse by person → The books they agree on →

That little bar

It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about 6 years.

A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.