// the library

The Reading List

Over 80 books and 40 free resources across five disciplines. Every pick earns its place.

// 01 — martial arts

Martial Arts

American Kenpo

1992FOUNDATIONAL
Ed Parker's Encyclopedia of Kenpo
Ed Parker
The "Kenpo Bible" — the definitive technical reference for the entire American Kenpo system
1982–1987MAGNUM OPUS
Infinite Insights into Kenpo Vols 1–5
Ed Parker
Five-volume magnum opus covering the full intellectual depth of Parker's system
1960HISTORIC
Kenpo Karate: Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand
Ed Parker
The first public Kenpo book ever published — the origin point of American Kenpo literature
1963BRIDGE
Secrets of Chinese Karate
Ed Parker
Bridges Chinese methods with Parker's evolving system — essential for understanding Kenpo's lineage

Kajukenbo

—COMPREHENSIVE
Kajukenbo: The Original Mixed Martial Art
John Bishop
The most comprehensive history of Kajukenbo — 243 pages, 686 photos, a genuine reference work
—LINEAGE
Kajukenbo: The Emperado Legacy
John Bishop
Expanded lineage coverage tracing the Emperado family's foundational role in Kajukenbo history
—AUTHORITATIVE
How Kajukenbo Became An American Martial Art
Mitch Powell
The KSDI historian's authoritative account of the art's evolution and American cultural roots

Karate-Do

1935FOUNDATION
Karate-Do Kyohan: The Master Text
Gichin Funakoshi
The foundation document of modern Shotokan — a technical manual and philosophical statement in one
1975MEMOIR
Karate-Do: My Way of Life
Gichin Funakoshi
Funakoshi's autobiography — the story of a man who changed the martial world, in his own words
1938PHILOSOPHY
The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate
Gichin Funakoshi
The Niju Kun — Funakoshi's ethical code, the philosophical bedrock beneath every technique
1995THE BIBLE
Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat
Trans. Patrick McCarthy
"The Bible of Karate" — the ancient Chinese text that influenced every Okinawan master

Bruce Lee

1975BEST-SELLING
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Bruce Lee
The best-selling martial arts book ever — Lee's personal notes on JKD philosophy and technique
2001PRIVATE WRITINGS
Bruce Lee: Artist of Life
Ed. John Little
Lee's private writings on art, philosophy, and personal development — the man behind the legend
2002QUOTATIONS
Striking Thoughts
Ed. John Little
825 quotations drawn from Lee's personal papers — his thinking distilled to its essence
1963DEBUT
Chinese Gung Fu
Bruce Lee
Lee's first self-published book — the raw, early articulation of a genius at the start of his path

Historical Texts

~5th c. BCMOST INFLUENTIAL
The Art of War
Sun Tzu
The oldest and most influential military treatise ever written — still taught in military academies worldwide
1645UNDEFEATED
The Book of Five Rings
Miyamoto Musashi
The undefeated swordsman's final treatise — strategy, philosophy, and the way of the warrior
~1716BUSHIDO
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
The classic text on Bushido — "The way of the samurai is found in death." Still controversial. Still essential.
~1632ZEN + SWORD
The Life-Giving Sword
Yagyu Munenori
Zen Buddhism fused with swordsmanship — written by a master who served three shoguns
Free Resources
FREE Geoff Johnson's Free Kenpo Home Study Course FREE Kajukenbo.com lineage archive FREE KARATEbyJesse.com FREE Bruce Lee Foundation FREE MIT Internet Classics Archive (Art of War) FREE SunTzuSaid.com
// 02 — game design

Game Design

TCG & Card Games

2012FOUNDATIONAL
Characteristics of Games
George Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield & K. Robert Gutschera
Co-authored by Magic: The Gathering's creator — the academic framework for understanding all games
2023DEDICATED TCG
Game Design Deep Dive: Trading and Collectible Card Games
Joshua Bycer
The only dedicated TCG design book — deep analysis of the mechanics, economy, and player psychology of card games
2011ESSAYS
The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design
Ed. Mike Selinker
Essays from 15 legends of tabletop design — practical wisdom from the people who made the games you love

