Person
Chris Williamson's book recommendations
Across 4 podcasts. Every show Chris Williamson appears on, in one place — not just one.
Chris Williamson’s most recommended books
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- The Precipice by Toby Ord
- The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
- Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, William O. Perkins
- Models by Mark Manson
- Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
- Essentialism by Greg McKeown
- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Chris Williamson is an English podcaster, YouTuber, and co-founder of Neutonic who is best known for hosting the Modern Wisdom podcast. On his show, Williamson recommended and discussed several books with his guests and listeners. He mentioned Bill Perkins's book Die with Zero while exploring the psychology of people who are terrified of losing their money, and brought up Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War while discussing doomsday scenarios. To illustrate how major food companies formulate addictive items, Williamson pointed listeners to Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss. He praised Pierce Brown's Red Rising as a favorite fiction series and recommended Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman as a compelling alternative for fantasy readers. When providing reading lists for fans, Williamson recommended The Precipice by Toby Ord and suggested Ryan Holiday's book Conspiracy as an audiobook listen on Audible. Finally, he closed an episode by encouraging listeners to read Robert Wright's book The Moral Animal.
Books recommended by Chris Williamson
-
Atomic Habits
Atomic Habits by James Clear is a well-known self-improvement guide focused on habit formation, continuous improvement, and practical strategy.
Discussed“I suppose this is probably one of the advantages of a book like let's say Atomic Habits or Tiny Habits BJ Fogg”
Where to get it
-
The Precipice
The Precipice by Toby Ord is an influential examination of existential risks and the long-term future of humanity written by a researcher at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute.
Recommended“Stan I've got two [ __ ] reading lists my brother and they've got five books at the top that the most important ones from the list of 100 chrisilex.com/books and chriswex.com/morebooks so that's 200 and there's a top five in both there's a top 10 … today it's read rising one that isn't in there is dungeoncrawler kl and”
Where to get it
-
The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright is an influential exploration of evolutionary psychology that examines how natural selection has shaped human nature, morality, relationships, and social behavior.
Discussed“I've told you this before, but you wrote probably the most influential book in my life, which was The Moral Animal, and it was the thing that got me started on the trajectory of thinking about evolutionary psychology”
Where to get it
-
Superintelligence
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is a foundational book exploring the future of artificial intelligence and the existential risks posed by the creation of superintelligent systems.
Discussed“I I've read too much Nick Bostrom to be able to No matter what, it's kind of like your first relationship, you know, you get into a relationship and your first relationship is with an and you're like, "God, I I I For the remainder of time, I've been pattern matched that every relationship is at least going to be”
Where to get it
-
Die with Zero
Die with Zero by Bill Perkins and William O.
Recommended“Bill Perkins wrote a book about this die with zero which which is [ __ ] fantastic. Uh there is a certain archetype, the sort of more misery person, maybe there's someone that didn't come from money, but as opposed to I now have it, I'll blow it, it's I now have it and I'm terrified of losing it.”
Where to get it
-
Models
Models by Mark Manson is a modern dating advice book that focuses on self-development and honesty rather than manipulative pickup tactics.
Recommended“That's from Models. … It's going to be 15 years old this year. Unreal. Everyone needs to go and read it, dude. Anyone that needs a new book, go and read an old book.”
Where to get it
-
Hardwiring Happiness
Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson is a neuroscience-based self-help book that teaches readers how to systematically internalize positive experiences to rewire their brains for greater well-being.
Recommended“And um this is Rick Hansen's idea from Hardwiring Happiness, which I just think is is much better. spending a minute just allowing it to sink from your head down into your chest a little bit.”
Where to get it
-
The Psychology of Money
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is a popular finance and self-help book that explores how behavior and emotions drive financial decisions rather than purely mathematical formulas.
Discussed“So for instance um the psychology of money book by Morgan Hel my friend for every person that buys the book another 1.2 2 people buy the book.”
Where to get it
-
Essentialism
Essentialism by Greg McKeown is a practical guide that encourages readers to focus on the vital few pursuits rather than the trivial many, aiming to achieve more through deliberate elimination.
