Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in July 2020
During July 2020, various podcasts featured discussions surrounding science, human behavior, and gripping fiction. On the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman recommended Ian Hutchinson's books Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? and Monopolizing Knowledge while exploring the intersection of science and religion with guest Ian Hutchinson. Later in the month on the same podcast, guest Sergey Levine noted that the works of Isaac Asimov heavily inspired him during his youth. Meanwhile, on The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan warned listeners away from Paul Tremblay's terrifying novel Survivor Song if they suffered from anxiety, while Post Malone brought up George R. R. Martin's Nightflyers during a conversation about horror and vampire stories. Modern Wisdom also saw literary mentions; the host discussed using Kamal Ravikant's positive affirmation process from Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It, and Chris Williamson promoted Tim Harkness's Ten Rules for Talking. Additionally, during an episode of Timcast IRL, a listener brought up Sherry Turkle's Reclaiming Conversation to illustrate how modern digital communication erodes emotional comprehension. Across these diverse shows, hosts and guests frequently turned to books that examine human psychology, societal technology use, and speculative or thrilling narratives to make sense of contemporary life and personal growth.
Lex Fridman Podcast
-
Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?
Recommended“on this latter topic i recommend two of his books his new one can a scientist believe in miracles where he answers more than 200 questions on all aspects of god and science and his earlier book on scientism called monopolizing knowledge”
-
Monopolizing knowledge
Recommended“on this latter topic i recommend two of his books his new one can a scientist believe in miracles where he answers more than 200 questions on all aspects of god and science and his earlier book on scientism called monopolizing knowledge”
-
Unix
Discussed“but you know if you had to pick a single person that would be can see if written in you book UNIX a history and a memoir are there some memorable human stories funny or profound from that time they just kind of stand out”
-
The C Programming Language
Discussed“you're you wrote a book C programming language”
-
The Go Programming Language
Discussed“so you've also written a book on go language I'd have to admit so I worked at Google for a while and I've never used go”
-
Tetris
Discussed“you can discover that if you're playing Tetris then correctly you know clearing the rows will let you play Tetris for longer and keep the board nice and clean”
-
Other worlds of Isaac Asimov (14 works)
Recommended“I actually found a lot of the work by Isaac Asimov to be very inspiring when I was younger I don't know if that has anything to do with with AI necessarily”
-
Ethics in the Real World
Discussed“he has written brilliantly from an ethical perspective on extreme poverty euthanasia human genetic selection sports doping the sale of kidneys and generally happiness including in his books ethics in the real world and the life you can save”
-
The Concept of Mind
Discussed“but in philosophy the view defended by people like Gilbert Ryle who was a professor of philosophy at Oxford wrote a book called the concept of mind in which you know in this kind of phase this is in the 40s of linguistic philosophy he said well the meaning of a term is its use”
-
The life you can save
Discussed“he has written brilliantly from an ethical perspective on extreme poverty euthanasia human genetic selection sports doping the sale of kidneys and generally happiness including in his books ethics in the real world and the life you can save”
-
Deep Undercover
Recommended“I recently listened to his conversation with Jack Barsky former sleeper agent for the KGB in the 80s and author of deep undercover which is a memoir that paints yet another interesting perspective on the Cold War era”
The Joe Rogan Experience
-
Haunted
Discussed“somebody somebody sent it to me alone that sounds awesome yeah i think it's a little girl a little girl becomes a werewolf on a plane it's called survivor wait what well he's got two about a plane sorry it's uh a kid becomes a werewolf on a plane google that that's what i did type that in what is”
-
Nightflyers
Recommended“but it's called nightflyer i think it's a really good book i read the book it's like a short story i think and then the movie”
-
Wool
Discussed“so there's a there's a there's a science fiction novel by this guy hugh howey um wool have you ever read that”
-
Lights out
Discussed“actually what what i end up reading later in in both ted koppel's book lights out and also in uh this book by toby oard at the university of oxford called the prep the precipice”
-
Survivor Song
Recommended“i'm in the middle of a book right now my buddy matt stacks recommended this i want to tell people about this because this is [ __ ] excellent now i want to say before i say this do not get this book if you have anxiety just don't um it's called survivor song it's a novel by paul tremblay”
-
Natural
Discussed“alan lavinovitz who was on the podcast recently had a book called natural and it's one of the things that he uh he talked about in the book was that what we're doing is essentially the the ver it's weird”
-
A child's night dream
Discussed“it's called a child's night dream”
-
The Utah UFO display
Discussed“in 1976 a guy named dr frank salisbury wrote a book about it the utah ufo display”
-
I am Jazz
Discussed“so they're reading books like I am jazz in California to kids and that suggests that you might and it tells kids so you might have a boy's brain in a girl's body”
-
Power Up Your Brain
Critiqued“he started with this his self-published book called like I don't know like brain saving dot-com or something and back then he had a totally different line on it”
