Books I have read
Books to get to know me
Books that consiously have helped shape who I am and how I see the world.
The Imperial Mode of Living - Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen
A critical view on the modern society where western northern countries flourish on the backs of historically pillaged countries. Personally, I highly recommend this book as it really explains my way of thinking and how I see the world. Having someone put these thoughts into words like this was exactly what I needed.
The Value of a Whale - Adrienne Buller
What is green capitalism, asset manager capitalism and how are decisions in our current world made? Is there such a thing as sustainable investment and are we actually getting closer to decarbonization? All of these questions Adrienne brillilantly try to answer in her book. Again I personally, highly recommend this book to everyone who is tired of the corporate PR bullshit and bad excuses.
A Mind For Numbers - Barbara Oakley
A personal story on learning and how to use your brain most optimally. For me, this was a big read at the time because it touched upon so many things that I would ave wished that we were all taught at an earlier age.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Lori Gottlieb
Honest stories from a therapist about herself and her patients.
How shame affects our lives and how honesty and daring to be brave can help you live a more fulfilling life.
The Burnout Epidemic - Jennifer Moss
How stress affects us, especially with focus on the 2020 pandemic and what leaders can do to combat it. Stress is a cultural problem, not a person-problem. The descriptions of burnout and especially vulnerable people really resonates with me.
Invisible Women - Carolie Criado Perez
How women have been erased in our society from transportation to jobs and medicine.
Outgrowing God - Richard Dawkins
Why religion is a myth, how we are socialized into believing in it and how evolution disproves it.
Men Who Hate Women - Laura Bates
A terrifying analysis of why men hate women, the reasons they start believing that women are the enemy and what we need to do to prevent this from manifesting.
Argumenter Mod Kvinder - Birgitte Possin
How women have been, and still are belittled in Danish society.
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls - Mona Eltahawy
How women should seize their power and what needs to be done to break free of patriarchy's sexist and limited view of women.
Taking down Harvey Weinstein. Descriptions of his harassment and abuse of women and how the people around him did everything they could to protect him.
The Experience of Depression - Dorothy Rowe
An intimate look into the minds of a select few people with ddepression. Their thoughts, their socialization and how they slowly free themselves from the prisons of their minds. Personally this resonated intimately with me and helped me realize some things about myself I previously couldn't see.
White Tears Brown Scars - Ruby Hamad
How white people' fragility is hurting people of color.
Algorithms of Opression - Safyia Noble
How algorithms, with specific focus on Google's search engine undermine democracy and expose all the bias in society towards non-whites, especially towards women of color.
Fast Fashion, colonialism, capitalism, racism, fatphobia and how the white west set up supply chains that is ruining the world.
The Racial Contract - Charles W. Mills
A description of the racial contract white westerners made on behalf of the rest of the world.
A description and critiscm of the mediocre white man.
Why I'm No Logner Talk to White People About Race - Robin Diangelo
A hard-hitting description of how hard it can be to talk to fragile white people about race and racism. How racism is rooted in colonialism and slavery and how it looks in the UK today. A guide for white people on how to treat everyone with respect -- 'cause clearly, we are not capable of that.
White Fragility - Robin Diangelo
A white woman trying to explain how we as white people do racist things, even when we believe ourselves to be "good people". Many examples and good explanations. Diangelo has gotten , justified, criticism for using her whiteness to earn money off of black people (without paying back).
Platform Socialism - James Muldoon
How tech companies are becoming too large to regulate, have too much power and what we should do in order to give the power back to the people.
Privacy is Power - Clarissa Véliz
An insight into how we are surveilled on a daily basis and what we, as a society through legislation and as individuals to limit spying eyes' access.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff
A description of the business model of Big Tech, how it was allowed in the first place and all things that makes it wrong today.
Artificial Unintelligence - Meredith Broussard
How machines are not going to save us. And why blind trust in technology is problematic at best.
