Eric-Jorgenson The-Almanack-of-Naval-Ravikant indd

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted 
Chiang
My current favorite sci-fi short story: 
probably “Understand” by Ted Chiang. 
It’s in a collection called Stories of Your 
Life and Others. “Story of Your Life” was made into a movie 
called Arrival. [1]
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
This contemplates the marvel of thermodynamics from the 
best sci-fi short story writer of our age.
The Lifecycle of Soft ware Objects by Ted Chiang
Another masterpiece of sci-fi by Ted Chiang.
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218 · T H E A L M A N A C K O F N A V A L R A V I K A N T 
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash is an amazing, amazing 
book. There’s nothing quite similar to 
Snow Crash. Snow Crash is in a league 
of its own. Stephenson also wrote The 
Diamond Age.
“The Last Question,” a short story by Isaac Asimov
I quote “The Last Question” all the time. I loved it as a kid.
What are the books you’re rereading now?
That’s a good question. I’ll pull up my Kindle app as we talk. 
Usually, I’m always rereading some books in science.
I’m reading a book on René Girard’s mimetic theory. It’s more 
of an overview book, because I couldn’t make it through his 
actual writings. I’m reading Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss’s book 
of what he learned from a lot of great performers.
I’m reading a book, Thermoinfocomplexity. It’s actually by 
a friend of mine, Behzad Mohit. I just fi nished reading Pre-
Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Infl uence and Persuade, or 
I should say I just fi nished skimming Pre-Suasion by Robert 
Cialdini. I don’t think I needed to read the entire book to get 
the point, but it was still good to read what I did. It’s a great 
litt le history book. I’m currently reading The Story of Philos-
ophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers, also 
by Will Durant.
I have a young kid now, so I’ve got a lot of child-rearing books 
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N A V A L ’ S R E C O M M E N D E D R E A D I N G · 219
I use more as reference material than anything else. I recently 
read some Emerson and some Chesterfield. I have a Leo Tolstoy 
book here.
Alan Watts. Scott Adams. I reread God’s Debris recently. Tao Te 
Ching, a friend of mine is rereading it, so I picked it up again. 
There’s tons. I mean, I could go on and on. There’s Nietzsche’s 
book here. There’s The Undercover Economist [Tim Harford]. 
The Richard Bach book [Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant 
Messiah]. There are some Jed McKenna books.
A little Dale Carnegie in here. The Three-Body Problem [Cixin 
Liu]. Man’s Search for Meaning [Viktor E. Frankl]. There’s lots. 
Sex at Dawn [Christopher Ryan]. There’s a lot of books out there.
By the way, when I tell people what I’m reading, I skip two-
thirds of my books. The reason I skip two-thirds is because 
they’re embarrassing. They don’t sound like good books to 
read. They’ll sound trivial or silly. Who cares? I don’t have to 
tell everybody everything I read. I read all kinds of stuff other 
people consider junk or even reprehensible. I read all kinds of 
stuff I disagree with because they’re mind-bending. [4]
I always spent money on books. I never viewed that as an 
expense. That’s an investment to me. [4]
BLOGS
(Since there are so many links in this section, you may prefer a 
digital copy. Go to Navalmanack.com to get a digital version of 
this chapter for your convenience.)

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220 · T H E A L M A N A C K O F N A V A L R A V I K A N T
Some amazing blogs out there:
@KevinSimler—Melting Asphalt, https://meltingasphalt.com/
@farnamstreet—Farnam Street, A Signal in a World Full of 
Noise, https://fs.blog/
@benthompson—Stratchery, https://stratechery.com/
@baconmeteor—Idle Words, https://idlewords.com/ [4]