Luc Castera

Well-rounded software engineer, entrepreneur, and insightful business leader.

Books I've Read

In 2010, I started to keep track of every book I read. At the end of each year, I reflect on all the books I read, select my favorite, and highlight it below as my "book of the year".

2024

  1. Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups by Ali Tamaseb
  2. The Everything Token by Stephen Kaczynski, Scott Duke Kominers
  3. Developing Apps With GPT-4 and ChatGPT by Olivier Caelen, Marie-Alice Blete
  4. Bocas del Tiempo by Eduardo Galeano
  5. Écrire Marseille: 15 grands auteurs célèbrent la cité phocéenne by Various
  6. Le Monde, modes d'emploi by Jacques Attali
  7. A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism by Jeffrey D. Sachs
  8. Nomade parmi les fûts by Luca Gargano
  9. Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti by Jake Johnston
  10. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter
  11. Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So
  12. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
  13. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
  14. Le Salon vert: A l'Elysée, au coeur du pouvoir by Marie-Béatrice Baudet
  15. Le goût du risque by Andrea Marcolongo, Patrice Franceschi, Loïc Finaz
  16. Patients by Grand corps malade
  17. Haytham, une jeunesse syrienne by Nicolas Hénin, Kyungeun Park
  18. Rhum Heritage 1. Eau de Vie, Eau de Mort by Tristan Roulot
  19. Une sacrée envie de foutre le bordel by Xavier Niel
  20. Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

2023

  1. La grande aventure du bitcoin et de la blockchain by Olivier Bossard
  2. South to America by Imani Perry
  3. Abobo Marley by Yaya Diomandé
  4. L'arche de Rantanplan by Jul & Achdé
  5. L'élixir d'amour by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
  6. Sancerre, terre et vins d'enchantement by Laurent Sorcelle
  7. Tout sur l'économie, ou presque by Heu?rêka
  8. The Only Street in Parisby Elaine Scioliono
  9. Adrift: America in 100 Chartsby Scott Galloway
  10. Don Segundo Sombraby Ricardo Güiraldes, translated to French by Marcelle Auclair
  11. Leonardo da Vinciby Walter Isaacson
  12. The Vintage Caperby Peter Mayle
  13. Adrift: America in 100 Chartsby Scott Galloway
  14. Le salut viendra de la merby Christos Ikonomou
  15. La géopolitiqueby Pascal Boniface
  16. Des hommes qui lisentby Edouard Philippe
  17. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoonby Michael Lewis
  18. The Kubernetes Book: 2023 Editionby Nigel Poulton
  19. Tiempos recios by Mario Vargas Llosa
  20. Au plus beau pays du monde by Tahar Ben Jelloun
  21. Les grands défis économiques by Jean Tirole, Olivier Blanchard
  22. L'Iris blanc by Didier Conrad
  23. Load Balancing with HAProxy by Nick Ramirez
  24. Introducing Go: Build Reliable, Scalable Programs by Caleb Doxsey
  25. Un certain art de vivre by Dany Laferrière

2022

  1. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
  2. Take More Vacations by Scott Keyes
  3. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  4. Mastering Blockchain by Lorne Lantz & Daniel Cawrey
  5. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
  6. L'Appart by David Lebovitz
  7. Historias de París by Mario Benedetti
  8. Révolution by Emmanuel Macron
  9. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
  10. How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
  11. Mastering Ethereum by Andreas M. Antonopoulos & Gavin Wood
  12. The Margot Affair by Sanaë Lemoine
  13. Alléluia pour une femme-jardin by René Depestre
  14. La Discrétion by Faiza Guene
  15. The Promise of Bitcoin by Bobby Lee
  16. Baise-Moi by Virginie Despentes
  17. La noche de la Usina by Eduardo Sacheri
  18. Oscar et la dame rose by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
  19. Le tango : Quatre conférences by Jorge Luis Borges
  20. Go Web Programming by Sau Sheong Chang
  21. How to DeFi: Beginner by Coin Gecko
  22. King Kong théorie by Virginie Despentes
  23. Distributed Services with Go by Travis Jeffery
  24. Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France by Peter Mayle
  25. How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil
  26. Learning GraphQL: Declarative Data Fetching for Modern Web Apps by Eve Porcello, Alex Banks
  27. Olhai os Lírios do Campo by Erico Verissimo