How Roger McNamee went from Facebook VC to activist against Big Tech. A book that to a great extent was the first step on my journey into tech criticism and broadening my view on how tech negatively influences society.
The Road to Nowhere - Paris Marx
Sorely needed criticism of tech-solutionism. A story of how the motor vehicle came to dominte in the US. Focus on power and self-serving actors and how we went from protesting initiatives that are bad for the public to blindly accepting them.
Abolish Silicon Valley - Wendy Liu
A personal story about how a developer went from a hard core tech enthusiast to a critic based on her experiences in the startup scene. Absolutely worth the read. Especially for everyone in tech. Eye-opening.
Popping the Crypto Bubble - Stephen Diehl, Jan Akalin, Darren Tseng
A historical walk-through of economic bubbles and how they occur and a comparison to crypto pump-and-dumps. Distinction between the stock market and crypto currencies and why crypto is a tool built for scam while ruining the planet. To all crypto bros, I dare you to read this.
One of the most important books I have ever read on life and work. How we pretend to work to feel like we have earned a fair living and how are lives are defined by our jobs. Are we really working to live or living to work?
Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth
How we can move from a highly exploitative, unequal and capitalist economy based on pseudo-science and strong beliefs in "the market" - to a regenerative and fair economy that focuses on redistribution and sustainability.
The Deficit Myth - Stephanie Kelton
What you learn classical economy to be, how many of the underlying theories are wrong (but used by politicians to stay in power) and how we can make the economy work for us and not the rich. The economy of governments is not the same as household economies and a deficit in public finances is good for its citizens and corporations. Ground-breaking writing!
Mission Economy - Mariana Mazzucato
How the power of governments have been limited to fixing "the market" and how we should change it back so that governments can take the active role in our society that it needs to in order for its people to prosper and live more equally. How governments should control rather than be controlled and how we should start focusing on having competencies within governments rather than outsourcing to exploitative consultancies.
The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson
A ministry that pushes for the right climate solutions in the world. A little heavy on the blockchain optimism without going too much in detail about how it will actually be implemented. The general optimism and belief in the solutions we already have is great. This is what we need to tackle the climate crisis. I wish more politicians would read this. Although it is fiction, many of the ideas and the general descriptions of processes to get somewhere is great.
The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
As a computer science major, this book was extremely helpful in making me see our economy in the right light. Giving an historic account of how the western world has imposed our values and neo liberal economic system on historically pillaged countries in order to help them financially.
A description of a dystopian society controlled by a small elite. A struggle for freedom and justice. A struggle to keep sane. Sadly, in many aspects not too far from our society today.
The Gendered Brain - Gina Rippon
How men throughout history have tried to weaponize science against women and use pseudo-science as arguments as to why they are the superior sex. How gendering is limiting our prsonal development and what we should do to change it.
Women Don't Owe You Pretty - Florence Given
Amazing book with a personal story of the freedom that comes with learning not to give a fuck about societal norms, the male gaze, focus on yourself and how to live your best life. Free yourself from the prison that is the shaming, hetero, capitalist, patriarchal society of today.
En Forudsigelig Forbrydelse - Line Vaaben and Asser Hedegård Thomsen
A study of partner murder in Denmark, a crime most commonly commited by men against women. Stories of what happens, how to spot it and a cry for better education for people in close relations with vulnerable people.
Fix the System Not the Women - Laura Bates
Let's do exactly that.
White feminism with a strong focus on making women lean in to have a seat at the table. More focus on individual work than structural issues. Often, however well-meaning, in a very self-centered lens.
Other good books
Brave Not Perfect - Reshma Saujani
Strive to try, not to do things perfect. Being authentic leads us on the right path.
The Mask of Masculinity - Lewis Howes
How men are limited by harmful stereotypes and ideas about how to be "a real man" and how to unlearn unhealthy patterns.
The Beauty in Breaking - Michele Harper
The stories of Michele Harper, an emergency room physician.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Mark Manson
How to stop caring so much about what others think and live the life you want to live.
