Person
Every book Rory Sutherland recommended on podcasts
Across 4 podcasts. Every show Rory Sutherland appears on, in one place — not just one.
Rory Sutherland’s most recommended books
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
- Branding That Means Business by Matt Johnson
- Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund
- How To Become An Advertising Man by James Webb Young
- Inheritocracy by Eliza Filby
- Obvious Adams by Robert R. Updegraff
- Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
- Slowdown by Danny Dorling
- The choice factory by Richard Shotton
- The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton
Rory Sutherland discussed a wide variety of influential marketing, business, and psychology books across his podcast appearances. On My First Million and Modern Wisdom, he recommended Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality, noting that it offered a fantastic look at the former head of Eleven Madison Park and illustrated the concept of reverse benchmarking by focusing on neglected metrics such as coffee and beer at a Michelin-star restaurant. He also recommended Robert R. Updegraff's Obvious Adams as a quick, valuable read on business problem-solving, Claude Hopkins's Scientific Advertising as a foundational work, and James Webb Young's How To Become An Advertising Man to help listeners understand copywriting and advertising. Additionally, Sutherland praised Richard Shotton's The Choice Factory and The Illusion of Choice for their insights into behavioral science and counterintuitive psychology. Finally, while discussing wealth inequality and inheritance, he recommended Eliza Filby's book The Inheritocracy, encouraging the host to invite her on the show for an interview.
Books recommended by Rory Sutherland
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Unreasonable Hospitality
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara is a celebrated business and leadership book that details how extraordinary, personalized service can transform a great organization into an unforgettable experience.
Recommended“Now, I first came across this in Will Guidara's fantastic book Unreasonable Hospitality.”
Where to get it
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Alchemy
Alchemy by Rory Sutherland is an insightful examination of behavioral economics and the psychological quirks that drive human decision-making in business and everyday life.
Discussed“I know his name I've been told to interview but he crops up in the book because I'd always have this vague hunch that things like son cost bias and indeed loss aversion under certain circumstances couldn't really be described as a bias”
Where to get it
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Branding That Means Business
Branding That Means Business by Matt Johnson and Tessa Misiaszek is a business strategy book that combines neuroscience and marketing principles to explain how iconic brands successfully build deep emotional connections with consumers.
Recommended“I think it's Matt Johnson who's just written a book called um uh brands that mean business and his wonderful line is having a great brand means you get to play the game of capital m in Easy Mode”
Where to get it
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Factfulness
Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund is an eye-opening examination of global health, societal progress, and humanity's inherent misconceptions about the state of the world.
Recommended“two good books i'll recommend to your listeners factfulness by hans rosling”
Where to get it
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How To Become An Advertising Man
How To Become An Advertising Man by James Webb Young is a classic guide on the principles of copywriting and the advertising industry written by a veteran of the agency J.
Recommended“There's a book called How to Become an Advertising Man by James Webb Young, who was at J. Walter Thompson in Chicago for many years.”
Where to get it
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Inheritocracy
Inheritocracy by Eliza Filby is a book that examines the growing social and economic implications of wealth inheritance and generational inequality in modern society.
Recommended“So, there's this great book, you must get her on called The Inheritocracy. ”
Where to get it
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Obvious Adams
Obvious Adams by Robert R.
Recommended“Obvious Adams, Robert Updegraff, published in 1960.”
Where to get it
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Scientific Advertising
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins is a classic business text that treats advertising as an exact, measurable science rooted in consumer behavior and empirical testing.
Recommended“Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins, for example.”
Where to get it
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Slowdown
Slowdown by Danny Dorling is a thought-provoking nonfiction book that examines contemporary global population trends, economic growth, and the deceleration of societal expansion across the modern world.
Recommended“and there's another book called the great slowdown by danny dawling who's an oxford professor of geography who makes the point that actually most things in the world are either shrinking or the speed at which they're growing is shrinking”
Where to get it
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The choice factory
Richard Shotton's popular book explores behavioral science and counterintuitive psychology in marketing.