2021

  1. A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
  2. The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
  3. Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
  4. Homeland Elegies: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar
  5. French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle
  6. The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism by Grace Blakeley
  7. The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
  8. Astérix chez les Pictes by Jean-Yves Ferri, Didier Conrad
  9. How To Avoid A Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
  10. Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway
  11. A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa
  12. A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself by Peter Ho Davies
  13. After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes
  14. Les villages de Dieu by Emmelie Prophète
  15. The Cathars by Sean Martin
  16. Frère d'âme by David Diop
  17. What have we got Toulouse by Nikki McArthur
  18. A Brief History of Motion by Tom Standage
  19. How Finance Works by Mihir Desai
  20. Three O'Clock in the Morning by Gianrico Carofiglio
  21. Learn Rails 6 by Adam Notodikromo
  22. Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer
  23. Modern CSS with Tailwind by Noel Rappin
  24. Beef, Bible and bullets: Brazil in the age of Bolsonaro by Richard Lapper
  25. Take My Money: Accepting Payments on the Web by Noel Rappin
  26. The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel by Kati Marton
  27. La uruguaya by Pedro Mairal
  28. Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
  29. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp
  30. Mon oncle Hoat, et autres nouvelles by Huy Thiëp Nguyen
  31. Voices from the Pandemic by Eli Saslow
  32. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
  33. Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol
  34. The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
  35. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges

2020

  1. Last Train To Paradiseby Les Standiford
  2. Best State Everby Dave Barray
  3. Toussaint Louverture: A Biographyby Madison Smartt Bell
  4. The Signal and the Noiseby Nate Silver
  5. Business Adventuresby John Brooks
  6. The Glass Hotelby Emily St. John Mandel
  7. Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned Worldby Peter Zeihan
  8. The Sales Acceleration Formulaby Mark Roberge
  9. Signs Preceding the End of the Worldby Yuri Herrera
  10. The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Richby Daniel Ammann
  11. Slaughterhouse-Fiveby Kurt Vonnegut
  12. Uncanny Valleyby Anna Wiener
  13. The Underground Railroadby Colson Whitehead
  14. Notes of a Native Sonby James Baldwin
  15. The World: A Brief Introductionby Richard Haass
  16. Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63by Marcelino Truong
  17. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  18. Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
  19. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
  20. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? by Graham Allison
  21. Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
  22. Le Menteur by Henry James
  23. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria
  24. L'art presque perdu de ne rien faire by Dany Laferrière
  25. Hadriana dans tous mes rêves by René Depestre
  26. I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider
  27. The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy
  28. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
  29. Night by Elie Wiesel
  30. Cybersecurity: The Insights You Need from HBR by Various Authors
  31. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

2019

  1. Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis
  2. I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin & Raoul Peck
  3. Artemis by Andy Weir
  4. Mandela's Way: Lessons for an Uncertain Age by Richard Stengel
  5. Tip of the Iceberg by Mark Adams
  6. The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
  7. El fútbol, de la mano by Eduardo Sacheri
  8. The Empire and the Five Kings by Bernard-Henri Lévy
  9. A Year In Provence by Peter Mayle
  10. My Twenty-Five Years in Provence by Peter Mayle
  11. Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups by Jason Calacanis
  12. Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
  13. The Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegel
  14. Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough
  15. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
  16. Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis
  17. Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor & Saul Singer
  18. Lisbon Poets by Pessoa Camões, Cesário, Sá Carneiro, Florbela
  19. Historia universal de la infamia by Jorge Luis Borges
  20. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
  21. Basquiat: A Graphic Novel by Paolo Parisi
  22. Deep Work by Cal Newport
  23. Toujours Provence by Peter Mayle
  24. No god but God by Reza Aslan
  25. The Pearlby John Steinbeck
  26. Miami Noirby Les Standiford
  27. Crossing The Chasmby Geoffrey Moore
  28. No One Is Too Small To Make A Differenceby Greta Thunberg
  29. Modern CTOby Joel Beasley
  30. The Obstacle Is The Wayby Ryan Holiday

