[
 {
  "id": "meditations",
  "title": "Meditations",
  "shortTitle": "Meditations",
  "author": "Marcus Aurelius",
  "authorDates": "AD 121–180",
  "translator": "George Long",
  "edition": "1862 translation",
  "displayYear": "c. AD 175",
  "era": "Roman Stoa",
  "hook": "The private notebook of a Roman emperor — the founding text of tech’s Stoic revival.",
  "why": "The book Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant and a decade of founders credit for equanimity under pressure.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680",
  "sourceId": 2680,
  "palette": {
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  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 0,
  "wordCount": 71921
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 {
  "id": "shortness-of-life",
  "title": "On the Shortness of Life",
  "shortTitle": "On the Shortness of Life",
  "author": "Seneca",
  "authorDates": "c. 4 BC–AD 65",
  "translator": "Aubrey Stewart",
  "edition": "1889 translation",
  "displayYear": "AD 49",
  "era": "Roman Stoa",
  "hook": "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.",
  "why": "Seneca’s essay on time — the one resource Silicon Valley claims to value above all.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64576",
  "sourceId": 64576,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#8a4b2a",
   "stamp": "#e8dcc0"
  },
  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 1,
  "wordCount": 11103
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 {
  "id": "enchiridion",
  "title": "Enchiridion",
  "shortTitle": "Enchiridion",
  "author": "Epictetus",
  "authorDates": "c. AD 50–135",
  "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson",
  "edition": "1865 translation",
  "displayYear": "c. AD 125",
  "era": "Roman Stoa",
  "hook": "A freed slave’s pocket manual of what is and is not yours to control.",
  "why": "The handbook of the dichotomy of control, quoted in every startup Stoicism thread.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109",
  "sourceId": 45109,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#31536b",
   "stamp": "#d9e0e6"
  },
  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 2,
  "wordCount": 8422
 },
 {
  "id": "tao-te-ching",
  "title": "Tao Te Ching",
  "shortTitle": "Tao Te Ching",
  "author": "Laozi",
  "authorDates": "fl. 6th c. BC",
  "translator": "James Legge",
  "edition": "1891 translation",
  "displayYear": "c. 400 BC",
  "era": "Eastern philosophy",
  "hook": "Eighty-one short chapters on water, weakness and the way of things.",
  "why": "Naval Ravikant keeps it in permanent rotation alongside the Stoics.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/216",
  "sourceId": 216,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#3d5a3e",
   "stamp": "#dfe7d8"
  },
  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 3,
  "wordCount": 10639
 },
 {
  "id": "republic",
  "title": "The Republic",
  "shortTitle": "The Republic",
  "author": "Plato",
  "authorDates": "c. 428–348 BC",
  "translator": "Benjamin Jowett",
  "edition": "1871 translation",
  "displayYear": "c. 375 BC",
  "era": "Philosophy",
  "hook": "Justice, the ideal city, and the allegory of the cave.",
  "why": "The source of the cave, the philosopher-king and every debate about just societies and platforms.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1497",
  "sourceId": 1497,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#7a5c2e",
   "stamp": "#eadfca"
  },
  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 4,
  "wordCount": 216242
 },
 {
  "id": "zarathustra",
  "title": "Thus Spake Zarathustra",
  "shortTitle": "Thus Spake Zarathustra",
  "author": "Friedrich Nietzsche",
  "authorDates": "1844–1900",
  "translator": "Thomas Common",
  "edition": "1909 translation",
  "displayYear": "1885",
  "era": "Philosophy",
  "hook": "“What does not kill me makes me stronger” — and the rest of the sermon.",
  "why": "Nietzsche’s most-quoted book, mined by founders for the ethics of self-overcoming.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1998",
  "sourceId": 1998,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#46364f",
   "stamp": "#ddd3e6"
  },
  "shelf": 0,
  "order": 5,
  "wordCount": 110554
 },
 {
  "id": "emerson-essays",
  "title": "Essays: First Series",
  "shortTitle": "Essays",
  "author": "Ralph Waldo Emerson",
  "authorDates": "1803–1882",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1841 first series",
  "displayYear": "1841",
  "era": "American thought",
  "hook": "Self-Reliance and eleven essays on the individual mind.",
  "why": "“Trust thyself” — the transcendentalist seed of Apple’s Think Different and founder individualism.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2944",
  "sourceId": 2944,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#234d3f",
   "stamp": "#d7e4dd"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 0,
  "wordCount": 74147
 },
 {
  "id": "walden",
  "title": "Walden",
  "shortTitle": "Walden",
  "author": "Henry David Thoreau",
  "authorDates": "1817–1862",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1854 first edition, with Civil Disobedience",
  "displayYear": "1854",
  "era": "American thought",
  "hook": "Two years in a cabin by the pond, on living deliberately.",
  "why": "The canonical text on simplicity and deliberate life — cited from Thoreau’s own pencil factory to every minimalist founder.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205",
  "sourceId": 205,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#2e4a41",
   "stamp": "#d5e3dc"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 1,
  "wordCount": 115672
 },
 {
  "id": "franklin",
  "title": "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin",
  "shortTitle": "Autobiography",
  "author": "Benjamin Franklin",
  "authorDates": "1706–1790",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1916 edition, edited by Frank Woodworth Pine",
  "displayYear": "1791",
  "era": "American thought",
  "hook": "The original startup memoir: printing, science, virtue and hustle.",
  "why": "Franklin’s account of his virtues and compounding self-improvement — the first founder autobiography.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20203",
  "sourceId": 20203,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#6e3b1f",
