2020
Prepared by Diane Tavenner
Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
2019
Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America by John Charles Chasteen
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2018
Master of the Mountain: Jefferson and his Slaves by Henry Wiencek
Most Blessed of Patriarchs by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf
Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
2017
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner
Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz
The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron
The Card Turner by Louis Sachar
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson
2016
The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
The Giver by Lewis Lowry
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Catch - 22 by Joseph Heller
Tai-Pan by James Clavell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
Levels of the game by John McPhee
Ignition! An informal history of rocket propellants by John D. Clark
Advice for the Young Investigator by Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J. E. Gordon
Business Adventures by John Brooks
Intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham
Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel
A note on my reading choices: I read a quote in the 2010s saying something like: the average person reads several thousand books in a lifetime whereas the number of books in the world are around 3 million; choose wisely. Apart from required reading, I have largely focused on classics, biographies, and highly praised books.