Person
Nick Bilton's book recommendations
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Nick Bilton appears on, in one place — not just one.
Nicholas Bilton is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He was named executive producer of 60 Minutes on 28 May 2026. He has also been a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, author of two New York Times-bestselling books, and a screenwriter. He worked at the Times for 13 years, then at Vanity Fair for 10. On an episode of How I Write, Nick Bilton recommended a screenwriting book titled Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder to explain how to approach storytelling in a character-driven and cinematic way. During an appearance on My First Million, Bilton discussed Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude to highlight the immense amount of research required for great novels, and he reflected on his own research process for his book Hatching Twitter, detailing the backstories of the founders and the efforts to track down information. Additionally, Bilton discussed Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea to illustrate the use of repetition in writing, and he mentioned Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist when recounting a conversation about the longevity of bestsellers.
Books recommended by Nick Bilton
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Hatching Twitter
Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton provides a dramatic behind-the-scenes account of the conflicts, leadership struggles, and early founding days of the popular social media platform.
Discussed“and I wrote the Twitter book which which we can talk about and this incredible backstories to that that um and uh of people trying to kill the project and so on and so forth”
Where to get it
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Save the cat!
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder is a foundational screenwriting guide that breaks down storytelling into clear structural frameworks, beats, and specific page-number milestones.
Recommended“So, learning all of that and like reading books like there's a great book on screenwriting called Kill the Save the Cat.”
Where to get it
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is a landmark novel that chronicles the multi-generational history of the Buendía family in the fictional town of Macondo and stands as a masterwork of magical realism.
Discussed“the amount of research that people like Gabriel Garcia mer C put into 100 Years of Solitude and like into chest it's like when you read these they they're not telling you all this they're just telling you a story”
Where to get it
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The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a celebrated philosophical novel that follows a young Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago on his journey across the desert in search of treasure, ultimately discovering a message about listening to one's heart and pursuing personal destiny.
Discussed“And I I went and was talking to him and I was like, "How does it feel to know that like your book The Alchemist has been on the New York Times best seller list for like 15 years, you know?"”
Where to get it
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The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea is a classic novella by Ernest Hemingway about an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
Discussed“He's Hemingway. But what he does is like pick up The Old Man and the Sea. He says old man and sea and blue and boat like 10 times.”
Where to get it
Books by Nick Bilton
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| We talk to the guy who knows Silicon Valley’s darkest secrets | My First Million | 2025-02-26 | 4 |
| The Secret to Storytelling? | How I Write | 2024-09-11 | 3 |
Other mentions (4: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I mean I wrote the book on Twitter and one of the greatest quotes someone gave me was um the greatest brand sorry the greatest product that Jack Dorsey ever made was Jack Dorsey and I think that sums up a lot of these people in Silicon Valley.”
“And I think that, you know, like Jack Dorsey is a perfect example because Jack, if you as I researched with the book, um he changed the story of how Twitter was founded hundreds of times quite literally.”
“And um and it's what's crazy is you know I wrote in hatching Twitter this was a white box on a screen that you could type 140 characters into.”
“When I wrote American Kingpin, there was no AI. So, what I would do is I I did like I had an Excel spreadsheet that like had all the dates and the times and everything, but I would have to remember what to search for.”