Discussed“Essentialism by Greg Mchuan was a huge influence on me. Doing less but better.”
Where to get it
-
Four Thousand Weeks
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is an insightful time-management book that confronts the finite nature of human life and challenges modern productivity obsessions.
Discussed“I think it's one of the reasons why uh your work in particular Oliver Burkeman who wrote 4,000 Weeks. This very sanguin look at human nature.”
Where to get it
-
Man's Search for Meaning
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E.
Discussed“This is the main thesis of Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.”
Where to get it
-
Lost Connections
Lost Connections by Johann Hari is a profound exploration of the underlying social and psychological causes of depression and anxiety, arguing that modern distress stems largely from a loss of meaningful human connections.
Discussed“I seem to remember in uh lost connections Johan Harry's book man what a great book uh that there's a carve out in the DSM for grief around depression”
Where to get it
-
Deep Work
Deep Work by Cal Newport is a guide to cultivating undistracted focus and achieving peak productivity in an increasingly noisy world.
Discussed“Slack Slack wouldn't have been that big during deep work, I'm going to guess. It wasn't big.”
Where to get it
-
Of Boys and Men
Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves is an insightful sociological examination of the modern challenges, educational struggles, and structural disadvantages currently facing boys and men.
Discussed“Yeah, he wrote a book called Boys and Men.”
Where to get it
-
Why Buddhism is True
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright is an exploration of evolutionary psychology and ancient Buddhist philosophy that examines how the human mind creates suffering and how mindfulness can alter our perception of reality.
Recommended“Yeah, this is gorgeous idea from Robert Wright's Why Buddhism Is True.”
Where to get it
-
Mate
Mate by Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychology-inspired dating and self-improvement guide designed to help men understand modern dating markets and relationship dynamics.
Discussed“That and Mate by Geoffrey Miller and Tucker Max are the two-car garage of dating books for men.”
Where to get it
-
Everybody Lies
Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a fascinating examination of big data, exploring how anonymous internet search queries and digital footprints reveal people's true behaviors, desires, and biases that they would never admit in public, to a therapist, or even to themselves.
Discussed“Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, ex data scientist at Google, wrote a very famous book called Everybody Lies.”
Where to get it
-
The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a celebrated philosophical novel about a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago who travels across the desert in search of a hidden Egyptian treasure, ultimately discovering his true personal legend.
Discussed“and like I read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho so I was in a fucking like psychedelic fugue state for the entirety of the time that I was on there. It's a bad idea. It would be a piece of advice to anyone going on reality TV. Do not read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho before you go on.”
Where to get it
-
Red Rising
Red Rising by Pierce Brown is a fast-paced science fiction novel set in a rigidly stratified dystopian society where a low-caste miner infiltrates the ruling class to exact revenge and spark a rebellion.
Recommended“your Pokedad started reading Red Rising after seeing recommendations from multiple sources, yours included. Can you do an episode just on this or does that exist already? Uh, Red Rising, I think I might be the biggest front end of the funnel drug dealer for people getting into Red Rising, except for the author, maybe because it's the top of”
Where to get it
-
The Expectation Effect
The Expectation Effect by David Robson is a science book exploring how human expectations, thoughts, and placebo or nocebo effects physically impact health, behavior, and daily existence across various domains.
Discussed“There's a a great book called The Expectation Effect by David Robinson. Just popular science book.”
