The Black Swan
《黑天鹅》
Taleb argues that history and markets are shaped mainly by a very small number of extreme events — precisely the ones existing models cannot…
Finance
Classic Index 95
Classics Library
Build your model of the world through the classics.
AI · Finance · Investment · History · Economics · Business · Philosophy · Technology
Skip the noise, follow the underlying patterns. One book to understand a field, a set of classics to build a cognitive map.
Bilingual search is supported: searching "人工智能" also finds Artificial Intelligence, AI, and AGI.
270 books 100 curated classics 170 from reading lists 12 categories 41 topics 5 reading paths
Featured Classics
A starting point from a hundred books.
The Black Swan
《黑天鹅》
Taleb argues that history and markets are shaped mainly by a very small number of extreme events — precisely the ones existing models cannot…
Finance
Classic Index 95
Superintelligence
《超级智能》
Writing before superintelligence existed, Bostrom systematically asked how much leverage humanity would retain once an intelligence far beyond our…
Artificial Intelligence
Classic Index 94
The Intelligent Investor
《聪明的投资者》
Graham separates investing from speculating, sets out defensive and enterprising frameworks built on intrinsic value, margin of safety, and…
Investment
Classic Index 97
Chip War
《芯片战争》
Miller braids the history of the semiconductor industry with geopolitics: from the invention of the transistor, through Japan's rise and Taiwan's…
Technology & Science
Classic Index 93
Thinking, Fast and Slow
《思考，快与慢》
Kahneman organizes decades of judgment-and-decision research as a dialogue between two cognitive systems: fast, automatic System 1, and slow…
Psychology & Cognitive Science
Classic Index 95
Guns, Germs, and Steel
《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》
Diamond sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: why did Eurasian societies conquer the rest of the world, and not the other way around?…
World History
Classic Index 93
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
《国富论》
Smith examines the sources of national wealth and argues that it comes from the division of labour and capital accumulation rather than from…
Economics
Classic Index 97
Zero to One
《从 0 到 1》
Thiel argues that genuinely valuable companies create something new — going from zero to one — rather than copying what exists, and that in his…
Business
Classic Index 87
Today's Classic Book Pick · BOOK OF THE DAY
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
《贫穷的本质：我们为什么摆脱不了贫穷》
Why this book
It demonstrates a method: breaking the grand debate over “poverty traps” into specific questions that can be tested experimentally. That approach reshaped development economics and offers a model for replacing conviction with evidence.
Today's Idea
Instead of arguing about the grand causes of poverty, settle one small question at a time about what actually helps.
Categories
Twelve doorways into the world.
01
Artificial Intelligence
人工智能
Explore machine intelligence, computing, and the future of humanity.
14 books
02
Technology & Science
科技与科学
From chips to materials: how technology shapes civilization.
27 books
03
Finance
金融
Money, markets, risk, and the anatomy of financial crises.
9 books
04
Investment
投资
Building a long-term investing framework from first principles.
10 books
05
US Stock Investment
美股投资
US equities, technology stocks, and capital allocation in practice.
4 books
06
Economics
经济学
Growth, money, institutions, and the roots of prosperity.
22 books
07
World History
世界历史
Empires, wars, and the long arc of globalization.
32 books
08
Business
商业
Strategy, innovation, organization, and business models.
9 books
09
Philosophy
哲学
Ancient questions on how to think and how to live.
31 books
10
Psychology & Cognitive Science
心理学与认知科学
Judgment, decision-making, bias, and the workings of the mind.
20 books
11
Society & Civilization
社会与文明
Institutions, culture, and the structure of public life.
45 books
12
Literature & Fiction
文学与小说
Novels, drama, and poetry — understanding the human condition through narrative.
47 books
Reading Paths
Sequence matters more than the list.
AI for Beginners
AI 入门
From the foundations of computing to the question of general intelligence.
- 01 Understand Computing The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
- 02 Understand Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
- 03 Understand Machine Learning Deep Learning
- 04 Understand Reinforcement Learning and Agents Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction
- 05 Understand LLMs and Alignment The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
- 06 Understand AGI and the Human Future Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Investing from First Principles
投资入门：从第一性原理出发
Understand the market, build principles, then manage yourself.
- 01 Understand the Market A Random Walk Down Wall Street
- 02 Establish Principles The Intelligent Investor
- 03 Learn Valuation Security Analysis
- 04 Find Quality and Growth Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
- 05 Understand Risk and Uncertainty The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
- 06 Manage Your Own Behavior The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
Understanding World History
理解世界历史
From geographic conditions to the present order.
- 01 The Origins of Civilization Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
- 02 The Classical World History of the Peloponnesian War
- 03 The Rise and Fall of Empires The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- 04 The Making of the Modern World The Guns of August
- 05 The Postwar Order Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- 06 The Present Order The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Economics Essentials
经济学入门
From division of labor to institutions and money.
- 01 Markets and Division of Labor An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
- 02 Institutions and Prosperity Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
- 03 Money and Crisis This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
- 04 Macroeconomics and Policy The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
- 05 Behavior and Real Decisions Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
- 06 The History of Economic Thought The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers
Thinking Better
认知升级
Reduce judgment error and gain from uncertainty.
- 01 Two Systems of Mind Thinking, Fast and Slow
- 02 Identify Noise and Bias Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
- 03 Understand Probability and Luck Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- 04 Improve Forecasting Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
- 05 Think in Systems Thinking in Systems: A Primer
- 06 Gain from Uncertainty Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Topics
Coordinates of thought that cut across categories.
History
历史
Philosophy
哲学
Literature & Narrative
文学与叙事
Civilization
文明
Predicaments of Modern Society
现代社会的困境
Cognitive Science
认知科学
Power & Politics
权力与政治
Science & Nature
科学与自然
Gender & Family
性别与家庭
Technology
技术
Decision Making
决策
AI
人工智能
Risk
风险
Markets
市场
Investing
投资
Religion & Meaning
宗教与意义
Macroeconomics
宏观经济学
Existence & Nothingness
存在与虚无
Latest Articles
Longer writing around books and ideas.
When Interest Became a Passion: A Four-Hundred-Year-Old Design and the Half It Never Finished
The intellectual starting point of modern capitalism was not the invisible hand, but an earlier redefinition: the pursuit of gain, recast from a vice into a counterweight to destructiveness
When the Measure Becomes the Target: Why Quantifying Everything Makes It Harder to See
From central-bank targets to quarterly earnings — the same mechanism keeps recurring: once a number is used to steer action, it stops being a good description of reality
The Scarcity of Attention: What Becomes Expensive Once Information Is Free
From "the medium is the message" to the attention economy — a structural problem that keeps being treated as a personal one
Knowledge Map
How books connect into a map of understanding.
Every node exists in both English and Chinese. A single book can connect to several topics.