10/10 Books To Become Smart

10 out of 10 books to make you smart again, but they get progressively more niche. This Will Make You Smarter by John Brockman. Stop reading Atomic Habits, reading this. It's a compilation of 151 of the world's smartest people handing you the one idea they wish everybody knew. Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. Quick caveat, chapter four on social priming has been debunked. It didn't replicate. But the core idea still holds up. The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. The 2008 financial crash, 9/11, COVID, Taleb explains why every event that actually shaped your life was impossible the day before it happened and why you keep falling for it. Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock. A CIA funded tournament found ordinary people who could outpredict intelligence analysts with classified access. And the author reverse engineers exactly how they think, so you can steal it. How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg. The math you were forced to memorize in high school is actually a pretty good bullshit detector for politics, lottery ads, and every viral statistic you see. And the author shows you how to use it. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Why did the Europeans conquer the Americas and not the other way around? Diamond's answer has nothing to do with intelligence, culture, or effort, and it will ruin every lazy explanation of history for you. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall. Ten maps that explain why Russia keeps invading Ukraine, why China is obsessed with the South China Sea, and why America basically won the geography lottery. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. Neurologist case files on patients who lost the ability to recognize faces, feel their own limbs, or remember the last 10 minutes of their life. And it'll change how you think about what you even is. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. Short, most of them pages that mathematicians, physicists, and mathematicians quote more than math books. One's about a library containing every book that could ever be written. A Confession by Leo Tolstoy. At the peak of his fame, and more celebrated than any writer alive, Tolstoy became short, brutal, wrote trying to figure out why nothing was enough. Give these books a try and let me know what you think.