Where to get it
The other 415 books Chris Williamson recommended or discussed, ranked
- The Ape that Understood the Universe by Steve Stewart-Williams
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Blueprint by Robert Plomin
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
- Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
- Daring Young Men by Richard Reeves
- The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt
- The Evolution of Desire by David M. Buss
- The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
- Don't Trust Your Gut by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
- When Men Behave Badly by David Buss
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Endurance by Alfred Lansing
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
- The Art of Resilience by Ross Edgley
- The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
- The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
- Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
- Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel
- The Status Game by Will Storr
- No More Mr Nice Guy by Dr Robert A Glover
- The Game by Neil Strauss
- Back Mechanic by Unknown
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber
- 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
- Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson
- The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart
- The Gap and The Gain by Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron
- The elephant in the brain by Kevin Simler
- Spiritual Enlightenment:: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Joost Elffers
- Waking Up by Sam Harris
- Alchemy by Rory Sutherland
- Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins
- Determined by Robert M. Sapolsky
- The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden
- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
- The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler
- Lying by Sam Harris
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
- The White Pill by Michael Malice
- A World Without Email by Cal Newport
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- Magic Pill by Johann Hari
- Same as Ever by Morgan Housel
- Unfit for Purpose by Adam Hart
- Immortality Key by Brian C. Muraresku, Graham Hancock
- Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant
- The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter
- The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
- Against Empathy by Paul Bloom
- Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
- The master and his emissary by Iain McGilchrist
- The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
- Biohacker's Handbook by Olli Sovijärvi, M.D.
- Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
- Friends by Robin Dunbar
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
- Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
- The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
- The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
- Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
- The 6 Minute Diary by Ellen Lio-Well
- Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
- We Who Wrestle with God by Jordan B. Peterson
- Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton
- Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam
- Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
- The Sweet Spot by Paul Bloom
- Ultralearning by Scott H. Young
- Always Day One by Alex Kantrowitz
- Bad Men by David Buss
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Breath by James Nestor
- Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
- Galileo's Error by Philip Goff
- Gift of Injury by Stuart McGill
- How to Be Confident by James Smith
- Humankind by Rutger Bregman
- Men Without Work by Nick Eberstadt
- Outlive by Peter Attia, Bill Gifford
- So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport
- Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- The 4-hour Chef by Timothy Ferriss
- The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle
- The E-myth by Michael E. Gerber
- The Healthy Writer by Joanna Penn
- The Life of Dad by Anna Machin
- The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton
- Your Brain on Love by Stan Tatkin
- Anxiously Attached by Jessica Baum, LMHC
- Attached by Amir Levine, M.D.
- Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
- Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
- Don't Look up by Serhan Cevik
- Effortless by Greg McKeown
- Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
- Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
- Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott
- Friendship by Lydia Denworth
- Get Married by Brad Wilcox
- Grey by E L James
- How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
- Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey
- I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max
- Indistractable by Nir Eyal
- Love Life by Matthew Hussey
- Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
- Principles by Ray Dalio
- Range by David J. Epstein
- Safe by Jessica Baum
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Secure by Amir Levine
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
- The beginning of infinity by Deutsch, David
- The doors of perception by Aldous Huxley
- The Five Ages of the Universe by Fred C. Adams, Greg Laughlin
- The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein
- The Rational Male by Rollo Tomassi
- The Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa S. Kearney
- This Is Your Brain on Birth Control by Sarah Hill
- Trying Not to Try by Edward Slingerland
- White Fragility by Dr. Robin DiAngelo
- Zero to One by Peter A. Thiel, Blake Masters
- Justice on Trial by Chris Daw
- Bible by Bible
- Curating Your Life by Gail Golden
- Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Lost in Math by Sabine Hossenfelder
