Reading List

The books that moved the needle.

Not everything that changes you announces itself as important. Some of these opened doors. Some knocked walls down. All of them left a mark — on how I see the world, how I move through it, and who I'm still becoming.

01
Consciousness
The Holographic Universe
Michael Talbot
The book that made me question everything I thought I knew about reality. Talbot proposes that the universe itself is a hologram — and suddenly mysticism and physics started speaking the same language.
1991
02
Philosophy
Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
A telepathic gorilla teaches a man — and through him, the reader — about humanity's place in the world. One of the most quietly devastating books I've read. It changes what you see when you look at civilization.
1992
03
Spirituality
Siddhartha
Hermann Hesse
The story of one man's search for meaning that somehow becomes the story of every man's search for meaning. Short, timeless, and worth returning to at every new chapter of life.
1922
04
Mindset
Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
The classic. Whatever you think of it, it rewired how I think about intention, persistence, and the relationship between belief and outcome. Some books age. This one compounds.
1937
05
Spirituality
The Celestine Prophecy
James Redfield
An adventure novel wrapped around nine spiritual insights. It sounds simple and it is — which is exactly why it works. This one reached people who weren't looking for spirituality and gave it to them anyway.
1993
06
Mindset
Greenlights
Matthew McConaughey
Part memoir, part journal, part philosophy. McConaughey writes the way he lives — full tilt, without apology. About learning to catch the green lights life gives you, and turning the red ones green.
2020
07
Mindset
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson
A counterintuitive approach to living well. The title earns the concept: it's not about not caring — it's about caring about the right things. Cuts through noise in a way very few self-help books manage.
2016
08
Fiction
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
Pure joy. A love letter to gaming, pop culture, and the idea that virtual worlds can have real stakes. The one on this list that I read just because I wanted to — and couldn't put down.
2011
09
Mindset
The Secret
Rhonda Byrne
The law of attraction, distilled. Love it or doubt it — the idea that what you focus on expands is hard to argue with once you've watched it play out in your own life. This planted that seed for me.
2006
10
Taoism
Tao Te Ching: Backward Down the Path
Lao Tzu · translated by Jerry O. Dalton
My daily companion. Dalton's translation of the Tao Te Ching is the one that finally made it click for me — accessible, grounded, and deep. I've been returning to it every morning for years. It never runs out.
1994
11
Fiction
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
Six nested stories across centuries, all connected by something larger than plot. Mitchell asks what carries forward across lifetimes — cruelty, courage, love. The structure itself is the argument. Astonishing book.
2004
12
Mysticism
The Art of Dreaming
Carlos Castaneda
Castaneda documents don Juan's teachings on dreaming as a doorway to other realms of perception. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, it expands what you think the mind is capable of.
1993
13
Taoism
The Tao of Inner Peace
Diane Dreher
A practical guide to living the Tao — not as abstraction but as daily practice. Dreher brings the ancient principles into modern life in a way that's grounded and immediately usable.
1990
14
Philosophy
Think on These Things
Jiddu Krishnamurti
A collection of talks to young people that somehow speaks to everyone. Krishnamurti doesn't give answers — he dissolves the questions we've been asking wrong. Slow, quiet, and completely disarming.
1964
15
Spirituality
The Tears of Things
Richard Rohr
Rohr's most personal book. Drawing on the Hebrew prophets, he traces a path from rage to grief to compassion — and makes a case that the tears we weep for the world are exactly what the world needs from us.
2025

A reading list is a map of the mind — where it's been, what changed it, where it wants to go next.

← return home