What books to read to learn about geography and how it affects economic development? I saw youtube videos like how geography doomed Africa and heard how Japan's prosperity is an anomaly due to its isolation and they got me interested.
A good starting point which should be accessible to people at all levels is the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

I believe this is one of the first and main seminal works in this area.

That being said, it is not settled science that geography (alone) can doom a country's economy.