10 reads for your summer vacation

What we're reading and technology changing reading

In a now-annual tradition, the a16z crypto editorial team discusses themes (and picks) from a16z crypto's latest reading list, as well as books we keep re-reading, childhood favorites, classics, adaptations on adaptations — in book and movie form! — and much more.

What genres are we reading now, how, and why? How is technology — from AI and ChatGPT to the internet and audio — changing reading? And why are certain themes in the zeitgeist right now? Is all non-fiction just fiction now, and should we lean in to this for education? Are the kids alright?

From irony, truth, and why context matters, to Machiavelli to Formula 1 to nautical non-fiction to memoirs, this episode has it all.

listen here

(also check out last year’s conversation)

From beach reads to basic economics: 10 books for your long weekend

Here are a few of the books the a16z crypto team is reading and recommending this summer. Our latest list spans true stories, speculative fiction, and poetry with some clear through lines: striving for mastery, understanding edge cases (whether human, legal, or technical), and embracing unconventional thinking.

Here are 10 recs, but you’ll find many more in the full list.

Business, economics, and strategy

Focus: The ASML Way – Inside the Power Struggle over the Most Complex Machine on Earth, by Mark Hijink

“ASML is a strange and fascinating company — it’s the quiet giant that builds the enormous, complicated machines that produce the vast majority of the world’s chips. The book provides an interesting look at its history and internal dynamics.” – Arianna Simpson, investing

Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell

“It might be impossible to write a more cogent explanation of the fundamental economic principles that govern human behavior. This book is filled with the basic mental models that explain a lot of what makes the world tick.” – Ali Yahya, investing

Nearly Perfect, by Thomas Drach

“Hot off the presses this summer is this nearly perfect theory of the relationship between competitive advantage and product design. Easily the best book in-category I’ve read in years.” – Scott Duke Kominers, research

Biography, history, and memoir

A Cracking of the Heart, by David Horowitz

“On the surface, it is a book about grieving, reckoning with regrets, ‘the cords of family’ pulling together, and stitching stories and truths told by and about a