Best books that I read in 2016

Happy New year folks! Someone asked a question on Hacker News on best books read in 2016. I put up my answer there and am cross posting the same here. Do check out the thread on HN, it contains a lot of interesting suggestions.

2016 was the year I ended up reading most books that I have ever read in any year of my life so far! I read a total of 60 books and you can find all of them on here (it has 59 books, one book that isn’t there is called Ray Dalio’s principles). The books I read in 2015 (a total of 34) is also on ShelfJoy. You can check out my all lists here shelfjoy.com/paraschopra.

Out of these, I like the following the most:

• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch. It makes a bold claim that we will always be at the beginning of the infinite progress that lies ahead. History has proven again and again that whenever people said all progress has been made, so much more progress unfolds. I liked this book so much that we gifted this book at my startup to the entire team of 170 people!
• The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor. This is a sequel to the popular Innovator’s Dilemma book. I like the sequel much better because it tries to give solutions to the dilemma. The book packs tons of counter intuitive insights. Highly recommended.
• The Big Picture by Sean Carrol. The best cosmology book I have read in a long while.
• First Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. If you are a first time manager, I highly recommend reading this book.
• Deep Work by Cal Newport. This book changed my working habits and life. I was constantly distracted before, and now I am able to focus a ton.
• Feeling Good by David Burns. This classic is again a must read. Even if you are not depressed, it will help build your mental immunity against future depression.
• Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark. A very interesting book that makes the claim that our universe is actually just mathematics. No physical reality exists because physics and mathematics are interchangeable.

I hope to read more than 60 books this year. Wish me luck!