Thoughts about religion and how a world without it could look. Why religion can be dangerous and how it creates more problems that it solves. I like the book, however, it seems like Sam Harris is a part of the "Jordan-Peterson-is-a-good-guy-club" which makes me questions him as a person.
Rest is Resistance - Tricia Hersey
We are all running too fast to serve others, we forget that we need to serve ourselves first. A book stating and showing how to take power back by slowing down and napping.
Books on my to-read list
| # | Title | Author | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data Feminism | Catherine D'Ignazio | |
| 2 | How Europe Underdeveloped Africa | Walter Rodney | Read, not reviewed |
| 3 | The Case for a Job Guarantee | Pavlina R. Tcherneva | Read, not reviewed |
| 4 | Das Kapital | Karl Marx | |
| 5 | The Trusted Advisor | - | In progress |
| 6 | Surrounded by Idiots | Thomas Erikson | In progress |
| 7 | Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? | Beverly Daniel Tatum | |
| 8 | F-ordet | Sanne Søndergaard | Danish feminism, read not reviewed |
| 9 | Pseudorbejde | Dennis Nørmark, Anders Fogh Jensen | |
| 10 | Think Again | Adam Grant | Read, not reviewed |
| 11 | Programmed Inequality | Mar | |
| 12 | Fædre | Aydin Soei | |
| 13 | Fight Like A Girl | Clementine Ford | |
| 14 | Boys Will Be Boys | Clementine Ford | Read, not reviewed |
| 15 | Thinking Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman | In progress |
| 17 | A Brief History of Time | Stephen Hawking | |
| 18 | Less is More | Jason Hickel | |
| 19 | Happy Fat | Sofie Hagen | Read, not reviewed |
| 20 | 21 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism | Ha-Joon Chang | Read, not reviewed |
| 21 | The Uninhabitable Earth | David Wallace-Wells | |
| 22 | Atlas of AI | Kate Crawford | |
| 23 | How to Meet Yourself | Dr. Nicole Pera | Inner child work, holistic psychology. In progress. |
| 24 | The Future is Degrowth | Matthias Schmelzer, Aaron Vansintjan and Andrea Vetter | |
| 25 | Girl, Woman, Other | Bernadine Evaristo | |
| 26 | The Other Sex | Simone de Beauvoir | |
| 27 | Unapologetic | Charlene A. Carruthers | |
| 28 | You Just Need to Loose Weight | Aubrey Gordon | |
| 29 | Kapitalen | Thomas Piketty | In progress |
| 30 | How We Learn | Stanislas Dehaene | |
| 31 | The Antisocial Network | Ben Mezrich | |
| 32 | Jeg Anerkender Ikke Længere Jeres Autoritet | Glenn Bach | Read, not reviewed |
| 33 | Cruicial Conversations | Grenny, Patterson, McMillan, Switzler, Gregory | |
| 34 | Against White Feminism | Rafia Zakaria | Read, not reviewed |
| 35 | Rage Becomes Her | Soraya Chemaly | |
| 36 | No Hard Feelings | Liz Fosslien, Molly West Duffy | |
| 37 | The Woman Destroyed | Simone de Beauvoir | |
| 38 | The Dawn of Everything | David Graeber, David Wengrow | |
| 39 | Culture Warlords | Talia Lavin | |
| 40 | The Child in You | Stephanie Stahl | In progress |
| 41 | The No Club | Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, Laurie Weingart | |
| 42 | Can't Even | Anne Helen Petersen | |
| 43 | Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Togehter in the Cafeteria? | Berverly Daniel Tatum | |
| 44 | How to Do the Work | Dr. Nicole Pera | In progress |
| 45 | The State of Affairs | Esther Perrel | Read, not reviewed |
| 47 | Mating in Captivity | Read, not reviewed | |
| 47 | The Phoenix Project | Gene Kim |