2018

  1. Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark
  2. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
  3. The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads-to-Be by Armin Brott
  4. Atlas du Rhum by Luca Gargano
  5. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade
  6. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
  7. Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy by Melanie Swan
  8. A História do Brasil Para Quem Tem Pressa by Marcos Costa
  9. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
  10. Vers la beauté by David Foenkinos
  11. The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life by M. Puett & C. Gross-Loh
  12. Proof: The Science of Booze by Adam Rogers
  13. A Truck Full Of Money by Tracy Kidder
  14. Pisco Patrimonio: The national spirit of Perú by Adam L Weintraub
  15. Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen
  16. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
  17. Vodou Saints: Lessons on Life, Death and Resurrection from Haiti by Arthur Fournier
  18. The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap by Gish Jen
  19. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
  20. Cerrado por fútbol by Eduardo Galeano
  21. Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage by Mark Gungor
  22. The Container Principle: How a Box Changes the Way We Think by Alexander Klose
  23. The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
  24. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  25. AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee
  26. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
  27. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  28. Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

2017

  1. The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie
  2. The Tao of Charlie Munger by David Clark
  3. The New New Thing by Michael Lewis
  4. A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
  5. Lee Kuan Yew by G. Allison and R. Blackwill
  6. La aventura de un fotografo en la plata by Adolfo Bioy Casares
  7. The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
  8. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  9. Las llaves del reino by Eduardo Sacheri
  10. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
  11. Singapore: Unlikely Power by John Curtis Perry
  12. Petit Pays by Gael Faye
  13. What Great Salespeople Do by Michael Bosworth & Ben Zoldan
  14. A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter
  15. La Première Bouchée by Agnes Castera
  16. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
  17. Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos
  18. City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas by Roger Crowley
  19. Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami
  20. China to 1850: A Short History by Charles O. Hucker
  21. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew
  22. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds by Carmine Gallo
  23. Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe
  24. Leading Change by John Kotter
  25. and a bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis
  26. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

2016

  1. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
  2. Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
  3. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
  4. Hacking Sales by Max Altschuler
  5. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
  6. Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler
  7. Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday
  8. Thomas Jefferson: The Art Of Power by Jon Meacham
  9. Mémoire en colin-maillard by Anthony Phelps
  10. Lights Out by Ted Koppel
  11. The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, & Chris Yeh
  12. Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount
  13. Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling
  14. The Docks by Bill Sharpsteen
  15. The Art Of The Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki
  16. How Google Works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
  17. Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean by K. Berman & J. Knight
  18. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg
  19. El Tunel by Ernesto Sabato
  20. Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
  21. High Output Management by Andrew Grove
  22. The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson
  23. Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
  24. Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné by Victor Hugo
  25. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
  26. The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision Of The Future by Steve Case
  27. Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld & J. Mendelson
  28. Memorias de un soldado desconocido by Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez

2015

  1. Executive Presence by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
  2. Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George
  3. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
  4. A Field Guide to Happiness: What I Learned in Bhutan about Living, Loving, and Waking Up by Linda Leaming
  5. La vida que pensamos by Eduardo Sacheri
  6. Thinking Statistically by Uri Bram
  7. Pep Guardiola: Another Way Of Winning by Guillem Balague
  8. Des Nouvelles D'Elizabeth by Agnes Castera
  9. Drive by Daniel Pink
  10. Touch The Dragon: A Thai Journal by Karen Connelly
  11. Dancing with the Devil in the City of God by Juliana Barbassa
  12. Doing Data Science by Cathy O'Neil and Rachel Schutt
  13. Luis Suarez: Crossing The Line - My Story by Luis Suarez
  14. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
  15. Ho by David Halberstam
  16. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
  17. Qu'est-ce que le bouddhisme? by Jorge Luis Borges
  18. Once Upon a Time in Russia by Ben Mezrich
  19. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
  20. Learning From Data by Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa
  21. So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport

