Podcast
Russ Roberts's book list: the books mentioned on EconTalk
Books from the latest episodes
Most recommended on EconTalk
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The Theory of Moral Sentiments
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently discussed Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments with various guests, using the text to explore concepts such as the human desire to be loved and lovely, the dignity of indigenous peoples, consumerism and gadgets, and human psychology regarding political leaders. Roberts also reflected on recording bonus episodes about the book with Dan Klein.
Discussed“And Smith in the theory of moral sentiments when he wrote that meant us by loved, he didn't mean just romantic love.”
Where to get it
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The Odyssey
Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles, was frequently discussed on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and guest Dana Gioia between 2020 and 2023. Gioia praised the epic poem for its narrative mastery and universal portrayal of human experiences. Roberts repeatedly mentioned the work in university curriculum discussions, used it to explore themes of hospitality, and referenced it to argue that summaries or comic book adaptations cannot replace deep engagement with foundational texts.
Discussed“you mention in the book a wonderful story from a book we we talk about occasionally on Eon talk The Odyssey by Homer and you talk about uh the story of umus and odsis”
Where to get it
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The Wealth of Nations
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and various guests frequently referenced Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations to explore classical economic principles. Tyler Cowen recommended reading specific sections of the book, while Mike Munger utilized the famous pin factory example and chapter three to discuss the division of labor. Other guests, including Doug Irwin and Scott Sumner, alongside Roberts, examined Smith's insights on individual choice, self-interest, the impartial spectator, and the accurate measurement of national wealth.
Discussed“Variations on the noun choice or verb choose occur 48 times in the wealth of nations usually referring to individual choice. Smith mentions consent 24 times.”
Where to get it
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The Iliad
Homer's classic epic The Iliad was discussed across several episodes of EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and various guests. The speakers explored the text in the context of education, liberal arts discussions, the brutal realities of war that young cadets must confront, and how ancient Greek literature helped unite elites across the Mediterranean.
Discussed“like you know it would be very hard to remember 100 lines of nonsense but like underlines of The Iliad is quite doable”
Where to get it
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Capitalism and freedom
Milton Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom was discussed and recommended across multiple episodes of EconTalk. Host Russ Roberts recommended the book to listeners, calling it a great and readable text that lays out Friedman's radical policy arguments, and cited it in discussions regarding floating exchange rates. Guest Michael Munger noted Friedman's work on the book during a historical conference, Tyler Cowen discussed its popular appeal compared to Free to Choose, Jennifer Burns noted how many policy proposals originated from its logic, and Robert Chitester contrasted its accessibility with Free to Choose.
Discussed“with Milton fredman who was working on capitalism and freedom and Leone was working on his major book what turned out to be really his only major book Freedom in the law which was published in 1961”
Where to get it
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The Three Languages of Politics
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently recommended Arnold Kling's book The Three Languages of Politics, describing it as a work that fundamentally altered his perspective on political discourse. Across multiple episodes, including discussions with guests like James Marriott and Arnold Kling himself, Roberts praised the book for explaining how political disagreements stem from different worldviews rather than mere facts, while humorously noting that it takes the fun out of disliking political opponents.
Recommended“uh the three languages of politics by Arnold Kling which we've had at least three two or three episodes about it on this program is a book that changed the way I think about politics”
Where to get it
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A Time to Build
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and various guests, including Vinay Prasad and Martin Gurri, frequently referenced Yuval Levin's book, "A Time to Build." Roberts and his guests used Levin's framework to discuss the decline of institutional duty and how modern public figures often leverage platforms for self-aggrandizement rather than fulfilling their obligations. The book was frequently cited to analyze societal norms, identity, and the ways people interact with core civic institutions.
Discussed“we had we had you've all live in on the program and his book a time to build that's what this book that's what his book's about”
Where to get it
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Life and Fate
Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate was highlighted on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts, who frequently encouraged listeners to read the masterpiece. Roberts discussed the book alongside translator Robert Chandler and Tyler Cowen, exploring its themes of totalitarianism, the experiences of living under oppressive regimes, and the effort involved in translating Grossman's major historical work.
Book club“You know, we we did a a book club here at Econ Talk on Life and Fate silly Grossman's Masterpiece.”
Where to get it
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Wild Problems
Wild Problems by Russ Roberts came up across multiple episodes of EconTalk. Anna Gat mentioned enjoying the 2022 book and noted she still recommends and gifts it, while Mike Munger encouraged listeners to purchase it. Guests Peter Boettke, Michael Easter, and Daniel Gordis also referenced the book during discussions about perfect competition, the lack of clear answers in life, and human purpose.
Recommended“Um and you came on to talk about your book Wild Problems that came out in 2022 which I greatly enjoyed. Um and yeah, I do still recommend it to people. And if somebody seems especially troubled in my life, I get off for them for Christmas with a little, you know, wink wink.”
Where to get it
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Arcadia
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently referenced Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, calling it his favorite modern work. Across several episodes featuring guests like Anna Gat and Dana Gioia, Roberts and his interviewees used quotes from the play to explore themes such as the tension between extrinsic and intrinsic perspectives, the passage of time, and the long human processional of culture and history. Guests also shared personal memories of reading the play and paid homage to the playwright.
Discussed“Uh but along the way, we're going to pay homage to Tom Stppard who died last month and his play Arcadia. Arcadia is my favorite modern play, maybe my favorite play, period.”
Where to get it
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow was referenced by host Russ Roberts and various guests, including David Bessis, Michael Munger, and Julia Galef, on multiple episodes of EconTalk. The speakers discussed Kahneman's foundational concepts regarding System 1 and System 2 thinking to explain human decision-making, cognitive biases, and intuitive errors. Guests like Bessis even used Kahneman's framework as a springboard to propose theoretical extensions, while others applied his insights to topics ranging from academic peer review to behavioral economics.
