Episode · The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast · 2026-07-06
Books mentioned on What to Do When Life Feels Empty
What does a 75-year-old man leaving his father's house for the first time have to do with the darkest question a human being can ask about themselves?
Jordan Peterson discussed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenit︠s︡yn.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a groundbreaking novel that depicts the brutal reality of daily survival inside a Soviet forced labor camp during the Stalin era.
Discussed“I read first book by Alexander Soljenitz and I read when I was about 13. It was one day in the life of Ivan Denisvich and it was the first book that had come out of the Soviet Union really during a a period of thaw in the early 1960s that revealed what had happened under Stella and then I”
Where to get it
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1984
1984 by George Orwell is a classic dystopian novel depicting a totalitarian regime characterized by extreme surveillance, historical denial, and psychological manipulation.
Discussed“and then I read 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World.”
Where to get it
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Brave New World
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a classic dystopian science fiction novel that depicts a technologically advanced future society controlled through engineered reproduction, psychological conditioning, and constant superficial pleasure.
Discussed“and then I read 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World.”
Where to get it
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The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a monumental historical exposé detailing the brutal Soviet forced labor camp system through survivor testimonies, archival research, and the author's own imprisonment.
Discussed“This was while I was reading Soljenitson's book on the Gulleg archipelago and various accounts of totalitarian brutality in Nazi Germany and and so forth and some psychoanalytic work and and that's where the story part emerges.”
Where to get it