- The Daily Laws by Robert Greene
- The New Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan
- The personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
- Unmasked by Andy Ngo
- Outraged by Ashley "Dotty" Charles
- The Practice of Groundedness by Brad Stulberg
- The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
- Kings of the wyld by Nicholas Eames
- Powers and Thrones by Dan Jones
- The possibility principle by Mel Schwartz
- Battle Ready by Ollie Ollerton
- Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari
- Everything Is Spiritual by Rob Bell
- How to Be a Dictator by Frank Dikötter
- Humans and Robots by Sven Nyholm
- Resilient by Rick Hanson
- Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll
- Talking with Serial Killers by Christopher Berry-Dee
- The Happiness Fantasy by Carl Cederström
- The Little Book of Life Skills by Erin Zammett Ruddy
- Hype by Gabrielle Bluestone
- Infinite jest by David Foster Wallace
- Make Your Move by Jon Birger
- One Billion Americans by Matthew Yglesias
- Stories of Hope by Heather Morris
- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Time to Think by Hannah Barnes
- $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi
- 10 Rules for Talking by Tim Harkness
- A Billion Years of Sex Differences by Steve Stewart-Williams
- A Dose of Hope by Dan Engle
- A Practical Way to Get Rich . . . and Die Trying by John Roa
- A Savage Order by Rachel Kleinfeld
- Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- Best-Selling Series by Dr. Anna Lembke. Dopamine Nation Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (hardcover) & the Official Dopamine Nation Workbook. a Practical Guide to Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (paperback) by Anna Lembke
- Beyond Order by Jordan B. Peterson
- Beyond Possible (Young Readers' Edition) by Nims Purja
- Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman
- Blitzed by Norman Ohler
- Built to Move by Kelly Starrett, Juliet Starrett
- Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
- Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday
- Dead in the Water by Matthew Campbell
- Dead men talking by Christopher Berry-Dee
- Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement by Carl Cederström
- Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, MD
- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
- Elevate by Robert Glazer
- Everyday Embodiment by Mark Walsh
- Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly
- Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal
- Fluke by Brian Klaas
- Free Speech by Rebecca L. Brown
- Future Tense by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary
- Genius Foods by Max Lugavere
- Grandstanding by Justin Tosi
- Happy by Derren Brown
- How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom
- How to Decide by Annie Duke
- How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Gregory Boghossian, James A. Lindsay
- How to Not Die Alone by Logan Ury
- How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson
- How to Think Politically by James Bernard Murphy
- Innercise by John Assaraf
- Irresistible by Adam Alter
- Less Doing, More Living by Ari Meisel
- Light of the Stars by Adam Frank
- Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana
- MS-13 by Steven Dudley
- Nose Dive by Harold McGee
- Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen
- Operation Trojan Horse by Stephen Davis
- Optionality by Richard Meadows
- Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
- Stories of Love from Vikings to Tinder by Mads Larsen
- The Align Method : 5 Movement Principles for a Stronger Body, Sharper Mind, and Stress-Proof Life by Aaron Alexander
- The Authoritarian Moment by Ben Shapiro
- The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser
- The Dive by Stephen McGinty
- The Giza Power Plant by Christopher Dunn
- The God Equation by Michio Kaku
- The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio
- The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish
- The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
- The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton
- The Joke by Milan Kundera
- The Mind of a Mnemonist by A. R. Luria
- The No-Nonsense Meditation Book by Steven Laureys
- The Parasitic Mind by Gad Saad
- The Scottish Highlander by John Lyle Morison
- The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
- The Search for Social Entrepreneurship by Paul C. Light
- The Stranger, The Plague (Coles Notes) by Albert Camus
- The Wellness Syndrome by Carl Cederström
- The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
- Tough by Greg Everett
- Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman
- Trejo by Danny Trejo
- Trejo's Cantina: Cocktails, Snacks & Amazing Non-Alcoholic Drinks from the Heart of Hollywood (Spiral-Bound) by Danny Trejo
- Tribe by Sebastian Junger
- Until the End of Time by Brian Greene
- Verissimus by Donald J. Robertson
- Wanting by Luke Burgis
- Whatever Happened to Tradition? by Tim Stanley
- When My Time Comes by Diane Rehm
- Woke by Titania McGrath
- X-Risk by Thomas Moynihan
- Zucked by Roger McNamee
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
- Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
- Almanac of Naval Facts by Naval Institute Press
- Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
- Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
- Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach by Stuart Russell
- Atrocitology by Matthew White
- Beauty by Frederick Turner
- Becoming a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett, Glen Cordoza
- Bittersweet by Susan Cain
- blindsight by Read one book — Blindsight by Matt Johnson & Prince Ghuman is the most accessible and practical book on how marketing shapes the brain, written by a neuroscientist and a marketer together.
