A shelf of the books that shaped how I think about invisible systems: money, time, energy, power, language, culture, and resilience.
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Yuval Noah Harari · 464 pages
Why I recommend it: How shared fictions like money, nations, and law let humans cooperate at scale.

Elinor Ostrom · 298 pages
Why I recommend it: How communities self-organize to manage shared resources without markets or states.

David Graeber · 544 pages
Why I recommend it: A sweeping history of debt, money, and obligation across civilizations.

James C. Scott · 464 pages
Why I recommend it: Why grand schemes to make society legible from above so often fail.

Robin Wall Kimmerer · 408 pages
Why I recommend it: Indigenous wisdom and botany on reciprocity between people and the living world.

Donella Meadows · 240 pages
Why I recommend it: A clear primer on feedback loops, leverage points, and how systems really behave.

Carlo Rovelli · 256 pages
Why I recommend it: A physicist's meditation on why time is far stranger than we assume.

Richard Rhodes · 480 pages
Why I recommend it: How successive energy transitions have reshaped civilization.

Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro · 288 pages
Why I recommend it: How power actually works, and how anyone can build and use it well.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson · 256 pages
Why I recommend it: How the metaphors buried in everyday language quietly shape thought.

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant · 240 pages
Why I recommend it: On building resilience and finding meaning in the face of adversity.

Helen Scales · 304 pages
Why I recommend it: The hidden world of the deep ocean and why it matters to all of us.

Tout ce qu'on ne t'a pas appris sur l'argent
Alix Willemez · 288 pages
Why I recommend it: What school never taught you about money (in French).