Person
Seth Godin's book recommendations
Across 4 podcasts. Every show Seth Godin appears on, in one place — not just one.
Seth Godin’s most recommended books
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
- B by Sarah Kay
- Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Just Kids by Patti Smith
- Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play by Mahan Khalsa
- Long Tail by Chris Anderson
- Rebel without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez
- Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar
- See You at the Top by Zig Ziglar
- Song of Increase by Jacqueline Freeman
Seth Godin, an American author, marketing expert, entrepreneur, and a former dot-com business executive, appeared on podcasts such as The Tim Ferriss Show and Conversations with Tyler to recommend and discuss various titles. On The Tim Ferriss Show, Godin recommended Robert Rodriguez's Rebel without a Crew to illustrate a creative approach to resource constraints, and he praised Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, noting that it completely upended his worldview and inspired his own project, The Carbon Almanac. He also brought up Ben H. Winters's The Last Policeman for its concept regarding living with impending doom and mentioned Jacqueline Freeman's Song of Increase during a story about beekeeping. On Conversations with Tyler, Godin called Patti Smith's Just Kids the best audiobook ever recorded as an example of an artistic journey. When discussing how he learned to cook, he mentioned Chris Schlesinger's The Thrill of the Grill alongside foundational culinary books like Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef, works by Alice Waters, and baking books by Daniel Leader. Finally, he recommended Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig's Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play to explain effective B2B sales approaches.
Books recommended by Seth Godin
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The 4-Hour Workweek
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss is a lifestyle design manual that encourages readers to rethink traditional employment, automate income streams, and reclaim ownership of their time.
Discussed“same thing's true with the 4-Hour Work Week same thing's true with permission marketing right that if you read the first three chapters of permission marketing you know what it's about”
Where to get it
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B
B by Sarah Kay is a celebrated spoken word poem that captures the profound emotional bond and protective love between a mother and her daughter.
Recommended“it's a poem called B and it's by Sarah Kay the one and only Sarah K spoken word maestro”
Where to get it
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Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A.
Recommended“the second one also based on a curve is crossing the chasm by Jeff Moore there are many editions of this book I like the older editions but that's just cause I'm a Boomer”
Where to get it
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Just Kids
Just Kids by Patti Smith is a celebrated memoir chronicling the author's profound artistic relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during their youth in New York City and the Chelsea Hotel.
Recommended“The best audio book ever recorded is Just Kids by Patti Smith.”
Where to get it
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Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play
Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play by Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig is a comprehensive guide that redefines traditional business-to-business sales through integrity and authenticity.
Recommended“Mahan Khalsa has written a book called Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play about B2B selling. But the lesson of Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play is simple.”
Where to get it
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Long Tail
Long Tail by Chris Anderson is an influential business and economic text exploring how the internet and digital distribution channels allow companies to thrive by selling large quantities of niche items in low volumes rather than just a few blockbuster hits.
Recommended“and this is one of them the long tale by Chris Anderson you may have heard about it but you probably haven't read the book as closely as you might if you care about how ideas spread in our culture and you want to understand issues around scarcity and abundance”
Where to get it
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Rebel without a Crew
Rebel without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez is an influential filmmaking memoir that details how the director shot his ultra-low-budget feature film El Mariachi for just seven thousand dollars.
Recommended“yeah there's an amazing story people can check it out in a book called a rebel without a crew by by Robert Rodriguez”
Where to get it
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Secrets of Closing the Sale
Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar and Kevin Harrington is a classic sales and motivational manual packed with timeless strategies for closing deals.
Recommended“The stories in the book Secrets of Closing the Sale are gold.”
Where to get it
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See You at the Top
See You at the Top by Zig Ziglar is a classic motivational book centered on the power of positive thinking, goal setting, and salesmanship.
Recommended“And his original classic See You at the Top, also filled with stories.”
Where to get it
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Song of Increase
Song of Increase by Jacqueline Freeman is an insightful book that explores the profound world of bees, beekeeping, and natural apiculture through a spiritual lens.
Recommended“And he started talking to me about the bees, and he told me the story of Jacqueline Freeman's Song of Increase. And The Song of Increase is just such a great Tim Ferriss story.”
Where to get it
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The Blue Sweater
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World is a memoir by Jacqueline Novogratz that chronicles her journey from international banking to founding the pioneering venture philanthropy organization Acumen, using the true story of a childhood sweater to explore global capitalism and empathy.
Recommended“the book is the blue sweater her next book is coming out early 2020 I hope you'll look for it the blue sweater is the true story of how one woman has decided to change philanthropy capitalism development”
Where to get it
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The Gift
The Gift by Lewis Hyde is a classic exploration of the creative spirit, examining how artistic creation functions as a gift economy rather than a market-driven commercial enterprise.
Recommended“the gift by Lewis Hyde we gave the gift to many of the first thousand or 2,000 people who took the author MBA the gift is a dense extraordinarily researched book written by a brilliant writer”
Where to get it
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The Last Policeman
The Last Policeman by Ben H.
Recommended“And there's a great book that I loved called The Last Policeman. I'm not sure I'd say it's a great book. It's a great concept, and I really loved reading it.”
Where to get it
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The Ministry for the Future
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is a gripping speculative science fiction novel that chronicles a near-future world grappling with the escalating and devastating consequences of climate change through the efforts of a newly established UN subsidiary.
Recommended“I read the magnificent Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, and it completely upended the way I saw the world.”
Where to get it
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The Pursuit of Wow!
The Pursuit of Wow! by Tom Peters is a high-energy business and management book published in 1994 that urges professionals and organizations to embrace radical innovation, passionate leadership, and customer-centric excellence in a rapidly changing marketplace.