   "stamp": "#f0e2cb"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 2,
  "wordCount": 75178
 },
 {
  "id": "wealth-of-nations",
  "title": "The Wealth of Nations",
  "shortTitle": "Wealth of Nations",
  "author": "Adam Smith",
  "authorDates": "1723–1790",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "Cannan edition",
  "displayYear": "1776",
  "era": "Economics",
  "hook": "Division of labour, markets, and the invisible hand.",
  "why": "Still the economics reference of choice in venture and policy arguments.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300",
  "sourceId": 3300,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#26364e",
   "stamp": "#d6dee9"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 3,
  "wordCount": 381054
 },
 {
  "id": "art-of-war",
  "title": "The Art of War",
  "shortTitle": "The Art of War",
  "author": "Sun Tzu",
  "authorDates": "fl. 6th c. BC",
  "translator": "Lionel Giles",
  "edition": "1910 translation",
  "displayYear": "c. 500 BC",
  "era": "Strategy",
  "hook": "The oldest treatise on strategy: deception, terrain, and winning without fighting.",
  "why": "The one classic that appears on virtually every tech-CEO reading list.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/132",
  "sourceId": 132,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#701f24",
   "stamp": "#ecdcc9"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 4,
  "wordCount": 54193
 },
 {
  "id": "the-prince",
  "title": "The Prince",
  "shortTitle": "The Prince",
  "author": "Niccolò Machiavelli",
  "authorDates": "1469–1527",
  "translator": "W. K. Marriott",
  "edition": "1908 translation",
  "displayYear": "1532",
  "era": "Strategy",
  "hook": "A handbook of power for anyone who must keep a state — or a company — alive.",
  "why": "Founder politics in sixteenth-century dress; quoted in every hard-decision thread.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232",
  "sourceId": 1232,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#43242e",
   "stamp": "#e3d6dc"
  },
  "shelf": 1,
  "order": 5,
  "wordCount": 49522
 },
 {
  "id": "origin",
  "title": "On the Origin of Species",
  "shortTitle": "Origin of Species",
  "author": "Charles Darwin",
  "authorDates": "1809–1882",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1872 sixth edition",
  "displayYear": "1859",
  "era": "Science",
  "hook": "Natural selection — the deepest idea about how complex things arise.",
  "why": "The science book founders reach for when they talk about evolution, selection and markets.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2009",
  "sourceId": 2009,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#3c5240",
   "stamp": "#dee7dc"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 0,
  "wordCount": 207844
 },
 {
  "id": "relativity",
  "title": "Relativity: The Special and General Theory",
  "shortTitle": "Relativity",
  "author": "Albert Einstein",
  "authorDates": "1879–1955",
  "translator": "Robert W. Lawson",
  "edition": "1920 translation",
  "displayYear": "1916",
  "era": "Science",
  "hook": "Einstein’s own popular exposition of relativity, for the determined reader.",
  "why": "The physicist-founder’s touchstone; Einstein is the valley’s patron saint of thought experiments.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5001",
  "sourceId": 5001,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#2c4257",
   "stamp": "#d8e2ea"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 1,
  "wordCount": 29739
 },
 {
  "id": "economy-of-machinery",
  "title": "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures",
  "shortTitle": "Economy of Machinery",
  "author": "Charles Babbage",
  "authorDates": "1791–1871",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1832 edition",
  "displayYear": "1832",
  "era": "The Machine",
  "hook": "The first book about the economics of computing, by the man who invented the computer.",
  "why": "Babbage on factories, automation and division of mental labour — Silicon Valley before the silicon.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4238",
  "sourceId": 4238,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#5d4020",
   "stamp": "#ecdfc6"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 2,
  "wordCount": 105310
 },
 {
  "id": "analytical-engine",
  "title": "Sketch of the Analytical Engine",
  "shortTitle": "Analytical Engine",
  "author": "L. F. Menabrea & Ada Lovelace",
  "authorDates": "1809–1896 & 1815–1852",
  "translator": "Ada Lovelace",
  "edition": "1843, with her Notes",
  "displayYear": "1843",
  "era": "The Machine",
  "hook": "The 1843 paper containing the first published computer program.",
  "why": "Lovelace’s Notes — including Note G — are the founding document of software.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75107",
  "sourceId": 75107,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#513a5e",
   "stamp": "#e6ddea"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 3,
  "wordCount": 51525
 },
 {
  "id": "machine-stops",
  "title": "The Machine Stops",
  "shortTitle": "The Machine Stops",
  "author": "E. M. Forster",
  "authorDates": "1879–1970",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1909 story",
  "displayYear": "1909",
  "era": "The Machine",
  "hook": "Everyone lives alone in a cell, connected by screens, served by a Machine.",
  "why": "The 1909 novella engineers keep handing each other as prophecy of the internet.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72890",
  "sourceId": 72890,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#33383f",
   "stamp": "#d9dde3"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 4,
  "wordCount": 12159
 },
 {
  "id": "time-machine",
  "title": "The Time Machine",
  "shortTitle": "Time Machine",
  "author": "H. G. Wells",
  "authorDates": "1866–1946",
  "translator": null,
  "edition": "1895 first edition",
  "displayYear": "1895",
  "era": "The Machine",
  "hook": "A traveller goes to the year 802,701 and finds the future of class.",
  "why": "The founding text of the sci-fi imagination that shaped the industry’s dreams.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35",
  "sourceId": 35,
  "palette": {
   "spine": "#546a75",
   "stamp": "#dfe6ea"
  },
  "shelf": 2,
  "order": 5,
  "wordCount": 32375
 }
]