Books — Tejasvi Soi
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
De Waal argues that we've long measured animal intelligence by how closely it mirrors our own, and that the better question is what each species evolved to be good at. Full of surprising experiments, from crows to octopuses, that quietly dismantle the idea of a single human-shaped ladder of smarts.
The Dream Machine
The story of J.C.R. Licklider and the people who imagined personal, networked computing decades before it existed. Republished by Stripe Press. A reminder that the computer on your desk was once a wild idea a few stubborn people refused to let go of.
Batman: Year One
Bruce Wayne's first year in the cowl, told alongside a young Jim Gordon trying to stay honest in a rotten city. Grounded, gritty, and spare in a way that makes most superhero stories feel overwritten.
The Making of Prince of Persia
Mechner's journals from 1985 to 1993, covering the creation of the original game from college project to cult classic. Published by Stripe Press. Less about code and more about the doubt, obsession, and slow discovery of what the thing actually was.
Let My People Go Surfing
Chouinard's philosophy of building a company that genuinely puts the planet first. Part memoir, part manifesto — the kind of book that makes you question what a business is even for.
Shoe Dog
Nike's origin story, told with surprising candour about the chaos, debt, and near-disasters behind the brand. Less about strategy, more about stubbornness and the people who believed early.
The Hobbit
A reluctant homebody gets pulled into an adventure he didn't ask for and turns out to be surprisingly good at it. Lighter and warmer than what follows, but the world-building is already doing something special.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Murakami on running as a practice, a meditation, and a metaphor for writing. Quiet and repetitive in exactly the right way — like a long run itself.
That Will Never Work
Netflix's founding story from the co-founder who left before it became enormous. Refreshingly honest about what was luck, what was instinct, and what was just trying things until something stuck.
Creativity, Inc.
How Pixar was built and what it actually takes to sustain a creative culture over time. Less about inspiration and more about the systems, trust, and hard conversations that make good work possible consistently.
Greenlights
Part memoir, part journal, part self-help you didn't see coming. More honest and strange than you'd expect, and full of a particular kind of lived-in wisdom that doesn't feel borrowed from anywhere else.
When Breath Becomes Air
A neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal cancer reflects on what makes life worth living. Beautifully written and quietly devastating — one of the few books that genuinely changes how you think about time.
Watchmen
The graphic novel that asked what would actually happen if people put on masks and fought crime. Dense, dark, and constructed with a precision that rewards rereading.
Batman: The Killing Joke
The most unsettling Batman story ever told. One bad day is all it takes, Moore argues — and Bolland's art makes you believe it. Short, brutal, and impossible to shake.
Understanding Comics
A comic book about how comic books work. McCloud unpacks the invisible grammar of sequential art — time, space, panel transitions — in a way that changes how you read everything after it.
Dear Data
A year of hand-drawn postcards between two designers on opposite sides of the Atlantic, each one a small chart of an ordinary week. Proof that data can be personal, messy and beautiful, and a quiet nudge to notice more of your own life.
Hostage
The true story of an aid worker held captive for months, told almost entirely from inside one room. Delisle's spare, patient drawing makes the waiting feel real, and somehow it reads like a thriller.
Apple: The First 50 Years
Half a century of Apple, from the garage to the iPhone and beyond, told through the people who built it. Full of the small decisions and near-misses behind products that ended up shaping how everyone uses technology.