Books

Currently Reading

• Permutation City by Greg Egan

  Recommended by Jeff.

• Never Search Alone by Phyl Terry
• Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel

  Really recommend it. Very informative, fun to read.

Finished Reading

• Project Hail Mary on 2026-04-06

  Pretty good book, pretty funny. I like the problm solving and the explanation of the mechanics of different things. I definitely teared up at parts.

• The Mom Test
• Getting to Yes

  Classic book on negotation. Really reframes it to have both sides get what they want, rather than one “winning” and the other “losing”. Definitely one I need to buy for myself and reread.

• The Magic of Thinking Big

  Really good book for reframing your own biased thoughts.

To Read

Maybe

• The Pop-Up Book by Paul Jackson

  Here’s its page at SFPL.

• More Kurt Vonnegut books in general. Recommended by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
• Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship

  Teaches the American style of cursive that was used before the typewriter. Here’s a copy of it on the Internet Archive.

• The Palmer Method of Business Writing

  Used after Spencerian script. Presumably faster and simpler. See a copy on the Internet Archive.

• Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America
• Recommendations from Coders at Work:
  • The Elements of Programming Style by Kernighan and Plaugher
  • The Mythical Man Month
  • The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
  • The Elements of Style
  • Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition Got the new 12th Edition in April 2026.
• Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual

Books I Like

I should organize this better.

• Getting Things Done by David Allen

  First read it in high school. Re-reading it with my partner and trying to implement some systems together.

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

  Also read this in high school. The title of the book makes it sound Machiavellian, but it’s more about how to be considerate of other people. It should be titled “How to think of others’ feelings and stop being a selfish dick” but then people wouldn’t read it.

• Economix

Books I Have

• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 12th Edition

  I opted for the new 2025 dictionary rather than the 11th Edition, although I was worried that it may have been in some ways censored. It wasn’t, from what I can tell (I compared definitions of some slurs from the 11th and 12th editions); I find it appropriately neutral, even when some entries are updated. It’s got newer words like “dad bod” and “rizz”. It’s also got random lists of words like “10 words from the 1940s”, which may seem weird for a traditional dictionary, but they’re actually very fun to look through; I think they’re a good addition. I also enjoy the coverage of African American English words.

  I do think I should get an unabridged dictionary, like the Webster’s 1913 or Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in order to get better senses of a word (see James Somers’ You’re probably using the wrong dictionary).

• The Joy of Cooking

  Great reference for cooking.

• Emily Post’s Etiquette

  I need to more regularly read through it, but I do find it a good reference for things like letters and such.

Where to Buy Books

I’m assuming you want to avoid Amazon.com.

February 2026: I think my favorite online/in-person place is Half Price Books https://www.hpb.com/. They offer a lot of used books and they tend to be cheaper. I’m sad they’re Berkeley location on Shattuck closed, I should check out their place in Concord.

Better World Books (https://www.betterworldbooks.com/) is pretty good. I want to say that it has some relationship with the Internet Archive, which is probably how I first found out about it. I’ve bought a few used books through them. I feel like maybe some of their website features were annoying though; like the page won’t load at all if you don’t use JavaScript.

• Moe’s Books (2476 Telegraph, map, https://www.moesbooks.com/) in Berkeley
• Half Price Books (map, https://www.hpb.com/) also in Berkeley (2026-02-09: They’re closing or already closed! :-( )
• Pegasus Books (https://pegasusbookstore.com/) in Berkeley at 2349 Shattuck and 1855 Solano
• Bart’s Books (map, https://bartsbooksojai.com/) in Ojai
• Powell’s City of Books (map, https://www.powells.com/) in Portland
• BookBuyers was cool while it existed in Downtown Mountain View. They moved to Gilroy but an online search on 2026-02-09 suggests they closed.

More online or in person places (but larger brands, less local), or places I haven’t really used yet.

• https://bookfinder.com is like a meta-search engine for finding books. Seems to load quickly and lists multiple places like biblio.com, alibris, AbeBooks.
• AbeBooks (https://www.abebooks.com/) is another place I’ve heard of, but not used. 2026-02-09: Their website seems to load quickly and feels lighter weight. However, they are a subsidiary of Amazon.
• https://bookshop.org/ apparently supports local bookstores, haven’t used it much.
• Books, Inc. (https://www.booksinc.com/) has a lot of locations. 2026-02-09: Their website has an annoying pop-up asking for your email address. I guess they got bought by Barnes and Noble?
• Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/)
• Alibris.com is from Emeryville. Look out for their email checkbox saying “Sign up for our newsletter and get over $300 in coupons each year”, it’s automatically checked.

Misc

You can send books cheaply through the mail via media mail (see mail).