The Quest of the Simple Life, written in 1907, totally changed how I think about personal finance and life goals.

The Great Depression: A Diary is the best economics book I’ve read, written by a person who didn’t know he was writing one.

Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit has had the biggest influence on how I write.

The Patriarch, a biography of Joseph Kennedy, shows Kennedy to be one of the most fascinating people in American history even if his son had never became president.

Truman, a biography of the 33rd president, is an incredible story of the world’s biggest problems falling into the lap of someone who never thought he’d face them.

The Wisdom of Psychopaths shows how big an advantage you have when you’re unemotional about emotional topics.

The Wright Brothers is one of the best business and innovation stories of all time.

The Frugal Housewife, written in 1833, shows how primitive everyday life was not that long ago.

23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism will make half of readers angry, but the other half will be better able to realize that no system for organizing an economy is perfect.

Guns at Last Light is the best World War II book I’ve read, and explains the most important event in modern history through human stories rather than bland statistics.

The Better Angels of Our Nature taught me that you can be a long-term optimist even when things around you look pretty bad.

30 Lessons for Living is a collection of life advice from very old people who have seen it all.