Definitive List of 50 Books to Understand Everything in the Universe

The “Vitruvian Man” approach to building knowledge, wisdom, and foresight.

A few weeks ago I put up a note on my LinkedIn (see above) about books that can form the building blocks to our understanding of just about everything there is to know in this universe. Essentially, I wanted to understand why are we the way we are and why have our social, political and biological systems evolved into what they are today.

The response was so good that it took me over a month to get this post together with the top 50 of the over 100+ recommendations.

Full list is at the google doc here.

I call it my “planet-scale meta-intelligence” book-list. Why planet-? To imply that all knowledge that has ever existed in the history of mankind is compressed into these 50 books. Why meta-? It certainly won’t teach you quantum mechanics or calculus — that’s too specific — but it’ll tell you why those tools were needed, when, and the part they played to get us to where we are today.

The next challenge was how to organize the list. Sure, I could fit them into history, science, psychology & influence, economics, and so on but that felt too formulaic. In thinking about how to build my intellect, I was inspired by the idea of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci, who believed “the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe.”[ref]. Okay, Cool, Leo, but get some underwear on.

you are welcome

So I divided the selection into five categories:

Core: similar to working out in the gym, this part is the most important one and also the ideal starting point. Everything builds out of here. These books cover the principles of how this world works at an elemental level. A weak core makes rest of the knowledge unapproachable. Mind: this covers how to become a better strategist, develop foresight, patience, and smarter intellectual habits. Together with the core, these two form the basics of further development IMHO. Torso: a better upper body is often the end goal — it’s the most visible, the most outwardly attractive, and appeals to the ego. The books in this category therefore cater to matters of charisma, influence, and power. Legs: often the most ignored part of the gym routine: leg days! Without this, your reach in the world is always going to be limited. This section covers operational experience, stories of building empires, of failures, and discipline. Soul: finally, it’s tough to stay the course without an inspiring story or a personal passion that drives you out of bed to hit the gym. Similarly, this section focuses on feeding the soul with stories of struggles and wins against exceptional odds, stories of growth through deeply meaningful failures, and stories of redemption.

The right distribution of the topics is personal. I prefer to focus a lot more on the fundamentals: core & mind, and then divide the rest. Take it as-is but YMMV. So, without further ado, here is the list, starting with the Core. All link out to Amazon US. Again, the full list is here.

Core