Game Theory

1944FIELD CREATOR
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
John von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern
The book that created the field of game theory — dense but foundational for understanding strategy and decision-making
1960NOBEL PRIZE
The Strategy of Conflict
Thomas C. Schelling
Nobel Prize-winning work on strategic interaction, negotiation, and credible commitment — essential for competitive game design
1984LANDMARK
The Evolution of Cooperation
Robert Axelrod
Landmark study on how cooperation evolves in competitive environments — directly applicable to multiplayer game design
1991ACCESSIBLE
Thinking Strategically
Avinash Dixit & Barry Nalebuff
The most accessible applied game theory text — real-world examples that illuminate how strategic thinking works

Video Game Design

2008THE BIBLE
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
Jesse Schell
"The Bible of game design" — 100+ lenses for examining every aspect of how games work and why players care
2003STANDARD TEXT
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
The standard textbook at MIT and NYU game programs — comprehensive theoretical framework for all game design
2004COGNITIVE SCIENCE
A Theory of Fun for Game Design
Raph Koster
Why games are fun, grounded in cognitive science — explains the learning loop that underlies player engagement
2008HANDS-ON
Game Design Workshop
Tracy Fullerton
Hands-on playcentric approach — the book that teaches you to actually design, not just think about it
2010FIRST BOOK
Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design
Scott Rogers
The best "first book" for aspiring designers — clear, practical, and genuinely fun to read

Indie Development

2017BEHIND THE SCENES
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
Jason Schreier
Behind-the-scenes stories including Stardew Valley's solo creation — the human reality of making games
2021PRODUCTION
A Playful Production Process
Richard Lemarchand
Creative development from Uncharted 2's lead designer — how to keep joy alive through the full production process
2012FOUNDING TEXT
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
Anna Anthropy
The founding text of the modern indie/DIY game movement — why anyone can and should make games
Free Resources
FREE Mark Rosewater's "Making Magic" (1,100+ weekly columns) FREE GDC Vault Free Section FREE Yale Open Course: Game Theory (ECON 159) FREE itch.io game jams
// 03 — programming & ai

Programming & AI

Python

2023BEST-SELLING
Python Crash Course 3rd ed.
Eric Matthes
The best-selling project-based intro to Python — three real projects, no filler, works from day one
2025FREE ONLINE
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python 3rd ed.
Al Sweigart
Free to read online — practical Python for automating real tasks, beloved by beginners worldwide
2022DEFINITIVE
Fluent Python 2nd ed.
Luciano Ramalho
The definitive advanced Python reference — how the language actually works, not just how to use it
2024125 PRACTICES
Effective Python 3rd ed.
Brett Slatkin
125 specific ways to write better Python — the book that turns competent programmers into expert ones

Machine Learning

2022BEST PRACTICAL
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow 3rd ed.
Aurélien Géron
The best practical ML book — covers the full stack from data prep through deployment with working code
2006THEORETICAL
Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning
Christopher M. Bishop
Foundational theoretical textbook — the math behind the models, essential for serious practitioners
2016FREE ONLINE
Deep Learning
Goodfellow, Bengio & Courville
The definitive deep learning text — free online, comprehensive, written by the field's pioneers
2019CONCISE
The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book
Andriy Burkov
Remarkably concise yet comprehensive — the fastest serious path into ML theory that actually works

Raspberry Pi

2023200+ RECIPES
Raspberry Pi Cookbook 4th ed.
Simon Monk
200+ hands-on recipes for every project imaginable — the reference that lives next to every Pi
2016BY THE CREATOR
Raspberry Pi User Guide 4th ed.
Eben Upton & Gareth Halfacree
Written by the Pi's creator — the authoritative guide to the hardware and the philosophy behind it
2016ENGINEERING
Exploring Raspberry Pi
Derek Molloy
Engineering principles for hardware interfacing — the book for people who want to actually understand what they're building