-
The ecological Indian
Discussed“that that painting I know I was like sounds familiar like he's talking about that it was on the cover of a book called the ecological Indian I think it's called by a guy named Shepherd Kretsch”
-
Storm of Steel
Discussed“you know reading a storm of seal by Ernst humor and you're reading this guy's take on being in World War one”
Modern Wisdom
-
Unfit for Purpose
Discussed“dr adam hart who wrote unfit for purpose which is an assessment of our evolutionary heritage and how it's misaligned with modern society saying all the same things”
-
Tools der Titanen
Discussed“tim ferriss is just pretty good to be honest new tools of titans thing that he's doing uh i've i'm halfway through one of them very good as well”
-
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It
Recommended“so i'm actually doing the um love yourself like your life depends on it process from kamal ravikant at the moment i've done that this year”
-
The Black Swan
Discussed“i got this from there's a guy named naseem tuleb who's written a few books probably the most famous is a book called the black swan”
-
Work the system
Discussed“yeah so actually the contradiction is from a business book called work the system but it talks about this like in the context of a company so if you ever worked for a company like usually every company has their like five or six core values and usually they're like terrible and meaningless”
-
10 Rules for Talking
Recommended“if they want to pick up ten rules for talking it will be linked in the show notes below feel free to follow that link on to Amazon and grab it on there”
-
The dark side of the light chasers
Recommended“dark side of the light chasers and it is all about shadow work and I think that your listeners are probably self actualized enough to do this type of work”
-
A Woman's worth
Recommended“one that I really love is a book by Marianne Williamson called a woman's worth super good book for gals”
-
Curating Your Life
Discussed“maybe it's time to start thinking about this problem in a way I loved your analogy in the book where you were talking about how you always look at other people like they've got it together”
-
The Power Of Full Engagement - Managing Energy, Not Time, Is The Key To High Performance And Personal Renewal
Recommended“it's called the power of full engagement by two guys lower and Schwartz”
The Rubin Report
-
How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps
Discussed“Now your book is called, "How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps."”
Timcast IRL
-
Rodham
Discussed“they're doing an alternate reality Hillary Clinton universe oh my god I'm not kidding on Hulu and it's called Rodham”
-
Reclaiming Conversation
Recommended“read reclaiming conversation by sherry Turkle it explains how social media texting and the like are destroying people's ability to understand themselves and others it states that when people don't understand their emotions they they only know anger good point”
-
White Rage
Discussed“oh there's literally a book called white rage and it's like the cover is being peeled”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
-
SuperBetter
Discussed“well speaking of games you talk about the concept in super better of being being gameful or gainful thinking”
-
The Lost City of the Monkey God
Discussed“really we found out doug preston the writer of the book and i we got a hold of theodore moore's diary handwritten diary that we got from a relative of his”
-
The Infinite Game
Discussed“and I think about that when I when I read any book especially yours I wish I read yesterday infinite game and I thought okay”
-
Getting to plan B
Discussed“and there was a professor at Stanford he wrote a I think a book called like something getting to plan B or something”
-
The Goal
Discussed“well I had read this book called the goal and this was towards the end of Instagram by the way we'd figured this out many years into instrum”
Pod Save America
-
Walking with the wind
Discussed“I remember reading his memoir about his time in the civil rights movement walking with the wind over a weekend and i have been in awe of the man ever since”
-
What It Takes
Discussed“It was in the 1988 election where richard bryn kramer wrote what it takes the all-time greatest political campaign book”
-
The Vanishing Half
Discussed“so I am I just finished the vanishing half by print Bennett which was a I just okay I just started it”
-
Eileen
Discussed“but she is a American author who wrote a book called Eileen that won a lot of awards a few years ago”
-
This Republic of Suffering
Recommended“one is the warmth of other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson which is about the great migration and the other one is Republic of suffering which is by drew Gilpin Faust that is about the effect the Civil War had on the country because of the tremendous trauma”
Dwarkesh Podcast
-
The Complacent Class
Discussed“So you wrote a book in 2017 called the complacent class and in it you predicted a great reset. You wrote quote at some point our country will face an immediate crisis and there won't be the resources or more fundamentally the flexibility to handle it.”
-
Stubborn Attachments
Discussed“At the same time, I was reading, uh, Stubborn Attachments, and there seemed to be a contradiction to me between the two books because, uh, Stubborn Attachments advocates for um, economic growth because of the stupendous returns it has over the long term as long as it's continuous.”
My First Million
-
Rework
Discussed“have you read the book rework which is there the 37signals book years ago but they basically say that like one of the marketing principles that they talked about is like to have an enemy right”
-
Confessions of a real estate entrepreneur
Recommended“a great book I read when I was in college that inspired me I was like on the verge of going down the real estate track rather than an entrepreneurial track or the sort of started B track and it's called confessions of a real estate entrepreneur”
