Q1 2026 Reading SyllabusJump to section titled Q1 2026 Reading Syllabus

A structured reading plan across four domains: classic literature, deep fiction, neuroscience, and applied engineering.

Classic LiteratureJump to section titled Classic Literature

Goal: Understand writing philosophy, learn storytelling craft, build my own voice

1. Little Women — Louisa May Alcott (in progress)
   • Craft focus: Character voice differentiation
2. Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen
   • Craft focus: Irony, wit, free indirect discourse

Deep FictionJump to section titled Deep Fiction

Goal: Immerse in great stories, become more creative and thoughtful

1. The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafón
   • Craft focus: Atmospheric world-building, layered mystery, sensory prose

NeuroscienceJump to section titled Neuroscience

Goal: Understand how the mind functions, live better

1. The Brain That Changes Itself — Norman Doidge
   • Focus: Neuroplasticity—how the brain rewires through experience

Also reading: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Applied EngineeringJump to section titled Applied Engineering

Goal: Career growth in ML, NLP, and systems

BooksJump to section titled Books

1. Designing Data-Intensive Applications — Martin Kleppmann
2. NLP with Transformers — Tunstall, von Werra & Wolf

Anthropic Research PapersJump to section titled Anthropic Research Papers

• Scaling Monosemanticity
• Tracing the Thoughts of a Large Language Model
• Towards Monosemanticity
• Claude's Constitution
• Alignment Faking in LLMs
• Collective Constitutional AI

Reading ApproachJump to section titled Reading Approach

• Pacing: Steady
• Parallel books: 2-3 at a time (one per domain)
• Challenge tolerance: High in expertise areas, accessible elsewhere

This syllabus was generated with reading-companion, an MCP server I built for personalized reading plans.