Reading

The books, essays, and handful of sites I recommend and return to over time.

Recently finished Full catalog →

Recently finished (or remembered) books live from the catalog.

✶ The Order of Time Carlo Rovelli · added May 2026
✶ The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World Matthew Stewart · added May 2026
The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought Dennis C. Rasmussen · added May 2026
Catching the Big Fish David Lynch · added May 2026
✶ The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World Andrea Wulf · added May 2026
Six Easy Pieces Richard Feynman · added Feb 2026
Underground Empire Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman · added Feb 2026
Chokepoints Edward Fishman · added Feb 2026

Recommended

A standing list of books I'd hand someone without hesitation. Additional recommendations in the catalog.

Buy ↗ links are Bookshop.org affiliate links; purchases support the site and my bibliophilia.

Non-fiction · 42

Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History
Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance buy ↗
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time buy ↗
The Bible buy ↗
Paul Blustein, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out)buy ↗
Nicolas Bouvier, The Way of the World buy ↗
Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down buy ↗
Adda Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History buy ↗
Tom Burgis, The Looting Machine buy ↗
Tim Butcher, Blood River buy ↗
Herbert Butterfield, Christianity and History
Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana buy ↗
Confucius, The Analects buy ↗
Eknath Easwaran (tr.), The Bhagavad Gita buy ↗
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts buy ↗
David Hackett Fischer, The Great Wave buy ↗
Howard French, Born in Blackness buy ↗
Richard Hall, Empires of the Monsoon
Herodotus, The Histories buy ↗
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution buy ↗, The Age of Capital buy ↗, The Age of Empire buy ↗ & The Age of Extremes buy ↗
Aldous Huxley, Proper Studies buy ↗ & Grey Eminence buy ↗
Keith Johnstone, Impro buy ↗
Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet buy ↗ & A Grand Illusion?buy ↗
Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State buy ↗
Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator buy ↗
Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe buy ↗
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard buy ↗
Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence buy ↗
R.K. Narayan (tr.), The Ramayana buy ↗
Michael Pettis, The Volatility Machine buy ↗ & The Great Rebalancing buy ↗
Carroll Quigley, The Evolution of Civilizations buy ↗
The Qur’an buy ↗
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars buy ↗
Adam Smith, The Money Game buy ↗
George Steiner, Nostalgia for the Absolute buy ↗
Joe Studwell, How Asia Works buy ↗
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War buy ↗
Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror buy ↗ & The Proud Tower buy ↗
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
The Upanishads buy ↗
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity buy ↗ & The Dream Machine buy ↗
Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff buy ↗

Fiction · 20

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger buy ↗
Sebastian Barry, A Long Long Way buy ↗
Frans Bengtsson, The Long Ships buy ↗
Burdick & Lederer, The Ugly American buy ↗
Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai buy ↗
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov buy ↗
Graham Greene, The Lawless Roads buy ↗
Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate buy ↗
Joseph Heller, Catch-22 buy ↗
James Hilton, Lost Horizon buy ↗
Homer, The Iliad buy ↗ & The Odyssey buy ↗
David Ignatius, Agents of Innocence buy ↗
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon buy ↗
James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime buy ↗
John Steinbeck, East of Eden buy ↗ & The Grapes of Wrath buy ↗
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon buy ↗
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons buy ↗
James Webb, Fields of Fire buy ↗ & A Country Such as This buy ↗
Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities buy ↗
Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi buy ↗

Articles, essays & speeches · 8

W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939 ↗
T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land ↗
John Gray, Berlin Wall anniversary: 25 years of liberal delusion ↗
Elbert Hubbard, A Message to Garcia ↗
George Frost Kennan, The Long Telegram ↗
C.S. Lewis, The Inner Ring ↗
W. Michael Reisman, Aftershocks: Reflections on the Implications of September 11 ↗
Ethan Watters, We aren’t the world ↗

Others · 2

Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm ↗, Ribbonfarm Studio ↗ & Contraptions ↗
The Last Psychiatrist ↗🪦

Favorite books of the year In Writing →

The year-end posts, each a memory capsule of what resonated.

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The catalog

717 books, and counting.

717 read · 11 themes · 170 recommended

Reportage43 Fiction193 History156 Philosophy44 Religion28 Politics & Economics193 Science & Technology54 Biography & Memoir61 Essays & Lectures25 Poetry7 Travel20

Explore the full catalog at books.caseyjr.org →