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Books Recommended by Paul Graham

Category48 books curated380 recommendations total

Curated reading list of books recommended by Y Combinator co-founder and essayist Paul Graham.

Curated list content
1
How to Win Friends and Influence People
47 recommendations
Description

Do you feel stuck in life, not knowing how to make it more successful? Do you wish to become more popular? Are you craving to earn more? Do you wish to expand your horizon, earn new clients and win people over with your ideas? How to Win Friends and Influence People is a well-researched and comprehensive guide that will help you through these everyday problems and make success look easier. You can learn to expand your social circle, polish your skill set, find ways to put forward your thoughts more clearly, and build mental strength to counter all hurdles that you may come across on the path to success. Having helped millions of readers from the world over achieve their goals, the clearly listed techniques and principles will be the answers to all your questions.

2
The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene

40th Anniversary Edition (Oxford Landmark Science)

32 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Biology, NonFiction, Evolutionary, Psychology, Genetics lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
3
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
25 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, Engineering, Fiction, Philosophy lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
4
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin

An American Life

19 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History, American, Revolutions lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
5
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
17 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Fiction, History, Autobiography lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
6
The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month

Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)

15 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Management, Engineering, NonFiction, Programming, Business lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
7
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
14 recommendations
Description

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were?and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it ...

8
No coverFounders at Work
Founders at Work

Stories of Startups' Early Days

13 recommendations
Description

Now available in paperbackwith a new preface and interview with Jessica Livingston about Y Combinator!Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous Technology, companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a c...

9
No coverThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
11 recommendations
Description

For fans of ArtemisThe visionary tour de force from "one of the grand masters of science fiction" (The Wall Street Journal).Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classicand a touchstone for the philosophy of personal res...

10
The Box
The Box

How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

9 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Finance, NonFiction, Business, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
11
With the Old Breed
With the Old Breed

At Peleliu and Okinawa

9 recommendations
Description

Eugene B. Sledge was part of the war's famous 1st Marine Division 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. Based on notes that Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and intense frankness the experience of a Marine in the fierce Pacific Theatre. Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life...

12
Foundation
9 recommendations
Description

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in th...

13
No coverA Sense of Where You Are
A Sense of Where You Are

Bill Bradley at Princeton

9 recommendations
Description

When John McPhee met Bill Bradley, both were at the beginning of their careers. A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee's first book, is about Bradley when he was the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen. McPhee delineates for the reader the training and techniques that made Bradley the extraordinary athlete he was, and this part of the book is ...

14
No coverThe Iliad
The Iliad

A New Translation by Peter Green

8 recommendations
Description

One of the oldest extant works of Western literature, the Iliad is a timeless epic poem of great warriors trapped between their own heroic pride and the arbitrary, often vicious decisions of fate and the gods. Renowned scholar and acclaimed translator Peter Green captures the Iliad in all its surging thunder for a new generation of readers.Featurin...

15
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
8 recommendations
Description

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has had a dramatic impact on computer science curricula over the past decade. This longawaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major Programming, systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporat...

16
The Hobbit
The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings, Book 1

8 recommendations
Description

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Ma...

17
Barbarian Days
Barbarian Days

A Surfing Life

8 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Sports, Travel, Hobbies lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
18
No coverThe Principia
The Principia

The Authoritative Translation and Guide

7 recommendations
Description

In his monumental 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known familiarly as the Principia, Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum...

19
Hard Drive
Hard Drive

Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire

7 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Business, Technology lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
20
No coverThe Soul of A New Machine
7 recommendations
Description

The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done—just look at today's news for reports of harddriven, highlymotivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of D...

21
Boyd
Boyd

The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

7 recommendations
Description

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever the man who, in simulated airtoair combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft the F15 and F16. Sti...

22
Medieval Technology, and Social Change
6 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Technology, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
23
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings

50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition

6 recommendations
Description

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind themIn ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elvensmiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it t...

24
The Old Way
The Old Way

A Story of the First People

6 recommendations
Description

One of our most influential anthropologists reevaluates her long and illustrious career by returning to her rootsand the roots of life as we know it.When Elizabeth Marshall Thomas first arrived in Africa to live among the Kalahari San, or bushmen, it was 1950, she was nineteen years old, and these last surviving huntergatherers were living as hu...

25
No coverMore Money Than God
More Money Than God

Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Penguin Press))

6 recommendations
Description

"Splendid...the definitive history of the hedge fund, a compelling narrative full of largerthanlife characters and dramatic tales." The Washington Post Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of twenty-first century capitalism. Beating the market was long thought to be impossible, but hedge fund...

26
No coverThe Double Helix
The Double Helix

A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

5 recommendations
Description

The classic personal account of Watson and Crick?s groundbreaking discovery of the structure of DNA, now with an introduction by Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind.By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only...

27
No coverThe Man Who Knew Infinity
The Man Who Knew Infinity

A Life of the Genius Ramanujan

5 recommendations
Description

Soon to be a major motion picture, the story of one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled, between a young unschooled Indian prodigy and a great English mathematician.In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had abo...

28
No coverIn The Plex
In The Plex

How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

5 recommendations
Description

Written with full cooperation from top management, including cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, this is the inside story behind Google, the most successful and most admired Technology, company of our time, told by one of our best Technology, writers.Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that h...

29
No coverThe House of Morgan
The House of Morgan

An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

4 recommendations
Description

The winner of the National Book Award and now considered a classic, The House of Morgan is the most ambitious history ever written about an American banking dynasty. Acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as "brilliantly researched and written," the book tells the rich, panoramic story of four generations of Morgans and the powerful, secretive firms ...

