Joe Mosby's blog

Reading has been my primary source of entertainment since I was a child. Video games catch me off and on and I'll occasionally hook a TV show, but I've always got a book open. This is everything on my bookshelf, with a few call-outs to things that I have found extremely special.

The Culture

These works have profoundly influenced my life in one way or another. Here are a few notes on why.

The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson

A Dickensian tale loosely presented as science fiction. The Diamond Age represents how societal values are shaped in a post-scarcity world, along with how tech forms our values and education in such a time. You can swap "nanotechnology" with "AGI" and many of the lessons start to look the same.

Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson

A tech startup is presented as a treasure hunt with a story that crosses a World War II marine, a codebreaker who works with Turing on the earliest computers, and a 1990s startup founder building the first iteration of the cryptocurrency economy.

Discourses, Epictetus

Epictetus was the most forceful and fire-breathing of the Stoic philosopher. Rather than simply content himself with musings on how one should live, he practically spits at the audience that to live in any other way makes no sense at all.

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan

A fantasy series set in a world where time and stories repeat themselves, and heroes have to confront their past lives. Jordan was a Vietnam veteran, and I really love the pathos that he puts into the psychology of how the young heroes have to cope with the trauma of the journey.

The Republic, Plato

An old classic on the meaning of justice, and how justice manifests in a group of people.

On the Soul, Aristotle

This is one of Aristotle's shorter treatises, attempting to define the nature of the soul, and what it means to be alive.

Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins

In pre-historic Europe, a tribal chieftain decides one day that he simply will not die - and he doesn't. Jitterbug Perfume is the story of everything that happens next.

The Kingkiller Chronicle, Patrick Rothfuss

I'm always hesitant to recommend The Kingkiller Chronicle to anyone, simply because it's so good... but still unfinished, just like Game of Thrones. One of my all-time favorite fantasy series nonetheless.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaymes

Jaymes explores how consciousness began, as human beings evolved language first, then vivid auditory hallucinations, then an internalization of the voice inside our heads. The transition period while we learned consciousness inspired the HBO series Westworld.

Confessions, St. Augustine

A memoir of one of the earliest Christian saints. I have always resonated with Augustine's quest for understanding, and all the ways that he took to try to find it.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Middle-earth was the first fantasy world that I truly lost myself in as a child. I still revisit these books every few years and get lost in Tolkien's world.

Principles, Ray Dalio

The operating manual of Bridgewater Associates, one of the most successful hedge funds of all time.

Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse

The story of the Buddha's journey to enlightenment. One of the few books I was compelled to read in high school that stuck with me.

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Futuristic humans invent a virus that allows them to speed-run evolution. The intent is to try it with monkeys. The experiment goes wrong and lands on spiders.

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

Bourdain turned cooks into rockstars. A must-read for any food-lover.

The Bible

I grew up in a Protestant Christian household, a perspective that shaped my worldview in early years and continues to influence my thinking today. As some of my other readings imply, my current philosophy is nowhere near Christian orthodoxy under any standard measure, but I still hold this ethical system as a touchstone.

Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Taleb profited tremendously off the financial crisis of 2008. His works all have a shared theme of the dangers of misunderstanding risk. This one talks about how to profit off of it.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller

After a moderately successful autobiography, a group of filmmakers set out to make a film of Donald Miller's life. As he helped them write the script, he learned a lot about making a good story - and learned that his own life contained none of those elements.

A Theologico-Political Treatise and a Political Treatise, Spinoza

Spinoza's philosophy on how religion and government fit into each other was radical for the time, and are still out there enough to jar plenty of extra thinking.

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

When immigrants came to America, they brought their gods with them - real entities that walk, talk, and scheme among us. A story of the underbelly of American culture.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

The late 1960s were a formative time in America that still shapes us today. If you were in the counterculture, you developed one set of views - and the crash is what happened when that counterculture broke down.

Discourse on the Method, Rene Descartes

The basis for the ever-present rationalism in the modern Western world. Descartes's work is the foundation for how we think today.

Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis

Though most famous for his Christian writing and The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis wrote a science fiction trilogy that is one of my favorites. In this world, a humble professor (who is definitely a Tolkien analogue) is transported to Mars, where he encounters a set of cultures that are both the same and very different to his own.

Fiction

Some favorites

The shelf

Non-fiction

Some favorites

The shelf

Poetry

Biography / Personal Tales

Some favorites

The shelf

The Great Books

The Great Books series was a collection of books published by Encyclopedia Britannica in the 1950s. It contains works that have shaped Western culture from the ancient Greeks onward, through the Roman Empire, the Medieval period, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the American period.

In 2022, feeling that I lacked a liberal arts context to balance out my computer science and business background, I set out to read the entirety of the Great Books curriculum. I made my way through most, even plowing my way through Archimedes' Conic Sections. It's a journey I highly recommend to anyone.

Textbooks and Reference