Person
Every book Debbie Millman recommended on podcasts
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Debbie Millman appears on, in one place — not just one.
Debbie Millman’s most recommended books
- Hunger by Roxane Gay
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
- Revolutionary road by Richard Yates
- The Voice That Is Great Within Us by Hayden Carruth
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper by Stephen J. Dubner
- Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Debbie Millman is an American writer, educator, artist, curator, and designer who is best known as the host of the Design Matters. She is the chair and co-founder of the Masters in Branding at the School of Visual Arts, and President Emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). In 2024, Millman was appointed an Executive Fellow at the Harvard Business School. On podcasts, she shared several book recommendations. She highlighted Hayden Carruth's poetry collection The Voice That Is Great Within Us, Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera, and James Joyce's Ulysses as favorites. She also recommended Roxane Gay's Hunger after falling in love with the author's words, and Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road to explain her hesitance to change her career path. Finally, she cited Chanel Miller's memoir Know My Name and Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance as books that provided her with courage and hope, and discussed Stephen J. Dubner's Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper.
Books recommended by Debbie Millman
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Hunger
Hunger is a powerful and deeply personal memoir by Roxane Gay that explores body image, trauma, food, and self-acceptance in a society that marginalizes those who do not fit conventional physical standards.
Recommended“but more recently in 2017 I started reading a book called Hunger by Roxane Gay and when I read that book I fell in love with the author sight unseen just reading her words so much so that I reached out to her I wanted to get her on my podcast she said no I tried to stay in touch”
Where to get it
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Know My Name
Know My Name by Chanel Miller is a powerful memoir detailing the author's harrowing experience with sexual assault, the subsequent trial, and her journey toward reclaiming her identity and voice.
Recommended“chanel miller's book know my name eve ensler's written a bunch of books that have been extraordinarily helpful in the body of the world”
Where to get it
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Love in the Time of Cholera
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez is a celebrated novel that explores lifelong devotion, aging, and the many facets of romance across decades in a Caribbean setting.
Recommended“number two is what I think is one of the greatest love stories of all time it's a book written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called Love in the time of cholera which has the greatest last line of all time in a book and so you have to read it all the way through before you get to that”
Where to get it
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Radical Acceptance
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach is a widely praised self-help and psychology book that integrates Buddhist mindfulness teachings with Western psychotherapy to help readers overcome self-doubt, shame, and emotional suffering.
Recommended“radical acceptance yeah tara brock's story also um really have given me courage and hope”
Where to get it
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Revolutionary road
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates is a powerful and tragic novel that examines the deep disillusionment of a young couple living in the Connecticut suburbs during the 1950s as they struggle against the conformity and suffocating emptiness of mid-century American life.
Recommended“and the last thing I wanted was to end up like the characters in Revolutionary Road that remarkable book where people talk about making these changes their whole lives and then never ever do”
Where to get it
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The Voice That Is Great Within Us
The Voice That Is Great Within Us is an expansive and celebrated anthology of twentieth-century American poetry compiled and edited by Hayden Carruth.
Recommended“number one it's a book of poetry called The Voice That Is Great Within Us it's by Hayden Carruth and it is a remarkable collection of 20th century poetry that's where I first became aware of my favorite poem of all time which is a poem by Charles Olson called Maximus to himself P.S. I name my dog Maximus that's”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
James Joyce's landmark modernist novel Ulysses chronicles an ordinary day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, mapping human consciousness and daily existence through a revolutionary stream-of-consciousness technique.
Recommended“and then my third book is a book that I hope one day to be able to do a visual version of I fell in love with this book in college it's James Joyce's Ulysses I even went to Ireland for Blooms Day which is the day that the day in the life of Leopold Bloom that James Joyce wrote”
Where to get it
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Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper
Discussed“In in your book about the experience, Confessions of a Hero worshipper, you write, "I came looking for a savior, but what I found was a man."”
Where to get it
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Freakonomics
Freakonomics by Steven D.
Discussed“freconomics, a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything was published in April of 2005.”
Where to get it
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Superfreakonomics
Superfreakonomics by Steven D.
Discussed“If that isn't enough, the freconomics universe expanded with the subsequent publication of Super Freconomics in 2009,”
Where to get it
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Think Like a Freak
Think Like a Freak by Steven D.
Discussed“Think Like a Freak in 2014, and When to Rob a Bank in 2015.”
Where to get it
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When to Rob a Bank
Discussed“Think Like a Freak in 2014, and When to Rob a Bank in 2015.”
Where to get it
Books Debbie Millman wrote
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is the World Getting Uglier? | The Ezra Klein Show | 2026-10-02 | 4 |
| A Question-Asker Becomes a Question-Answerer | Freakonomics Radio | 2025-10-17 | 5 |
| #750: Neil Gaiman and Debbie Millman | The Tim Ferriss Show | 2024-06-27 | 1 |
| #464: Tim Ferriss — My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse | The Tim Ferriss Show | 2020-09-15 | 2 |
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“Writing my most recent book, it's a visual book, so I drew and wrote at the same time. my love letter to a garden.”
“we were going to give out this little brochure that Armen had put together called called stop being sheep which was a riff on the great typographer Eric speaker's book stop stealing sheep which is about letter spacing”