Retro Computing

1984SEMINAL
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Steven Levy
The seminal chronicle of hacker culture — the origin story of the people who made computers what they are
1981PULITZER PRIZE
The Soul of a New Machine
Tracy Kidder
Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative of building a minicomputer — the best book ever written about engineering under pressure
2014DEFINITIVE
Fire in the Valley 3rd ed.
Michael Swaine & Paul Freiberger
The definitive account of the PC revolution — how a garage industry became the most valuable in history
2014ADA TO INTERNET
The Innovators
Walter Isaacson
From Ada Lovelace through the internet age — the story of collaboration behind every computing breakthrough

LLMs

2024FROM SCRATCH
Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)
Sebastian Raschka
Building a transformer-based LLM from scratch — the clearest path to actually understanding how these systems work
2025PRODUCTION
AI Engineering
Chip Huyen
The bridge from prototype to production — everything about deploying AI systems that actually work at scale
2022HUGGING FACE
Natural Language Processing with Transformers
Tunstall, von Werra & Wolf
Written by Hugging Face engineers — the practical guide to using transformers for real NLP tasks
2024FULL LIFECYCLE
LLM Engineer's Handbook
Paul Iusztin & Maxime Labonne
Full lifecycle from RAG through fine-tuning and evaluation — the most complete production LLM reference available
Free Resources
FREE Automate the Boring Stuff (free online) FREE Python.org Official Tutorial FREE Real Python FREE Stanford ML Specialization (Andrew Ng) FREE Dive into Deep Learning (d2l.ai) FREE Andrej Karpathy's "Zero to Hero" FREE Hugging Face NLP Course FREE Stanford's Speech and Language Processing (free PDF)
// 04 — japanese culture

Japanese Culture

Haiku Poetry

1994ENTRY POINT
The Essential Haiku
Trans. Robert Hass
The best entry point to haiku — ~300 poems across Bashō, Buson, and Issa with sensitive translations
2022MLA PRIZE
Bashō: The Complete Haiku
Trans. Andrew Fitzsimons
All 980 haiku, won the MLA Scaglione Prize — the most complete and rigorously translated Bashō in English
1992COMMENTARY
Basho and His Interpreters
Makoto Ueda
255 hokku with 300 years of Japanese commentary — how the Japanese themselves have read Bashō
2013BILINGUAL
Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson
Trans. W.S. Merwin & Takako Lento
The first complete bilingual Buson — the painterly haiku master finally accessible in full to English readers

Japanese History

2020THE TEXTBOOK
A Modern History of Japan 4th ed.
Andrew Gordon
"THE textbook on modern Japanese history" — clear, comprehensive, used in universities worldwide
2000MAGISTERIAL
The Making of Modern Japan
Marius B. Jansen
~900-page magisterial synthesis of Japan's transformation from Tokugawa through the 20th century
1999PULITZER + NBA
Embracing Defeat
John W. Dower
Won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award — the definitive account of Japan's postwar reconstruction
2010CONCISE
Japan in World History
James L. Huffman
The best concise single-volume overview — Japan's story in global context without sacrificing depth

Zen Buddhism

1970MOST BELOVED
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Shunryu Suzuki
The most beloved Zen book in English — Suzuki Roshi's talks on practice, emptiness, and beginner's mind
1965ZAZEN
The Three Pillars of Zen
Philip Kapleau
Zazen instruction, koan practice, and enlightenment accounts — the comprehensive Western introduction to Zen practice
1957PHILOSOPHICAL
The Way of Zen
Alan Watts
The foundational Western philosophical introduction to Zen — Watts at his most lucid and essential
1957ANTHOLOGY
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Compiled by Paul Reps & Nyogen Senzaki
The beloved anthology that has never gone out of print — koans, gateless gates, and ten bulls
2004MASTERWORK
Opening the Hand of Thought
Kosho Uchiyama
Masterwork on zazen and the meaning of self — Uchiyama Roshi's most complete teaching on practice and life

