← All of me

• Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
  The German jurist Carl Schmitt’s classic is one of the most successful attempts to conceptualise the political. Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe build their work on Schmitt, and much of Habermas and Rorty is devoted to deconstructing his existential model.
• Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad
  At first glance, a typical piece of shallow self-help. But underneath lies an important problem: parents’ social and behavioural programming turns children into ideal workers, ready to be exploited by capitalism. The book is an attempt to look at the familiar from a different angle.
• Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Prison and Freedom (in Russian)
  Autobiographical notes from prison. A chronicle of the 1980s and 1990s: loans-for-shares auctions, the Komsomol, hopes, YUKOS, Russia’s turn to dictatorship. Khodorkovsky looks at life as a practising philosopher and borrows a lot from Merab Mamardashvili. You keep feeling that he is trying on the role of George Soros, only in a Russian context. The book is valuable for the scale of the events it describes and for the rare view of an extraordinarily intelligent man.
• Georgy Shchedrovitsky, Organisational and Managerial Thinking (in Russian)
  The main work of the Soviet philosopher and methodologist Georgy Shchedrovitsky on management and running organisations. It is not an easy read and at times feels dated because of all the Soviet context, but it is unique of its kind. Managing an organisation is treated as a combination of educational and political activity, and the team as a social structure within society. The work was far ahead of its time: many ideas that seem obvious now were groundbreaking then.
• Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen
  Almost 20 years after it came out, the book is as relevant as ever: most PowerPoint and Keynote decks are still overloaded with text and tell no story. If you have ever wondered how to make a presentation interesting and stylish, this book is for you.
• Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
  I read it in my fourth year at architecture school. Using very simple, meaningful diagrams, the book explains how to make good architecture. Even if you are not an architect but are interested in architecture, or plan to design your own flat or house, it is a useful and easy read. We used many of its diagrams at Bureau 35 on real projects.
• George Soros, In Defense of Open Society
  Soros needs no introduction. For the authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe his name has become a symbol of Western propaganda and hybrid war; in the West, an example of liberal idealism detached from reality, with a touch of Fukuyama. While studying at the London School of Economics, Soros was a student of Karl Popper and went on to become one of his most ardent followers. Soros is another rare example of a practising philosopher and intellectual. The book is a collection of essays; in the most interesting one he sets out his theory of reflexivity.
• Charles Wheelan, Naked Statistics (Russian edition)
  Not all of us have a technical or economics degree or took statistics at university. Yet understanding basic statistics — to read news stories with charts, poll results, or make sense of any numbers in everyday life — is a vital skill. I consider the absence of statistics in the school curriculum a huge flaw. The book fills that gap in plain words.
• Richard Joyce, Essays in Moral Skepticism
  A collection of essays by the Australian philosopher Richard Joyce on the nature and properties of moral judgements. Joyce is one of the leading advocates of moral fictionalism: he examines what moral judgements do in terms of their usefulness while denying that they are real. The book is meant for prepared readers familiar with current debates in metaethics.
• William Shakespeare, Hamlet
• Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Seminar XI)
• Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority

Last updated: 05.11.2026