Recommended“Richard Shotton has written some superb books called, for example, The Choice Factory or The Illusion of Choice.”
Where to get it
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The Illusion of Choice
The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton is a compelling exploration of behavioral science that reveals the hidden psychological biases and cognitive shortcuts governing consumer decision-making.
Recommended“Richard Shotton has written some superb books called, for example, The Choice Factory or The Illusion of Choice.”
Where to get it
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The Silo Effect
The Silo Effect by Gillian Tett is an examination of how organizational divisions and insular thinking hinder communication and problem-solving across various institutions.
Recommended“and it's very similar to you know the the phenomenon that Jillian T spotted um I don't know if you read the silo effect have you had Jillian on the show”
Where to get it
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Blood, brains & beer
Critiqued“if you read his books one of his books is terrible weirdly which I think it's called blood brains and beer it's his autobiography”
Where to get it
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Microserfs
Discussed“it was interesting that given the fact that the whole promise of the internet really I mean I think this is in a Douglas Copeland book called microserfs where one of the Geeks features in this Douglas Copeland book it was written in the '90s I think but he makes a very interesting comment which is the whole purpose of”
Where to get it
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The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century
Discussed“it's only a small passage in John K's book The Corporation of the 21st century which is his attack largely the whole book is an attack on the idea of the shareholder value movement”
Where to get it
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The Game
The Game by Neil Strauss is a non-fiction book that explores the secretive underworld of pickup artistry and social dynamics.
Discussed“I don't know if you've read The Rules by um I think I think it's called The Game by Neil Strauss, actually, about the pickup artist community. It's quite an interesting book.”
Where to get it
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The Naked Jape
Discussed“Jimmy Carr actually wrote that co-wrote that book with Lucy Greaves the naked jape which is a absolutely fascinating kind of Investigation into the The evolutionary origins of comedy”
Where to get it
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The Status Game
The Status Game by Will Storr is a psychology and sociology book that explores how the universal human drive for social status dictates human behavior, interaction, and culture.
Discussed“and you've obviously read I you probably interviewed the author of the status game have you st yeah yeah which is a fascinating book”
Where to get it
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The Trading Game
The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson is a financial memoir detailing the author's rise as Citibank's most profitable interest-rate trader and his subsequent disillusionment with extreme global wealth inequality.
Discussed“Now one thing I thought was extraordinarily interesting as an idea is you you know that chap who who was it who wrote the trading game Gary St Gary Stevenson he makes a very valid Point okay whatever whatever else you think which is that nearly all economic models use single representative agents to populate the models which is they”
Where to get it
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Thermal Dissociation of Spent Photofinishing Liquids Using a Plasma Torch
Discussed“One of the great predictions made in evolutionary psychology ”
Where to get it
The other 1 book Rory Sutherland recommended or discussed, ranked
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Books Rory Sutherland wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (8: passing, ad reads, own books)
“Alchemy I call my book because you can turn lead into gold.”
“There's a wonderful story I always tell, which is Richard Thaler, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and behavioral economist, the author of Nudge.”
“if you think the reason I wrote the book Alchemy is partly to elevate the status and centrality of marketing in business success that actually what you are is effectively a product of how you make people feel”
“and this is why you know I wrote the book Alchemy partly saying we have a kind of culture in business particularly in the finance function of business which does which refuses to believe in magic”
“okay so the book's coming out on thursday it's being launched on on thursday and it's called a transport for humans”
“it's called transport for humans it's pete dyson and rory sutherland are the authors the subtitle is um are we nearly there yet”
“but the one i don't understand is why is the ghosts of biggin hill by bob ogle who's a local seven oaks historian by the way”
“it's called alchemy the surprising power of ideas that don't make sense and it's basically a plea for the world to abandon this need that everything needs a rational justification before we try it in the real world”