Recommended“it's called the pursuit of Wow from 1994 I met Tom in 84 right after in search of excellence came out it was just a random connection but ever since then I have been inspired and amazed by his energy and by his passion and this book captures so much of it”
Where to get it
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The thrill of the grill
The Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby is a popular cookbook focused on outdoor cooking, bold flavors, and grilling techniques.
Recommended“Um so for me, cooking changed when my wife uh got me a cooking class with Chris Schlesinger who wrote the book Thrill of the Grill.”
Where to get it
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Think Like a Chef
Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio is a culinary guide that teaches home cooks how to master techniques and flavor profiles rather than merely following rigid recipes.
Recommended“But after that I bought a few foundational books, Think Like a Chef, some books from Alice Waters, uh Daniel Leader's groundbreaking books on baking.”
Where to get it
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Thinking in Bets
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke is a popular nonfiction book that explores decision-making, probability, and how to evaluate choices objectively despite uncertain outcomes.
Recommended“and the third strategy book is called thinking in bets by Annie Duke yes that Annie Duke World Poker champion and the first chapter alone will change your life”
Where to get it
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What Technology Wants
What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly is a philosophical exploration of technology as a vast, self-sustaining living system that evolves alongside humanity with its own inherent trajectory and drives.
Recommended“and you know kevin kelly's book what technology wants is a must read it will change the way you see so many of these issues”
Where to get it
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Atomic Habits
Atomic Habits by James Clear is a widely acclaimed guide on habit formation, personal development, and how minor incremental adjustments yield substantial long-term results.
Discussed“and James did a great job with atomic habits but I will be delighted to wager that many people didn't read the whole thing”
Where to get it
The other 8 books Seth Godin recommended or discussed, ranked
- Don Juan's Reckless Daughter by Joni Mitchell
- Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
- The Practice by Seth Godin
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Wabi-sabi by Leonard Koren
Books by Seth Godin
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Purple Cow
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The Dip
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Show me language books
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Small Is the New Big
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Unleashing the Ideavirus
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Free Prize Inside
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Meatball Sundae
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Permission Marketing
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All marketers are liars
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We Are All Weird
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Poke the box
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Survival Is Not Enough
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Carbon Almanac
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Wisdom, inc
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If You're Clueless About the Stock Market and Want to Know More
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The Big Red Fez
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This Is Strategy
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The Song of Significance
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The Practice
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This Is Marketing
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Linchpin
Questions about Seth Godin’s book recommendations
What book does Seth Godin recommend most?
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. Seth Godin discussed it in 2 episodes.
How many books has Seth Godin recommended on podcasts?
We have found 28 books Seth Godin recommended or discussed, across 7 episodes of 4 podcasts. Ad reads and passing mentions are not counted.
What books are on Seth Godin's reading list?
The books Seth Godin has recommended most on podcasts are The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, B by Sarah Kay, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore, Just Kids by Patti Smith and Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play by Mahan Khalsa. The full book list below has all 28.
What books has Seth Godin written?
Show me language books (1990), Wisdom, inc (1995), If You're Clueless About the Stock Market and Want to Know More (1997), Permission Marketing (1999), Unleashing the Ideavirus (2000), Purple Cow (2002), Survival Is Not Enough (2002), The Big Red Fez (2002), Free Prize Inside (2004) and All marketers are liars (2005), among 21 in all.
What did Seth Godin recommend on The Tim Ferriss Show?
The 4-Hour Workweek, B and Crossing the Chasm, among 17 books in all.
What is the latest book Seth Godin recommended?
Rebel without a Crew, recommended on The Tim Ferriss Show (2025-01-29).
People who recommend the same books
Appearances
Other mentions (17: passing, ad reads, own books)
“And so I spent two years organizing the carbon almanac with 1900 co-authors, full-time volunteer work for me.”
“So I wrote the first book about quitting. It's called The Dip and I was amazed at how many people felt like it touched them.”
“I'm never going to write a story a book called This is God the tactic Monger volume one right exactly so if I'm not going to write this is God or this is tactics at least I could write this is strategy”
“same thing's true with the 4-Hour Work Week same thing's true with permission marketing right that if you read the first three chapters of permission marketing you know what it's about”
“and in the case of permission marketing I wrote a book but it turned into a hundred billion dollar year industry right that MailChimp and HubSpot and all the others they were built around the idea in that book”
“And that's what the book is about, significance, the search for meaning.”
“Um for a long time my best dish was my crispy tofu, which I put in the footnotes of my book Survival Is Not Enough cuz I needed the world to know about my crispy tofu recipe.”
“I wrote Permission Marketing, which invented the business of email marketing, and I wrote a book called Purple Cow, but I don't need to write books.”
“I wrote Permission Marketing, which invented the business of email marketing, and I wrote a book called Purple Cow, but I don't need to write books.”
“or the other thing is i could be someone that a thousand people would really miss if i were gone and as kevin kelly has pointed out a thousand true fans let you do your work”
“and so i wrote a book about this process of shipping creative work and it counters so many of the myths that people have about”
“And so i wrote a book about this process of shipping creative work and it counters so many of the myths that people have about what does it mean to even be creative”
“you know i discovered the war of art 10 years ago when i was writing linchpin i can't believe no one told me about it beforehand”
“I met Tom in 84 right after in search of excellence came out”
“and what I write about in this is marketing is most marketers say I have a key”
“All of them because if you're going to write to kill a mockingbird or Harry Potter a lot of people are gonna read it”
“All of them because if you're going to write to kill a mockingbird or Harry Potter a lot of people are gonna read it”