WELCOME TO THE CLUB

Amazon and Audible have changed my life. I started reading again, or more precisely, I found the time to listen to books. Lots of books, or more precisely, 600 of them in the last five years. Out of these more than half are important and great books, mainly related to technology, business and politics of the future. Audible made them available in audio format, which is great for busy people that only have free time in transit or while they do something else, like hiking or running or cleaning. Amazon helped with great recommendations, and has moved me well beyond my AI-focused echo chamber. The combination has given me insights that help navigate this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world we live in now. 

I want to invite you into this world – and in order to understand the future, we need to understand the forces that create it. I think all people who wish to exercise their democratic capacity to influence our future should read. I am summarizing them here, and I hope you will join me in reading and discussing them. Choose a book or two you’d like to read and I hope there will be more people that want to share their main thoughts and dilemmas related to these books.

There are 15 topics:

01 science fiction
02 literature & courses
03 artificial intelligence
04 math & data science
05 technology & science
06 industrial revolution
07 sustainability & ESG
08 politics & society
09 strategy & leadership
10 economy & data-driven business
11 psychology & brain
12 biography & history
13 IT & digital products
14 medicine & genetics
15 energy & engineering

I was not able to trim the list short enough, so there are 600 books here to choose from. If you need help to choose, check out the monthly playlists. 

I will keep adding books as I remember them or read them, and I would be really grateful if you could also recommend your favorites that are not on this list. Let’s help each other read and think about the future. In order to make it more tempting to read these books, I solicited some help from Chat GPT, for good quotes and summaries. For me, goin through these books with the help of Chat GPT has been a timely refresher both in great quotes and also a reminder of how few people have internalized these ideas, even now more than 5 or 10 years after these books have been published. 

Some of the books are old and some are new, some are technical and some are pure fiction or even science fiction comedy. Some of the books are personal. Some of them are just fun. And some are simply beautiful. I have simply chosen the ones that have made a sizable dent in my mind. This page is supposed to be a Good Reads or Blinkist with Friends, curated for people who like my lectures and want to discuss more.

Everything that matters has been said before. What you read defines you. It directs you. I care about what you think. Let’s talk.