Recommended Book List

Non-fiction

Listed by my ranking of the books

  1. "The Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
  2. "He's Just Not That Into You" by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
  3. "Complications" by Atul Gawande
  4. "Better" by Atul Gawande
  5. "Getting to Yes" by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton
  6. "I am America and So Can You!" by Stephen Colbert
  7. "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
  8. "Stumbling On Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert
  9. "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" by Bill Bryson
  10. "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini
  11. "The Fly Swatter" by Nicholas Dawidoff
  12. "Women Don't Ask" by Babcock and Laschever
  13. "Wisdom of our Fathers" by Tim Russert
  14. "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu
  15. "Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2006" edited by Dave Eggers
    (a mix of fiction and non-fiction)

Fiction

  1. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
  2. "The Name of the Rose" by Eco
  3. "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevsky
  4. "Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov
  5. "The Things They Carried" by O'Brien
  6. "Animal Farm" by Orwell
  7. "Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger
  8. "Atlas Shrugged" by Rand
  9. "The Great Gatsby" by Fitzgerald
  10. "Lord of the Flies" by Golding
  11. "Mr. Maybe" by Green
  12. Anything by Mark Twain
  13. "Pride and Prejudice" by Austen
  14. Anything by Shakespeare

Recommended by others

  1. "Mindswap" by Robert Sheckley
  2. "Il Nome Della rosa" ("The Name of the Rose") by Umberto Eco
  3. "Il Pendolo di Foucault" ("Foucault's Pendulum") by Umberto Eco

Might be worth reading

(read them, didn't hate them, didn't love them)

    Non-fiction

  1. "The Elusive Quest For Growth" by William Easterly (75/100)
  2. "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman (75/100)
  3. "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell (70/100)

    Fiction

  4. "Dr. Zhivago" by Pasternak (maybe because I didn't read it in Russian)
  5. "A Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

NOT recommended

Non-fiction

  1. "Wealth and Democracy" by Phillips
  2. "The World is Flat" by Friedman
  3. "Moral Politics" by George Lakoff
  4. "The Dip" by Seth Godin

Fiction

  1. "The Trial" by Kafka
  2. "The Idiot" by Dostoyevsky
  3. "Dead Souls" by Gogol
  4. "The Gods Themselves" by Azimov
  5. "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger
  6. "The Gift" by Vladimir Nabokov

Selected Websites and Programs:

See myStumbleUpon page for more. 1. Pandora.

I’m sure there are other websites like this out there, but I found this one first. You enter the name of a song or artist, and it gives you an infinite (as far as I can tell) line-up of songs by artists whose styles are similar. It’s perfect for people who have gotten tired of the songs they’re listening to but want to stick to similar things. I’m listening to it right now.
2. SoYouWanna

A great collection of short guides, from practical to silly. Some examples include, "...be a stand-up comedian?", "...buy a laptop?", "...lie persuasively?" and much much more.
3. Overheard in New York.

A place for New Yorkers to post ridiculous/funny conversations they hear on the streets, on the bus, in restaurants, etc.
4. Long Bets

You can make "long-run" verifiable predictions and bet on them coming true. The money at stake goes to charities. It's fun/sad to read what others predict!
5. jacksonpollock

ever wanted to be an abstract artist?
6. cool pictures of storms.

Google 411
Thanks to Mihir's facebook post

7. Matlab Tutorial

8. Real Simple
Online guides for everyday life

9. Shopzilla

10. Nextag
Shopping website

11. Chickenfoot
Program for downloading websites

12. Funny comic strip (xkcd)
(Thanks to Jason!)

13. Flickrvision
(photos uploaded by random people - real time)

14. Wikimapia
(tells you what a building/location is - very cool!)

15. Microsoft's version of GoogleMaps
(plane shots instead of satellite)

16. Interesting paradoxes

17. Douglas Adams quotes