Reading list — 2026

Twelve books for the year. Half about systems, half about people, all chosen for one reason: they survive a re-read.

I would rather sit with a good book three times than skim ten new ones. Depth still beats novelty for me, and the second pass is almost always where the actual idea lands.

The Goal — Eli Goldratt. The original constraint book; everything that came after it is a footnote.

Working in Public — Nadia Eghbal. Why open systems are operationally honest in a way that closed ones rarely manage.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications — Martin Kleppmann. The clearest writer in the room on systems we actually live inside.

An Elegant Puzzle — Will Larson. Engineering management as a craft, not an apology.

The Mind Illuminated — Culadasa. A meditation manual that reads like an engineering text. My favourite combination.

Nonviolent Communication — Marshall Rosenberg. Worth re-reading every year I lead a team.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant — for one or two essays, on rotation.

Range — David Epstein. Generalists, late starts, slow growth — quietly subversive.

Letters to a Young Poet — Rilke. Twenty minutes a month is enough.

The Order of Time — Carlo Rovelli. For when the calendar starts to feel too literal.

A Pattern Language — Christopher Alexander. The book I want to re-read every spring.

Tao Te Ching — for the day I forget what restraint looks like.

A list of fifty is an aspiration. A list of twelve is a commitment. The difference is whether the year ends with a stack of half-read paperbacks or a small set of books I can quote from memory.