Person
Shaan Puri's book recommendations
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Shaan Puri appears on, in one place — not just one.
Shaan Puri’s most recommended books
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
- The Game by Neil Strauss
- How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis
- Made to stick by Chip Heath
- Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks
Shaan Puri is a podcaster and entrepreneur who hosts the My First Million podcast, where he frequently discusses and recommends books ranging from science fiction and marketing guides to historical non-fiction. He recommended Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One in passing while asking a co-host about science-fiction novels. Puri brought up W. Timothy Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis to support a conversation about visualization techniques, and he recommended David Ogilvy's Ogilvy on Advertising to a guest to help improve direct-response marketing and copywriting skills. He also mentioned reading Americana to discuss recurring fears and breakthroughs in American capitalism throughout history. Additionally, Puri recommended Chip Heath's Made to Stick as his favorite book for learning how to make ideas memorable and engaging. He brought up Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality during an interview to explore customer service strategies, and he recommended the travel book Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip to describe a journey through 1935 America.
Books recommended by Shaan Puri
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How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a classic self-help manual focused on interpersonal communication, relationship building, and effective social influence.
Discussed“So that's one of these things where you read a book like how to win friends and influence people and you're like duh that's obvious and it almost becomes a reminder and yet I'm like but how do you tactically make that switch where you say enjoy the relationships not seeking the outcome?”
Where to get it
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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“And so he read Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Workweek book about life design. Do you remember like the concept of life life design, which is like you can build any life that you want to build, you know, but you have to map out like what does my day look like?”
Where to get it
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The 48 Laws of Power
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers is a provocative guide examining the historical mechanics of influence, strategy, and social dynamics.
Discussed“First, I'm just going to read you from Robert Green who came on the podcast. Really interesting guy wrote 48 Laws of Power. Law number 25. Recreate yourself.”
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“James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, sells the feeling of self-control, a feeling that you could take control of your life. And all of his advice, no matter what the blog is about, will give you that underlying feeling of control.”
Where to get it
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Influence
Influence by Robert B.
Discussed“We discussed Robert Cialdini's Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion.”
Where to get it
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson is a popular self-help guide that uses blunt counterintuitive wisdom to help readers prioritize what truly matters in life.
Discussed“so for example Mark Manson when he came on two or three years ago he either said this on the podcast or when I was hanging out with him his book for I think it was Penguin sold 20 million copies...”
Where to get it
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The Game
The Game by Neil Strauss is a non-fiction book that investigates the secretive subculture of pickup artists and dating strategy.
Discussed“When Sean and I were 14, the game the book came out and like every 14-year-old read this book called The Game. It was about pickup artists and it like it took a whole bunch of internet nerds like us.”
Where to get it
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How to Get Rich
Felix Dennis's book How to Get Rich is a candid and unconventional guide offering pragmatic advice on building wealth from the perspective of an experienced magazine publishing mogul.
Recommended“Have you guys ever read this book called How to Get Rich? No. It's by an author called Felix Dennis. Felix Dennis, you guys have to read his book.”
Where to get it
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Made to stick
Chip Heath and Dan Heath's popular book Made to Stick explores the core principles behind why certain ideas capture the public imagination while others are quickly forgotten.
Recommended“If you want to learn more about this stuff, my favorite book on this topic is Made to Stick by Chip Heath. It's two brothers from Stanford and they do the best job of showing like five ways that you can make ideas stick with people.”
Where to get it
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Storyworthy
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks is a practical guide to storytelling written by a multi-time Moth GrandSLAM champion, offering structured exercises to help individuals find and shape compelling narratives from their daily lives.
Recommended“Worthy storyworthy is a amazing book by this like teacher guy who's like this 20 time storytelling champion of the moth storytelling I didn't I didn't even know what this thing was”
Where to get it
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The Inner Game of Tennis
The Inner Game of Tennis by W.
Recommended“the inner game of tennis talks a lot about that. Great book.”