Language Learning

2020GOLD STANDARD
Genki I & II 3rd ed.
Eri Banno et al.
Gold standard beginner textbook, most widely used in Western universities — the right way to start Japanese
2009BRIDGE
Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese
Mayumi Oka et al.
The bridge from beginner to intermediate — the book that gets you reading real texts and having real conversations
1986–2008INDISPENSABLE
A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar
Makino & Tsutsui
The indispensable trilogy — every grammar pattern explained in both English and Japanese with real examples
1977REVOLUTIONARY
Remembering the Kanji Vol. 1
James W. Heisig
The revolutionary mnemonic approach to 2,200 kanji — still the most efficient path to kanji literacy
Free Resources
FREE David G. Lanoue's Haiku of Issa (10,000+ haiku) FREE The Haiku Foundation Digital Library FREE Asia for Educators (Columbia University) FREE MIT Visualizing Cultures FREE Terebess Asia Online FREE Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese FREE Jisho.org FREE NHK World "Easy Japanese"
// 05 — cars & mechanics

Cars & Mechanics

Classic Car Restoration

2005COMPREHENSIVE
Collector Car Restoration Bible
Matt Joseph
The most comprehensive restoration reference available — 1,000+ color photos covering every aspect of classic car restoration
2009DEFINITIVE
Automotive Bodywork & Rust Repair
Matt Joseph
The definitive guide to rust and metal repair — the book every classic car owner needs before touching anything
2009GO-TO REFERENCE
Automotive Wiring and Electrical Systems Vol. 1
Tony Candela
The go-to reference for classic car electrical — wiring mysteries solved with clear diagrams and real techniques
2006HOME GARAGE
How to Paint Your Car on a Budget
Pat Ganahl
Professional-quality paint in a home garage — the book that makes a real respray achievable without a shop

Engine Building

2012THE BIBLE
Four-Stroke Performance Tuning 4th ed.
A. Graham Bell
"The bible of engine performance" — everything from carburetion to cylinder head work, used by pros worldwide
2012RACE LEVEL
Competition Engine Building
John Baechtel
Race engine construction at the professional level — the book for building something that actually wins
2018GOLD STANDARD
Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals 2nd ed.
John B. Heywood
Gold-standard engineering textbook — the thermodynamics and fluid mechanics behind everything that makes an engine run
2010MAX POWER
David Vizard's How to Build Horsepower
David Vizard
Maximum power from any engine — Vizard's decades of dyno testing distilled into actionable technique

General Mechanics

1999FIRST BOOK
How Cars Work
Tom Newton
Illustrated primer covering 250 essential parts — the ideal first book before touching anything with a wrench
2019TOP-SELLING
Auto Repair For Dummies 2nd ed.
Deanna Sclar
The top-selling auto repair guide at 400,000+ copies — approachable, complete, and actually useful for diagnosis
2019TEXTBOOK
Automotive Technology 6th ed.
James D. Halderman
Gold standard college textbook covering all 8 ASE areas — the complete technical education in one volume
2022DEFINITIVE REF
Bosch Automotive Handbook 11th ed.
Robert Bosch GmbH
The definitive technical reference for automotive systems — what engineers reach for when precision matters
Free Resources
FREE Hagerty Media (hundreds of free restoration articles) FREE AACA Discussion Forums FREE Engineering Explained (YouTube) FREE HP Academy (YouTube) FREE ChrisFix (YouTube, 12M+ subscribers) FREE EricTheCarGuy (YouTube)
// what we learned

Three Patterns

01
Foundational texts retain their power. The Art of War, Musashi, Funakoshi — they've outlasted every trend because they address something that doesn't change.
02
Free resources have reached remarkable quality. Karpathy, Tae Kim, Rosewater — the gap between free and paid has never been smaller.
03
The strongest path: one accessible book to get in the door, then the field's definitive reference. Skip the middle — go deep.
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