Thomas Hsueh Blog Bookshelf Now

Bookshelf

These books brought notable influences on my thinking in the recent years.

2026

2025

  • The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done - Peter Drucker.
  • The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor - Howard Marks.
  • Quantum Computing (WIRED guides): How It Works and How It Could Change the World - Amit Katwala, Wired.
  • Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High - Kerry Patterson.
  • Measure What Matters - John Doerr.
  • High Output Management - Andrew S. Grove. Awakened & enlightened. I did not have the right mental condition to give this book a serious read and I wish I could have.
  • Introduction to Quantum Mechanics - David J. Griffiths and Darrell F. Schroeter.
  • Quantum Computing for Everyone - Chris Bernhardt.
  • Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell - Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle. A north star.
  • The Surprising Purpose of Anger - Marshall B. Rosenberg. The etymology of the word “emotion” is to move us out - to mobilize us to meet our needs. Anger is the distorted cry for empathy.
  • Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life - Marshall B. Rosenberg. Deeply illuminating.
  • The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip - Stephen Witt. “Musk moves backward from fantasy; Huang moves forward from reality.”
  • Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In - Roger Fisher and William Ury. There are many sources of negotiation power: BATNA, relationship, interests, options, objective standards.
  • The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever - Michael Bungay Stanier. The Karpman drama triangle is a potent mental model.
  • Shell Beach: The search for the final theory - Jesper Møller Grimstrup. “…if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God. (Steven Hawking)”
  • The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence - Josh Waitzkin. It is amazing how much growth can come from persistently putting one’s mind to bottlenecks and simply refusing to back down.
  • Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation - Freeman Dyson. Fermionic accounting for solar scale engineering project.
  • Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson - Phillip Schewe. “there is under our noses the territory of nine planets, forty moons, ten thousand asteroids, and a trillion comets.”
  • Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts - Annie Duke. Getting comfortable with “I’m not sure” is a vital step to becoming a better decision-maker.
  • Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box - The Arbinger Institute. “One way, I experience myself as a person among people. The other way, I experience myself as the person among objects. One way, I’m out of the box; the other way, I’m in the box.”
  • When I Say No, I Feel Guilty: How to Cope - Using the Skills of Systematic Assertive Therapy - Manuel Smith. Wanting something is part of the internal reality. There is no right and wrong when it comes to individual realities.
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn.
  • The Ant Mill: How theoretical high-energy physics descended into groupthink, tribalism, and mass-production of research - Jesper Møller Grimstrup. “Scientific progress is measured in units of courage, not intelligence” - Dirac.
  • 《沒有一條道路是重複的》 - 余華。
  • The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics - Bradley Tusk. Helpful for founders combating entrenched interests.
  • Thinking In Systems: A Primer - Donella Meadows. Familiar concepts from the signals & systems course in college, nevertheless a revelation when applied to personal routines and inducing my interest in the topic of resilience.
  • The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom - Graham Farmelo. The greatest read I’ve had in a long while.
  • The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem - Nathaniel Branden. A very clean formulation.
  • Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors - Patrick Lencioni.
  • The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable - Patrick Lencioni.
  • Breaking Through: My Life in Science - Katalin Karikó.
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni.
  • What Life Could Mean to You - Alfred Adler. Timeless.
  • Star Warriors: A Penetrating Look into the Lives of the Young Scientists Behind Our Space Age Weaponry - William Broad.
  • The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth - Michio Kaku.
  • How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between - Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner.
  • The Expulsion of Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today - Byung-Chul Han.
  • Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory - George Gamow.
  • The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must - Robert Zubrin.
  • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Anne Lamott.
  • Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Carlo Rovelli.
  • Pieces of the Action - Vannevar Bush.
  • The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - Gustave Le Bon.
  • The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West - Alex Karp.
  • The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power - Robert Kaplan.

Fiction