Books recommended by Patrick Collison

- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: (by Harold Abelson).
Recommended by Max Levchin , Patrick Collison , Paul Graham
- Medieval Technology and Social Change: (by Lynn White).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Paul Graham , Sam Altman
- The Old Way: A Story of the First People (by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Paul Graham , Sam Altman
- Reasons and Persons: (by Derek Parfit).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Sam Harris , Will MacAskill
- The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley (by Leslie Berlin).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Warren Buffett
- In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo (by Michela Wrong).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Modern Operating Systems: (by Andrew S Tanenbaum).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (by Rebecca Goldstein).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Science: A History (by John Gribbin).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- A Course in Mathematical Analysis: (by Douard Goursat).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (by Joel Mokyr).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Dracula: (by Bram Stoker).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Mind-Body Problem: (by Rebecca Goldstein).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Orality and Literacy: (by Walter J. Ong).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Democracy in America: (by Alexis de Tocqueville).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (by Lewis Mumford).
Recommended by Keith Rabois , Patrick Collison
- The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (by Richard W. Hamming).
Recommended by Keith Rabois , Patrick Collison
- Wittgenstein's Vienna: (by Allan Janik).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- A Decade of Research: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1970-1980 (by Giuliana ed. Lavendel).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and His Astonishing Exploratorium (by K. C. Cole).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Scientific Freedom: The Elixir of Civilization (by Donald W. Braben).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Hunters: (by James Salter).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- China Airborne: (by James Fallows).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China (by Philip P. Pan).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Billion-Dollar Molecule: The Quest for the Perfect Drug (by Barry Werth).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (by Thomas Pakenham).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea (by Callum Roberts).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (by Peter Hessler).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Paris Review Interviews, I: 16 Celebrated Interviews (by The Paris Review).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Popper Selections: (by Karl R. Popper).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (by Garry Wills).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love (by David Talbot).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Long Way: (by Bernard Moitessier).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers (by Simon Winchester).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Perspective on McKinsey: (by Marvin Bower).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (by Ji Xianlin).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Arabs: A History (by Eugene Rogan).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Electronic Payment Systems for E-Commerce: (by Donal O'Mahony).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics: (by Gerald Jay Sussman).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World (by Oliver Morton).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region: (by Harold Gilliam).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (by Rick Perlstein).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (by Rebecca Goldstein).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Technics and Civilization: (by Lewis Mumford).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp (by Peter Norvig).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (by Jason Stearns).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Foucault's Pendulum: (by Umberto Eco).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Secret Commonwealth: Book Of Dust, Book 2 (by Philip Pullman).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Asimov's New Guide to Science: (by Isaac Asimov).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine: (by Thomas H. Lee).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 (by Joel Mokyr).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought (by Dennis C. Rasmussen).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas (by Seymour A. Papert).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity (by Sean Carroll).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China (by James Fallows).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Anthropic Bias: (by Nick Bostrom).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Men, Machines, and Modern Times: (by Elting E. Morison).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth (by Alexander J. Field Ph.D.).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (by Douglas R. Hofstadter).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Quantum Computing since Democritus: (by Scott Aaronson).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Ocean Flying: A Pilot's Guide (by Louise Sacchi).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Toward a Theory of Instruction: (by Jerome Bruner).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding (by Kieran Egan).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution (by T. R. Reid).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Computer Lib: Dream Machines (by Theodore H. Nelson).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (by Warren Bennis).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (by Evan Osnos).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley (by Michael S. Malone).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- On Lisp: Advanced Techniques for Common Lisp (by Paul Graham).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Feminine Mystique: (by Betty Friedan).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (by John Rawls).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Feynman Lectures on Computation: (by Richard P. Feynman).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan: (by James Morier).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World (by Tyler Cowen).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Global Catastrophic Risks: (by Nick Bostrom).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics: (by Nicholas J. Higham).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development (by Lewis Mumford).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (by Robert Jackall).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (by Michela Wrong).
Recommended by Patrick Collison
- The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future (by Sebastian Mallaby).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Paul Graham , Trung Phan , Barry Ritholtz
- Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II (by Jennet Conant).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Tobi Lütke
- The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (by Toby Ord).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Tobi Lütke
- Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (by Neil Postman).