Where to get it
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The Mom Test
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a concise startup guide that teaches entrepreneurs how to properly conduct customer interviews and validate business ideas by asking effective questions.
Discussed“so you um have you ever read this thing called the mom test”
Where to get it
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$100M Offers
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi is a business and marketing guide focused on creating and pricing irresistible offers.
Discussed“So the first one was this is what this is kind of book one. So this is you know your $100 million offers book.”
Where to get it
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Zero to One
Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters is a prominent business and technology book that challenges conventional startup thinking.
Discussed“And then I read Peter Teal's book, um what's it called? Um 0ero to one. 0ero to1.”
Where to get it
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Living with a SEAL
Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler chronicles the author's thirty-day experience inviting an intense Navy SEAL, later identified as David Goggins, to live with him and completely overhaul his physical and mental limits.
Discussed“I read your book. Uh the real The day I got really into you is when I read Living with a Seal, which is the story of you living with uh David Goggins for 30 days.”
Where to get it
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Grit
Grit by Angela Duckworth is a popular exploration of passion, perseverance, and the long-term pursuit of difficult goals.
Discussed“You there's this cool book called Grit. We talked about it a ton here on this podcast and you cite it a bunch.”
Where to get it
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The Boron Letters
The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert and Bond Halbert is a classic work on copywriting, featuring letters written by a prominent copywriter to his son from a federal prison in Boron.
Recommended“have you ever read the Boron letters years ago okay so this is uh mustre yeah uh copyrighting”
Where to get it
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Hooked
Hooked by Nir Eyal is a practical framework for product designers and entrepreneurs on how to build habit-forming technology by understanding user psychology and engagement loops.
Discussed“Nir Eyal, same thing when he wrote his book Hooked. Same thing, he's like, 'I first was just giving a talk somewhere. To give the talk, I had to sharpen up my thoughts. By the end of that, I was like, [ __ ] there's something to this.'”
Where to get it
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American Kingpin
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton is a true-crime non-fiction book that details the rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht and his dark web marketplace, the Silk Road.
Discussed“Sam has been telling me about a book for probably 10 years in a row and I finally got around to reading it this year and the book is American kingpen”
Where to get it
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Mastery
Mastery by Robert Greene is a non-fiction book that explores the paths to achieving high-level expertise through historical examples and psychological insights.
Discussed“Not just because of your book, but like one of my favorite books is Mastery by Robert Greene. Yes.”
Where to get it
- The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray
- Rework by Jason Fried
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Titan by Ron Chernow
- Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- Die with Zero by Bill Perkins
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
- The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
- The Terminal List by Jack Carr
- Principles by Ray Dalio
- On Writing by Stephen King
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
- Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
- Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam
- Buffett: the Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner
- Traction by Gino Wickman
- Bible by Bible
- Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich
- Eat this, not that by David Zinczenko
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
Questions about Shaan Puri’s book recommendations
What book does Shaan Puri recommend most?
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Shaan Puri recommended it in 12 episodes.
How many books has Shaan Puri recommended on podcasts?
We have found 217 books Shaan Puri recommended or discussed, across 242 episodes of 3 podcasts. Ad reads and passing mentions are not counted.
What books are on Shaan Puri's reading list?
The books Shaan Puri has recommended most on podcasts are How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Atomic Habits by James Clear and Influence by Robert B. Cialdini. The year-by-year lists below have all 217.
What did Shaan Puri recommend on My First Million?
How to Win Friends and Influence People, The 4-Hour Workweek and The 48 Laws of Power, among 215 books in all.
What is the latest book Shaan Puri recommended?
Ender's Game, recommended on My First Million (2026-10-23).
People who recommend the same books
Shaan Puri’s latest episodes with books
Shaan Puri’s book recommendations by year
All 217 books Shaan Puri recommended or discussed across 242 episodes, filed by the year each episode came out. Each year goes episode by episode, with the minute every book came up.