The library

The reading list.

Every major has one. Five books per track - the ones that practitioners actually read. Not a 300-book bibliography. The five that matter. Any member can request a free paperback copy of any book on this list, mailed to their address, once per course.

📈
QUANT MAJOR

Applied Quantitative Finance

  1. Options, Futures and Other Derivatives — John Hull
  2. A Man for All Markets — Edward Thorp
  3. Market Wizards — Jack Schwager
  4. The Volatility Smile — Emanuel Derman
  5. Advances in Financial Machine Learning — Marcos Lopez de Prado
🎨
DSGN MAJOR

Applied Design

  1. The Design of Everyday Things — Don Norman
  2. Shape Up — Ryan Singer / Basecamp
  3. Refactoring UI — Adam Wathan + Steve Schoger
  4. Designing Interfaces — Jenifer Tidwell
  5. Don't Make Me Think — Steve Krug
⚡
ENG MAJOR

Applied Engineering

  1. The Pragmatic Programmer — Hunt + Thomas
  2. Designing Data-Intensive Applications — Martin Kleppmann
  3. Site Reliability Engineering — Google
  4. A Philosophy of Software Design — John Ousterhout
  5. Crafting Interpreters — Robert Nystrom
📊
GRWT MAJOR

Applied Growth

  1. Traction — Gabriel Weinberg
  2. Hooked — Nir Eyal
  3. Lean Analytics — Croll + Yoskovitz
  4. Growth Marketing Playbook — Matt Lerner
  5. The Mom Test — Rob Fitzpatrick
🎯
OPS MAJOR

Applied Operations

  1. High Output Management — Andy Grove
  2. The Great CEO Within — Matt Mochary
  3. Multipliers — Liz Wiseman
  4. The Advantage — Patrick Lencioni
  5. Measure What Matters — John Doerr
⚖
LEGL MAJOR

Applied Legal

  1. Getting to Yes — Fisher + Ury
  2. Drafting Contracts — Tina L. Stark
  3. Startup Legal Toolkit — Clerky
  4. The Lean Lawyer — Larry Richard
  5. Legal Writing in Plain English — Bryan Garner
🎬
MDIA MAJOR

Applied Media & Film

  1. Save the Cat — Blake Snyder
  2. In the Blink of an Eye — Walter Murch
  3. The Writer's Journey — Christopher Vogler
  4. Shot by Shot — Steven Katz
  5. Rebel Without a Crew — Robert Rodriguez
🎧
MUSC MAJOR

Applied Music & Audio

  1. All You Need to Know About the Music Business — Donald Passman
  2. Mixing Secrets — Mike Senior
  3. The Recording Engineer's Handbook — Bobby Owsinski
  4. This Is Your Brain on Music — Daniel Levitin
  5. Hit Men — Fredric Dannen
💰
VC MAJOR

Applied Venture Capital

  1. Venture Deals — Brad Feld + Jason Mendelson
  2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz
  3. Secrets of Sand Hill Road — Scott Kupor
  4. Zero to One — Peter Thiel
  5. The Business of Venture Capital — Mahendra Ramsinghani
🤝
SALE MAJOR

Applied Sales

  1. SPIN Selling — Neil Rackham
  2. The Challenger Sale — Dixon + Adamson
  3. Predictable Revenue — Aaron Ross
  4. To Sell is Human — Daniel Pink
  5. Never Split the Difference — Chris Voss
👥
HR MAJOR

Applied People Operations

  1. Work Rules! — Laszlo Bock
  2. Powerful — Patty McCord
  3. The Culture Code — Daniel Coyle
  4. An Everyone Culture — Robert Kegan
  5. Compensation Handbook — Berger + Berger
✍
CNTT MAJOR

Applied Content

  1. On Writing Well — William Zinsser
  2. Everybody Writes — Ann Handley
  3. Draft No. 4 — John McPhee
  4. The Elements of Style — Strunk + White
  5. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott
🔬
RSCH MAJOR

Applied Research

  1. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
  2. Superforecasting — Philip Tetlock
  3. Noise — Kahneman + Sibony + Sunstein
  4. The Signal and the Noise — Nate Silver
  5. Factfulness — Hans Rosling
🧭
PM MAJOR

Applied Product Management

  1. Inspired — Marty Cagan
  2. The Lean Product Playbook — Dan Olsen
  3. Continuous Discovery Habits — Teresa Torres
  4. Shape Up — Ryan Singer
  5. Hooked — Nir Eyal
💳
FNTC MAJOR

Applied FinTech

  1. The Payoff — Gottfried Leibbrandt + Natasha de Teran
  2. Payments Systems in the US — Carol Benson
  3. The Infinite Machine — Camila Russo
  4. Why Nations Fail — Acemoglu + Robinson
  5. Flash Boys — Michael Lewis
📣
BRND MAJOR

Applied Brand & Comms

  1. Positioning — Ries + Trout
  2. Obviously Awesome — April Dunford
  3. Building a StoryBrand — Donald Miller
  4. Zag — Marty Neumeier
  5. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This — Luke Sullivan
🎓
EDUC MAJOR

Applied Education Design

  1. Make It Stick — Brown + Roediger + McDaniel
  2. Visible Learning — John Hattie
  3. Understanding by Design — Wiggins + McTighe
  4. The ABCs of How We Learn — Daniel Schwartz
  5. Peak — Anders Ericsson
💉
HLTH MAJOR

Applied Health & Medspa

  1. Being Mortal — Atul Gawande
  2. The Emperor of All Maladies — Siddhartha Mukherjee
  3. Outlive — Peter Attia
  4. Why We Sleep — Matthew Walker
  5. The Checklist Manifesto — Atul Gawande
🏢
REAL MAJOR

Applied Real Estate

  1. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor — Gary Keller
  2. Real Estate Development — Mike Miles
  3. What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow — Frank Gallinelli
  4. The Book on Rental Property Investing — Brandon Turner
  5. Multifamily Millions — David Lindahl
🛡
DEFN MAJOR

Applied Defense & Policy

  1. The Kill Chain — Christian Brose
  2. Unit X — Raj Shah + Christopher Kirchhoff
  3. The Pentagon's Brain — Annie Jacobsen
  4. The Rise of American Innovation — Mariana Mazzucato
  5. On War — Carl von Clausewitz
BOOK REQUEST

Request a free copy of any book above.

Scholar members and above get one free paperback per course, shipped anywhere. Pick a book, give us an address, we mail it within 7 days.

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