Recommended by Keith Rabois , Matt Mullenweg , Patrick Collison , Tristan Harris , Patrick O’Shaughnessy , Michael Batnick
- Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (by Karl Marlantes).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Jeremy Clarkson
- A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (by Christopher Alexander).
Recommended by Gretchen Rubin , Liz Lambert , Naval Ravikant , Patrick Collison , Sam Altman , Stewart Brand
- The C Programming Language: (by Brian W. Kernighan).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Linus Torvalds
- Plagues and Peoples: (by William McNeill).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Paul Graham , Brad Delong
- The Dream Machine: (by M. Mitchell Waldrop).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Tobi Lütke , Stewart Butterfield
- Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech (by Sally Smith Hughes).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Trung Phan
- Midnight's Children: (by Salman Rushdie).
Recommended by Lisa Ling , Patrick Collison
- Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos (by Thomas Petzinger Jr.).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Trung Phan
- On the Shortness of Life: (by Lucius Seneca).
Recommended by Chip Conley , Jim Collins , Maria Popova , Neil Strauss , Patrick Collison
- Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (by Arthur Herman).
Recommended by John Carmack , Patrick Collison
- How Asia Works: (by Joe Studwell).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Patrick Collison , Noah Smith
- If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life (by Stephen Webb).
Recommended by Elon Musk , Patrick Collison
- Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (by Philip E. Tetlock).
Recommended by Marc Andreessen , Patrick Collison , Michael Mauboussin
- Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (by Peter D. Kaufman).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Daniel Ek , Drew Houston , Marc Andreessen , Naval Ravikant , Patrick Collison , Ramit Sethi , Tim Ferriss , Warren Buffett , Shane Parrish , Tai Lopez , Courtland Allen
- Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street (by John Brooks).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Patrick Collison , Warren Buffett , Michael Dell
- Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (by Dava Sobel).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Richard Branson
- The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (by Jon Gertner).
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg , Patrick Collison , Ron Conway
- Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (by Michael A. Hiltzik).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Ryan Shea , Sam Altman , Austen Allred
- The Nature of Mathematical Modeling: (by Neil Gershenfeld).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Balaji Srinivasan
- The Journalist And The Murderer: (by Janet Malcolm).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Balaji Srinivasan
- Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World (by Mark Miodownik).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Patrick Collison
- A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (by Paul N. Edwards).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Adam Tooze
- A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine (by Gregory Zuckerman).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Walter Isaacson
- Wind, Sand and Stars: (by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).
Recommended by Edward Norton , Naval Ravikant , Patrick Collison
- The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (by David Deutsch).
Recommended by Chris Anderson , Mark Bell , Mark Zuckerberg , Naval Ravikant , Patrick Collison , Ryan Shea , Sam Harris , Steven Pinker
- 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy (by Hamilton Helmer).
Recommended by Daniel Ek , Keith Rabois , Patrick Collison , Peter Thiel , Reed Hastings , Ryan Petersen
- Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary (by Stewart Brand).
Recommended by Jack Dorsey , Marc Andreessen , Matt Ridley , Patrick Collison , Steven Pinker
- Stories of Your Life and Others: (by Ted Chiang).
Recommended by Ezra Klein , Naval Ravikant , Patrick Collison , Tim Ferriss
- On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines (by Jeff Hawkins).
Recommended by Ev Williams , Keith Rabois , Patrick Collison
- Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (by David Eagleman).
Recommended by Derek Sivers , Patrick Collison , Stephen Fry
- Spastic Diplegia–Bilateral Cerebral Palsy: Understanding the Motor Problems, Their Impact on Walking, and Management Throughout Life (by Lily Collison).
Recommended by Patrick Collison , Tyler Cowen
- The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (by Robert J. Gordon).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Marc Andreessen , Patrick Collison , Satya Nadella , Stewart Butterfield
- The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (by W. Timothy Gallwey).
Recommended by Bill Gates , Dave Elitch , Patrick Collison , Ryan Shea
- Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture (by David Kushner).
Recommended by Alexis Ohanian , Elon Musk , Jeff Atwood , Patrick Collison , Tobi Lütke , Austen Allred , Trung Phan
- The Count of Monte Cristo: (by Alexandre Dumas).
Recommended by Mike Maples, Jr. , Patrick Collison , PewDiePie , Nassim Taleb , James Clear