2014

  1. Journal d'un écrivain en pyjama by Dany Laferrière
  2. Haiti Noir 2: The Classics by Edwidge Danticat
  3. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
  4. The Little MongoDB Book by Karl Seguin
  5. L'espace d'un cillement by Jacques Stephen Alexis
  6. Captains Of The Sands by Jorge Amado
  7. The Aleph And Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges
  8. Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish
  9. Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
  10. Century of the Wind: Memory of Fire Volume 3 by Eduardo Galeano
  11. Romancero aux étoiles by Jacques Stephen Alexis
  12. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
  13. Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & Kenneth Cukier
  14. The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
  15. Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach
  16. Crear o Morir by Andres Oppenheimer
  17. Honeybadger's Guide to Machine Learning
  18. Machine Learning With R by Brett Lantz
  19. Haiti Noir by Edwidge Danticat
  20. Thoughtful Machine Learning: A Test-Driven Approach by Matthew Kirk
  21. The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

2013

  1. Memoria del fuego. Vol. 1. Los nacimientos by Eduardo Galeano
  2. The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by P. D. Ouspensky
  3. O Alquimista by Paulo Coelho
  4. Linchpin: Are you indispensable? by Seth Godin
  5. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Orin Starn, Ivan Degregori and Robin Kirk
  6. The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti
  7. A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich
  8. Tribes: We Want You To Lead Us by Seth Godin
  9. El Tren De La Codicia by Elizabeth Ingunza Montero
  10. Street Smarts by Jim Rogers
  11. Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed by Alexis Ohanian
  12. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
  13. The Man Who Counted by Malba Tahan
  14. Working With Ruby Threads by Jesse Storimer
  15. The C Programming Language by B. Kernighan & D. Ritchie
  16. Memoria Del Fuego, Vol 2 - Las caras y las mascaras by Eduardo Galeano

2012

  1. Tout Bouge Autour De Moi by Dany Laferrière
  2. Les Aventures de Tintin: Tintin et les Picaros by Herge
  3. The SPDY Book by Chris Strom
  4. Test-Driven Infrastructure with Chef by Stephen Nelson-Smith
  5. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams
  6. Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics by Jonathan Wilson
  7. A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions by Peter Robb
  8. El extranjero by Albert Camus
  9. La belle amour humaine by Lyonel Trouillot
  10. Chronique de la derive douce by Dany Laferrière
  11. 50 Tips and Tricks for MongoDB Developers by Kristina Chodorow
  12. Brazil Is the New America: How Brazil Offers Upward Mobility in a Collapsing World by James Dale Davidson
  13. JavaScript Patterns by Stoyan Stefanov
  14. It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone by Robin Dreeke
  15. Building Web Applications with Erlang: Working with REST and Web Sockets on Yaws by Zachary Kessin
  16. La tregua by Mario Benedetti

2011

  1. Stories from Latin America/Historias de Latinoamerica by Genevieve Barlow
  2. Historias de Montevideo mágico by Nestor Ganduglia
  3. The Moon Between My Son and I by Carlos Paez Vilaro
  4. HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World by Estelle Weyl
  5. And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina by Paul Blustein
  6. Montevideanos by Mario Benedetti
  7. JavaScript Web Applications by Alex McCaw
  8. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series) by Ash Maurya
  9. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
  10. The Complete Guide To Real Estate Investment In Argentina by Simon Fawkes
  11. El futbol a sol y sombra by Eduardo Galeano
  12. Blood Pact and Other Stories by Mario Benedetti
  13. MongoDB: The Definitive Guide by Kristina Chodorow
  14. Soccer Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper

2010

  1. Just Don't Fall by Josh Sundquist
  2. Long After Midnight at the Nino Bien: A Yanqui's Missteps in Argentina by Brian Winter
  3. Departing at Dawn: A Novel of Argentina's Dirty War by Gloria Lisé
  4. The Little Capoeira Book, Revised Edition by Nestor Capoeira
  5. The Business of Happiness: 6 Secrets to Extraordinary Success in Life and Work by Ted Leonsis
  6. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
  7. Time Out Sao Paulo (Time Out Guides)
  8. Comment faire l'amour avec un Negre sans se fatiguer by Dany Laferrière
  9. L'Enigme Du Retour by Dany Laferrière
  10. Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by S. D. Levitt
  11. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuck
  12. Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat
  13. Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay by George Reid Andrews
  14. The Letters That Never Came by Mauricio Rosencof