30
No coverThe Art of War in the Middle Ages
4 recommendations
Description

Masterhistorian Charles Oman tells the story of the evolution of military combat from the end of the Roman Empire through the Dark Ages and into the Middle Ages. Oman's beautiful prose captures the tactically complexity and the emotional horror of war in the Middle Ages. Richly illustrated throughout to enhance the reading experience. Contents inc...

31
The Company
The Company

A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library Chronicles)

4 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Finance, NonFiction, Business, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
32
No coverThe Complete Calvin and Hobbes
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes, Book 18

3 recommendations
Description

Join Calvin and Hobbes on all their adventures in this fourvolume collection of every comic strip from the comic strips eleven year history (1985 to1996).Calvin and Hobbes is unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his realonlytohim tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in mo...

33
No coverThe Fry Chronicles
The Fry Chronicles

An Autobiography

3 recommendations
Description

This is the engrossing, hilarious, and utterly compelling story of how the Stephen the world knows (or thinks it knows) found his way. Tales of champagne, love, and conspicuous consumption jostle with insights into Broadway and TV stardom. A feat of trademark wit and verbal brilliance, this is a book unafraid of confronting the chasm that separates...

34
No coverOn Bullshit
3 recommendations
Description

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern....

35
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think

3 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Finance, NonFiction, Relationships, Family, Parenting lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
36
Euclid's Elements
3 recommendations
Description

Green Lion Press has prepared a new onevolume edition of T.L. Heath's translation of the thirteen books of Euclid's Elements. In keeping with Green Lion's design commitment, diagrams have been placed on every spread for convenient reference while working through the proofs; running heads on every page indicate both Euclid's book number and proposi...

37
No coverMy Family and Other Animals
3 recommendations
Description

When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrells familys experien...

38
No coverOranges
3 recommendations
Description

A classic of reportage, Oranges was first conceived as a short magazine article about oranges and orange juice, but the author kept encountering so much irresistible information that he eventually found that he had in fact written a book. It contains sketches of orange growers, orange botanists, orange pickers, orange packers, early settlers on Flo...

39
Moab Is My Washpot
2 recommendations
Description

A number one bestseller in Britain, Stephen Fry's astonishingly frank, funny, wise memoir is the book that his fans everywhere have been waiting for. Since his PBS television debut in the Blackadder series, the American profile of this multitalented writer, actor and comedian has grown steadily, especially in the wake of his title role in the film ...

40
No coverA Mathematician's Apology
2 recommendations
Description

G. H. Hardy was one of this century's finest mathematical thinkers, renowned among his contemporaries as a 'real mathematician the purest of the pure'. He was also, as C. P. Snow recounts in his Foreword, 'unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything'. This 'apology', written in 1940, offers a brilliant and engaging account of mathe...

41
No coverAn Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
2 recommendations
Description

This letter was dated 30th April, 1876. I will give here as much of it as concerns the public: "I wish you to accept as a gift from me, given you now, the accompanying pages which contain a memoir of my life. My intention is that they shall be published after my death, and be edited by you. But I leave it altogether to your discretion whether to pu...

42
No coverA Story Lately Told
A Story Lately Told

Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York

2 recommendations
Description

Anjelica Hustons gorgeously written (O, The Oprah Magazine) memoir is an elegant, funny, and frequently haunting reminiscence of the first two decades of her lifeA classic (Vanity Fair).In her first, dazzling memoir, Anjelica Huston shares the story of her deeply unconventional early lifeher enchanted childhood in Ireland, living with her glamorous...

43
No coverHow to Be Topp
2 recommendations
Description

All skools make some sort at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons ect. which make the heart sink when you look at it.Nigel Molesworth is back, this time taking the tinies in hand and showing that they can survive the first term as long as you avoid the prefects and show all due respect to Molesworth 1. ...

44
Dog Man
Dog Man

Grime and Punishment

2 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around For, Year, Olds, Children'sHumor, ComicsFiction lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
45
An Empire of Wealth
An Empire of Wealth

The Epic History of American Economic Power

2 recommendations
Recommendation Context
Available recommendation signals cluster around Finance, NonFiction, History, American lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for business judgment, leadership, or practical strategy. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.
46
No coverBorn Red
Born Red

A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution

2 recommendations
Description

Born Red is an artistically wrought personal account, written very much from inside the experience, of the years 19661969, when the author was a young teenager at middle school. It was in the middle schools that much of the fury of the Cultural Revolution and Red Guard movement was spent, and Gao was caught up in very dramatic events, which he rec...

47
Diocletian and the Roman Recovery
2 recommendations
Description

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company....

48
No coverFillets of Plaice
Fillets of Plaice

Autobiographical, Book 12

1 recommendation
Description

For fans of the PBS Masterpiece Theater series, The Durrells in Corfuhere's what happened next! After leaving the island of Corfu, Durrell, his mother, his brother Leslie and their Greek maid Maria Kondos moved back to Britain in 1939. It was difficult to find work, especially for a homeschooled boy, but Durrell managed to land a job as a helper...

Built from recommendation data, category signals, and source-backed book records. Use this list as a starting point; open any book to see proof, context, and Amazon options where available.

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About this list

This list aggregates books that appear in public recommendation sources, reader-interest signals, and category data. Books are ranked by their position from the source list; recommendation counts and ratings are shown where available. Open any book to see source-backed recommendation proof, editorial context, and Amazon options — the per-book detail page is where the trust signals live.