Books like The Soul of a New Machine

01

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Tracy Kidder · Biography

Tracy Kidder's portrait of Paul Farmer — the physician and anthropologist who co-founded Partners in Health and spent decades treating tuberculosis, AIDS, and cholera in rural Haiti and among the poorest communities of the world — is one of the most compelling biographies of a contemporary American figure.

A kindred memoir read.

02

The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe · Memoir

Tom Wolfe's account of the early years of American manned spaceflight — from the test pilots of Edwards Air Force Base to the Mercury Seven astronauts — is the most celebrated work of New Journalism and one of the essential books about American culture in the twentieth century.

Shares technology and competition with The Soul of a New Machine.

03

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Walter Isaacson · Science

The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's history of the digital revolution, tracing the development of computers and the internet from Ada Lovelace's conceptualization of programming in the 1840s through the emergence of the modern internet, personal computer, and smartphone.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Empires of Light

Jill Jonnes · History

Empires of Light is Jill Jonnes's history of the War of Currents — the late-nineteenth-century battle between Thomas Edison's direct-current electrical system and George Westinghouse's alternating-current system, with Nikola Tesla as the third figure whose genius made AC practical.

Shares technology and competition with The Soul of a New Machine.

05

Barbarian Days

William Finnegan · Memoir

Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of a life spent surfing — from his childhood in Los Angeles and Hawaii through decades of obsessive searching for waves across the Pacific, Asia, Africa, and eventually the cold waters of New York.

Both dig into obsession.

06

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight · Memoir

Shoe Dog is Phil Knight's account of the first two decades of Nike, from the $50 loan he borrowed from his father in 1964 to fund his first shipment of Japanese running shoes to the company's IPO in 1980.

Both dig into competition.

07

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

Kirk Wallace Johnson · Memoir

The Feather Thief tells two intertwined stories.

Both dig into obsession.

08

The Lost City of Z

David Grann · Memoir

David Grann's account of the British explorer Percy Fawcett's disappearance in the Amazon in 1925 — and of Grann's own journey into the jungle to investigate — is one of the most compelling works of narrative journalism of the 2000s.

Both dig into obsession.

09

The Monster of Florence

Douglas Preston · Memoir

Between 1974 and 1985, a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence murdered sixteen people — couples parked in cars in the hills outside the city — and was never conclusively identified.

Both dig into obsession.

10

Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne · Business

Blue Ocean Strategy is Kim and Mauborgne's case that the most successful companies don't compete in existing markets by beating rivals at their own game — they create new market spaces where competition is irrelevant.

Both dig into competition.

11

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold · Science

Code is Charles Petzold's explanation of how computers work, built from first principles.

Both dig into technology.

12

Competitive Strategy

Michael E. Porter · Business

Competitive Strategy is Michael Porter's foundational framework for analyzing industries and developing competitive strategy.

Both dig into competition.