1. _The Question Concerning Technology_ by Martin Heidegger. Taught me how clean-room language reinvention can be a tool for clear thinking, and how you cannot add something without taking something away. Truth is "revealing and concealing" because it is, outside math and hard science, perspectival. Essential reading for UX engineers.

2. _Eichmann in Jerusalem_, Hannah Arendt. Made me wiser about how evil works. "Evil" is a fun word to throw around and lends itself to silly political slogans, but the real thing is no joke, is out there, and does not look like what you think.

3. _Eugene Onegin_, by Pushkin, as translated by Douglas Hofstadter (yes, that one). The man taught himself Russian by translating the Onegin to distract himself after his wife died. The foreword-essay changed how I regard language and translation.

3. _Getting Unstuck_, by Pema Chodron. I still use this shit every time I get obsessive about some coding thing. Wise AF.

4. _Getting Things Done_ by David Allen. Everything is an interface and everything is algorithmic, your only choice is whether or not to consciously intend them. You can engineer better habits.

5. A biography of Malcolm X -- I forget which one, embarrassingly, and I am in a hurry so I will not google. Whichever one came out closest to the year 2007 :)

These days tho I would grab _The Dead are Arising_ -- the most recent. It's aleady on my Kobo. Malcolm X showed me how to survive in hell and start a movement.