A Selfish Heart’s Notebooka self-notion site · the black shelf
Definitive Edition · 2026

The Black Shelf

Every book I keep.

Every one of them, in the order I would read them and on the shelf it lives on.

553books
100ranked

Five rooms

Where the books are.

The shelf in numbers

What is actually on it.

Different books553one row per title
Physical copies574a title kept twice counts twice
Shelves14subjects, largest first
Ranked100100 with a dossier

What to read next

Start with one of these.

Grab a random book

The first shelf

Ten books before everything else.

See all 100
  1. Cover of Man's Search for Meaning The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust001Man's Search for Meaning The Classic Tribute to Hope from the HolocaustViktor E. Frankl
  2. Cover of The Selfish Gene002The Selfish GeneRichard Dawkins
  3. Cover of Make It Stick The Science of Successful Learning003Make It Stick The Science of Successful LearningPeter C. Brown; Henry L. Roediger III; Mark A. McDaniel
  4. Cover of How to Take Smart Notes One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking004How to Take Smart Notes One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and ThinkingSönke Ahrens
  5. Cover of The Bluest Eye005The Bluest EyeToni Morrison
  6. Cover of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men006Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for MenCaroline Criado Perez
  7. Cover of Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders007Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional DisordersAaron T. Beck
  8. Cover of The Denial of Death008The Denial of DeathErnest Becker
  9. Cover of AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models009AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation ModelsChip Huyen
  10. Cover of All about Love: the Deluxe Collector's Edition New Visions010All about Love: the Deluxe Collector's Edition New Visionsbell hooks

Fourteen shelves

By subject.

Walk the stacks
  1. AIAI & Technology82
  2. BZBusiness & Strategy70
  3. PTPsychology & Therapy69
  4. LFLiterature & Fiction65
  5. PHPhilosophy & Meaning44
  6. SSSoftware & Systems39
  7. POPoetry37
  8. RLRelationships & Love34
  9. GSGender & Society34
  10. ISIdeas & Society33
  11. WCWriting & Communication17
  12. PDProductivity & Self-Development16
  13. LRLanguage & Reference7
  14. HBHealth & Body6

Where the hundred send you

Books the dossiers keep naming.

Every dossier says what to read before and what to read after. Together they name a shelf of their own, and this is the part of it I do not have yet, most-named first.

  1. Gender TroubleJudith Butler3 dossiers name it
  2. Good Strategy/Bad StrategyRichard Rumelt3 dossiers name it
  3. Amusing Ourselves to DeathNeil Postman2 dossiers name it
  4. ArielSylvia Plath2 dossiers name it
  5. How the World Really WorksVaclav Smil2 dossiers name it
  6. Know My NameChanel Miller2 dossiers name it
  7. No Bad PartsRichard Schwartz2 dossiers name it
  8. The Art of LovingErich Fromm2 dossiers name it
  9. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids BriggeRainer Maria Rilke2 dossiers name it
  10. Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman2 dossiers name it

114 of the 250 books they name are already here.