A world of great books

Books recommended by Paul Graham

Paul Graham recommends 116 books, among them Benjamin Franklin, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Selfish Gene.

Benjamin Franklin

Walter Isaacson

Biography & memoir

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

Philosophy

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

Science & nature

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie

Nonfiction

The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

Science & nature

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas S. Kuhn

Nonfiction

The Double Helix

James D. Watson

Science & nature

A History of Rome

Moses Hadas

History

A Mathematician's Apology

G.H. Hardy

Philosophy

A Mind at Play

Jimmy Soni & Rob Goodman

Technology

A Sense of Where You Are

John McPhee

Biography & memoir

A Story Lately Told

Anjelica Huston

Biography & memoir

A Thread Across the Ocean

John Steele Gordon

History

Albert Einstein

Banesh Hoffmann

Technology

An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope

Biography & memoir

An Empire of Wealth

John Steele Gordon

History

Andrew Carnegie

David Nasaw

History

Autobiographies

Charles Darwin

Biography & memoir

Barbarian Days

William Finnegan

Health & fitness

Boyd

Robert Coram

History

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Guy Waldo Dunnington

Biography & memoir

Civilisation

Kenneth Clark

Arts & entertainment

Clocks and Culture

Carlo M. Cipolla

Science & nature

Colossus

Jack Beatty

History

Concorde

Geoffrey Knight

Biography & memoir

Diocletian and the Roman Recovery

Stephen Williams

Biography & memoir

Early Middle English Literature

R.M. Wilson

History

Euclid's Elements

Euclid

Philosophy

Ever the Diplomat

Sherard Cowper-Coles

Economics & politics

Eyes on the Street

Robert Kanigel

Biography & memoir