- Bonded by Evolution by Paul Eastwick
- Book of Lost by Johan Lien
- Born Together—Reared Apart by Nancy L. Segal
- Conscious loving by Gay Hendricks
- Date-onomics by Jon Birger
- Deep Utopia by Nick Bostrom
- Drunk by Edward Slingerland
- Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
- Endure by Cameron Hanes
- Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen R. C. Hicks
- Feminism against Progress by Mary Harrington
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse
- Fire by Kristin Cashore
- Five Ways to Know Yourself by Shinzen Young
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Future shock by Alvin Toffler
- Generation me by Jean M. Twenge
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Good to Go by Christie Aschwanden
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- HAPPY ODYSSEY by Adrian Carton de Wiart
- Henry V by Dan Jones
- Hereditary Genius by Francis Galton
- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
- Holy Bible (NIV) by Various Authors,
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- If the universe is teeming with aliens-- where is everybody? by Stephen Webb
- In a World of Ice, She Will Burn by Elly Blake
- In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil
- In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger
- Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
- Interstellar by Avi Loeb
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
- Kinsey Scale Emotionally Fragile Queer by JUNE
- Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
- Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz
- Meditations by Aurelius Marcus
- Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
- Moneyball by Michael Lewis
- Needful Things by Stephen King
- Nicolaus Copernicus: De Revolutionibus, preface and book 1, etc by Nicolaus Copernicus
- Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway
- Oliver Burkeman's 2-Book Set (Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals & the Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking) by Oliver Burkeman
- On the Shortness of Life by Seneca
- Organon by Aristotle
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Personality Isn't Permanent by Benjamin Hardy
- Pierce Brown's Red Rising: Sons of Ares Omnibus by Pierce Brown, Rik Hoskin
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Quantum Love by Laura Berman
- Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson
- Ricochet by Cherry Adair
- Risk by General Stanley McChrystal
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- Scars and Stripes by Tim Kennedy
- Soldier by Jay Morton
- Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Stone's Rules by Roger Stone
- Stoner by John Williams
- Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
- Talent by Tyler Cowen
- The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone
- The 50th Law by 50 Cent, Robert Greene
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
- The Argument Hangover by Aaron Freeman
- The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
- The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray
- The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston
- The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition by Charlie Mackesy
- The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott
- The Case Against Reality by Donald David Hoffman
- The Children of Men by P. D. James
- The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters
- The choice factory by Richard Shotton
- The Contact Paradox by Keith Cooper
- The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga
- The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
- The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
- The Everything Store by Brad Stone
- The Fellowship of the Ring by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Christina Scull
- The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- The Girl from the Fiction Department by Hilary Spurling
- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
- The Good Life by Robert Waldinger, Marc Schulz
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
- The History of Manners by Norbert Elias
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman
- The Lonely Century by Noreena Hertz
- The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
- The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle
- The Next 100 Years by George Friedman
- The Odyssey by Homer
- The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
- The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions by Laith Al-Shawaf
- The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho
- The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo
- The Power of Moments by Chip Heath
- The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink
- The Queen's Code by Alison A. Armstrong
- The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
- The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young
- The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne
- The Science of Sin by Jack Lewis
- The Second Adam and the New Birth, Or The Doctrine of Baptism as Contained in Holy Scripture by Michael Ferrebee Sadler
- The Secret GP by The Secret GP
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
- The Social Brain by Tracey Camilleri
- The Social Leap by William von Hippel
- The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg, Lord William Rees-Mogg
- The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
- The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray
- The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Truth about Cinderella by Martin Daly
- The Twelve Monotasks by Thatcher Wine
- Tiny Habits by Bj Fogg
- Tools And Weapons by Brad Smith
- Transport For Humans by Pete Dyson
- Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
- Undeniable by Cameron Hanes
- Unrestricted warfare by Qiao Liang, Wang Xiangsui
- Upside by Jim Rendon
- Verity by Colleen Hoover
- Welcome to the Universe in 3D by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill
- What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank
- When I Woke Up by Carolyn Coe
- Who Makes the NBA? by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
- Why? by Mario Livio
- Wild Problems by Russ Roberts
- Will by Will Smith
- Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Questions about Chris Williamson’s book recommendations
What book does Chris Williamson recommend most?
Atomic Habits by James Clear. Chris Williamson recommended it in 57 episodes, with 22 explicit recommendations.
How many books has Chris Williamson recommended on podcasts?
We have found 435 books Chris Williamson recommended or discussed, across 641 episodes of 4 podcasts. Ad reads and passing mentions are not counted.
