Person
Every book James Marriott recommended on podcasts
Key facts
- James Marriott has recommended or discussed 20 books on podcasts, as of October 8, 2026.
- James Marriott has talked about books on 2 podcasts, as of October 8, 2026.
- Those books came up in 2 episodes, as of October 8, 2026.
- The 3 books James Marriott has mentioned in the most episodes, as of October 8, 2026: Breathing Lessons, Samuel Pepys and Sum.
- The latest episode with a book mention from James Marriott aired on October 8, 2026.
Updated
Across 2 podcasts. Every show James Marriott appears on, in one place, not just one.
James Marriott’s most recommended books
- Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
- Samuel Pepys by Claire Tomalin
- Sum by David Eagleman
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
- The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown
- The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich
- The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown
- The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig
- What Good Are the Arts? by John Carey
James Marriott is a writer and journalist. During an appearance on EconTalk, Marriott shared an extensive list of reading recommendations spanning fiction, history, and anthropology. He highlighted David Eagleman's book Sum as a short, lovely, and thought-provoking work that he frequently gives away to others. For holiday reading, Marriott recommended Jonathan Franzen's novel The Corrections, noting that no reader has ever regretted taking it on holiday, as well as Anne Tyler's beautiful short novel Breathing Lessons and Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. Shifting toward anthropology and history, Marriott pointed to Joseph Henrich's The WEIRDest People in the World as a formative text that radically transformed his thinking about human psychology and culture. He also recommended Peter Brown's slim volume The World of Late Antiquity as an ideal entry point for studying the period, alongside Brown's longer companion work, The Rise of Western Christendom. Finally, Marriott praised Claire Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys, describing the book as an utterly charming work that provides an engaging look at its subject.
Books James Marriott recommended or discussed
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Breathing Lessons
Recommended“Beautiful little novel called Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler. Highly recommend.”
Where to get it
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Samuel Pepys
Recommended“The book to read by her in my opinion is her biograph her biography of Samuel Peeps which is just an utterly charming book.”
Where to get it
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Sum
Recommended“So, the book I give away pretty often now is Sum by David Eagleman. And if you're at home listening and you haven't read Sum, it's short and lovely and thoughtprovoking and quite extraordinary.”
Where to get it
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The Corrections
Recommended“uh The Corrections by Jonathan Franson is on it. Okay. Nobody's ever regretted taking that book on hold in my experience.”
Where to get it
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The Line of Beauty
Recommended“uh I always put The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst on that list.”
Where to get it
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The Rise of Western Christendom
Recommended“And uh he's got an even he's got an even longer book which is maybe if you if you love the world of late antiquity called the rise of western christryendom which takes the same period again.”
Where to get it
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The WEIRDest People in the World
Recommended“A book called The Weirdest People in the World by Joseph Henrik, who is an anthropologist and a psychologist, really transformed the way that I think about people”
Where to get it
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The World of Late Antiquity
Recommended“Peter Brown I think the book to start with is a book called The World of Late Antiquity. quite a slim book”
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The World of Yesterday
Recommended“Uh I love his memoir uh the world of yesterday. That's a really wonderful book.”
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What Good Are the Arts?
Recommended“That's from a wonderful book uh that he wrote called What Good Are the Arts, which is”
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A History of Reading
Discussed“And I picked up us a book uh from a shelf called A History of Reading by Alberto Manuel, which is just a lovely book about the history of reading.”
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Amusing Ourselves to Death
Discussed“The famous one book that made an enormous impact on me when I first read it was Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to death about the move of America from a textual print culture to a TV culture.”
Where to get it
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Beowulf
Discussed“It's not like we're going to go back to oral poems and beaywolf and the Iliad and uh you know strumming our strumming our lies and singing our our epic songs and all those things that were such important features of of oral culture.”
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Bleak House
Discussed“I had to speedread Blee House and Middle March in a week um to write an essay in my first week of of the first year.”
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Bowling Alone
Discussed“there's a remarkable statistic quoted by uh Robert Putnham in his book Bowling Alone about how I think it's between the 60s and the '90s the average American gained hours of free time and they spent virtually all of it watching television.”
Where to get it
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Middlemarch
Discussed“I had to speedread Blee House and Middle March in a week um to write an essay in my first week of of the first year.”
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Paradise Lost
Discussed“One of my great my great hubistic moment at university was trying to speed read Paradise Lost, which is even even even more mad.”
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Seiobo There Below
Discussed“The book I've given away the most recent in recent years uh is Siobbo there below by Lo Kra Horai the Hungarian novelist.”
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The Iliad
Discussed“It's not like we're going to go back to oral poems and beaywolf and the Iliad and uh you know strumming our strumming our lies and singing our our epic songs and all those things that were such important features of of oral culture.”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
Discussed“Uh yes, I think academics are finding that for instance, they've spent their whole career assigning books like Middle March and Ulyses and they're having to stop because the the kids just can't get through them anymore.”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages | Interesting Times | Interesting Times | 2026-10-08 | 11 |
| James Marriott on Reading | EconTalk | 2025-07-21 | 12 |
Other mentions (1: passing, ad reads, own books)
Passing The Fatal Conceit
“similarly, I used to give away The Fatal Conceit by FA Hayek a lot. Uh, it'sund I think 113 I think it's 113 pages.”