What books are on Chris Williamson's reading list?
The books Chris Williamson has recommended most on podcasts are Atomic Habits by James Clear, The Precipice by Toby Ord, The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom and Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, William O. Perkins. The full book list below has all 435.
What did Chris Williamson recommend on Modern Wisdom?
Atomic Habits, The Precipice and The Moral Animal, among 429 books in all.
What is the latest book Chris Williamson recommended?
His Dark Materials, discussed on Modern Wisdom (2026-10-12).
People who recommend the same books
Appearances
Other mentions (249: passing, ad reads, own books), the 30 most recent
“I asked a literally an expert who wrote a book called dad brain.”
“I'm aware that a lot of this to you must be like me talking about what it's like to be Harry Potter the wizard.”
“Pro almost certainly another Rory Sutherland. Maybe David Deutsch guy that wrote the beginning of Infinity.”
“I had um Robert Wright who wrote the moral animal and why Buddhism is true had him on for his new AI book this week or last week and uh we haven't spoken for 5 years.”
“Well, we've discussed this before, but you go, "Oh, okay. JK Rowling, Harry Potter, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, William Shakespeare, Charles Darwin."”
“So you almost don't need to caveat it that if if you're the sort of person that's reading Robert Green's 48 Laws of Power and is thinking about what time they get up and tracking their Whoop scores, like you've already pre-selected.”
“That movie, The Matrix, came out 27 years ago.”
“And then you've got a book that comes out. Protocols, user manual for the human brain and body, and out for pre-sale. It comes out in September, finally.”
“So he is the world's number one lower back pain doctor and I had a ton of back pain 2017 2018.”
“I'm coming into this office filled with 18, 19, 20 year old kids and I'm going, I just learned about the David Allen getting things done.”
“So Mark Manson before he did the subtle art, he wrote Models.”
“after Fifty Shades of Gray came out and the dark romance genre really started to pick up steam, which obviously I contributed to, and there was a world where this was politically inconvenient, especially for the sort of feminist side of the the aisle because all of the guys that were being chosen to be the protagonists were highly dominant,”
“Uh at Titanic, obviously, it ends the way that it does.”
“I don't want Terminator to become a documentary. Which we might be on that trajectory.”
“If you walk into Galloway's home and you see seven habits of highly effective people, you see Power of Habit by During.”
“It's not a single thrust. It's not the psychology of money. It's not atomic habits. It's not high agency.”
“It's not a single thrust. It's not the psychology of money. It's not atomic habits. It's not high agency.”
“The Fellowship of the Ring is 3 hours 48 minutes.”
“Well, you've also got a new book which yes, people can go check out. I have a a copy of this for you. Oh, very cute. Yes, you need to Jungle Keeper, what it takes to change the world. And so this is this is the whole story.”
“This is the story of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, right?”
“So, uh Bill wrote Die with Zero. He's got a party over at his very large the most expensive house in Austin never sold actually I think up until a few years ago...”
“I remember reading in in in Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence what, a decade ago?”
“I'm like, 'You this isn't Harry Potter. Uh, you're not reading this book.'”
“By the way, we've managed to get 35 minutes in and I haven't plugged your Substack. Can everyone go and subscribe to Optimally Irrational on Substack, please? Because it is one of the best things and it is criminally undersubscribed.”
“You, you know who Sebastian Younger is? He's wrote the Brook Tribe Tribes. Um, phenomenal author.”
“Also, James Nester has been on who wrote Breath.”
“nature's very keen on was atomic habits for the 1800s. ”
“It's kind of like when I first read Harry Potter when I was a kid and I'd never I'd never heard the name Hermione read out loud.”
“Tell people about your book. Most importantly, get me dialed in. Good, good, good, good. That's all we need. Undeniable. Chris Williamson is featured Modern Wisdom because first chapter and on the back outlier. Um, yeah. Undeniable. It's available everywhere.”
“They can come to crappychildfairy.com, the website, or the YouTube channel by the name of Crappy Childhood Fairy, and the book is called Reeregulated.”



