Discussed“So I have to go back to the canonical example from Kenman about the ball and the bat. uh uh so when um so the central theory of of Kenman and Ferski is that there are basically two kind of modules in the brain to uh reach conclu conclusion one is system one is uh your instinctive answer when you”
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Master and Man and Other Stories
Leo Tolstoy's short story Master and Man was featured across multiple 2022 episodes of EconTalk. Russ Roberts repeatedly praised the work as one of his five favorite short stories of all time, mentioning it in discussions with guests such as Richard Gunderman, Pano Kanelos, Angela Duckworth, and Tyler Cowen. Roberts recommended the story to listeners in advance of conversations on greed and human nature, and used it as a foundational text to explore moral and economic themes.
Recommended“you know i did an episode with richard gunderman on tolstoy's master and man which is i think one of the one of my five favorite short stories of all time a mind-blowing story”
Where to get it
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After Babel
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Patrick House discussed George Steiner's book After Babel. Roberts and House brought up the book to illustrate topics related to translation, language, and how meanings change dynamically over time. Roberts recommended the work for its defense of the multiplicity of languages, while House used it to explain the premise that all language acts as a form of translation.
Discussed“And there's a wonderful book by George Steiner called After Babel where he talks he gives he opens the book with a bunch of he opens with Shakespeare I think and he says um can you understand this?”
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Tribe
Tribe by Sebastian Junger was referenced across several episodes of EconTalk. Host Russ Roberts brought up the book in multiple discussions—such as with Christine Webb, Lamorna Ash, Martin Gurri, and Arnold Kling—to illustrate concepts like the communal rewards of a nature-adjacent lifestyle, the integration of captives into Native American communities, the dangers of viewing political opponents as traitors, and general human tribalism. Guest Claudia Hauer also mentioned being a fan of the book when discussing human needs for community and purpose.
Discussed“I think about Sebastian Younger's book tribe on this program. He talked about how uh in colonial American times, people who were kidnapped by Native Americans often didn't want to come home after a while because they found themselves more having a more communal life that they valued, a life closer to the to nature, and they found many rewards”
Where to get it
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Transformative Experience
Russ Roberts and L.A. Paul discussed Transformative Experience on several episodes of EconTalk. Paul appeared on the show in May 2020 to talk about the book's core concepts, including the vampire problem, epistemic transformation, and epistemic humility. Roberts later recommended the book in June 2025, citing it as a major personal inspiration.
Recommended“I should have mentioned the names of their books that I read and that inspired me along with the interviews. Agnes Callard's book is Aspiration, and L.A. Paul's is Transformative Experience. Great books.”
Where to get it
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Aspiration
Aspiration by Agnes Callard was discussed on multiple episodes of EconTalk between 2020 and 2025. Russ Roberts frequently referenced the book, read quotes from it, and credited it alongside other works for inspiring him, using its concepts to explore striving for moral character and the role of mentors.
Recommended“I should have mentioned the names of their books that I read and that inspired me along with the interviews. Agnes Callard's book is Aspiration, and L.A. Paul's is Transformative Experience. Great books.”
Where to get it
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MOBY-DICK; or, THE WHALE
EconTalk discussed Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick across multiple episodes from 2020 to 2022. Tyler Cowen recommended the classic as one of his top five novels and a favorite work to reread. Russ Roberts brought up the book while interviewing guests about prison education programs and students memorizing its opening paragraph, while guests Azra Raza and Dwayne Betts discussed its literary themes of obsession and human nature.
Discussed“so something like a moby dick or flaubert or war and peace”
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How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Russ Roberts frequently discussed Leo Tolstoy's work on EconTalk. Across episodes in early 2022 featuring guests like Angela Duckworth, Pano Kanelos, and Richard Gunderman, Roberts and his guests repeatedly examined the themes of greed, human choices, and character through Tolstoy's short stories, specifically recommending Master and Man to listeners and highlighting another favorite, How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Recommended“you know i did an episode with richard gunderman on tolstoy's master and man which is i think one of the one of my five favorite short stories of all time a mind-blowing story”
Where to get it
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Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter was frequently discussed on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and various guests. Roberts recommended the book, particularly book two, for its insights into innovation, market power, and the role of small and large firms. Arthur Diamond also brought up the text to explore Schumpeter's introduction of the concept of creative destruction, reflecting on the historical reception of the author's work.
Discussed“I would just I would think about schumpeter and I think about capitalism socialism and democracy”
Where to get it
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Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man was discussed on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and guest Dwayne Betts. Russ Roberts recommended reading the novel in preparation for a future episode and mentioned reading it for the podcast. Dwayne Betts dedicated an episode to discussing Ellison's work, praising it as a rare single book that stands the test of time, and exploring the pressures Ellison placed on himself to write it, as well as connecting it to themes of human suffering.
Discussed“i was recently talking to dwayne betts uh the poet and an author about we were talking about it hasn't aired yet but primo levy's book um if this is a man and followed by the truce and then also ralph ellison's book invisible man which is a novel”
Where to get it
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Mathematica
Mathematica by David Bessis was featured on EconTalk, where host Russ Roberts frequently praised the work. Roberts recommended the book to listeners, noting that it contains no formal math and instead focuses on how human minds work and champion intuition over traditional formal logic.
Discussed“He was last here in October of 2025 discussing his marvelous book Mathematica.”
Where to get it
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace came up on EconTalk through several guest discussions regarding classic literature and historical reading habits. Dana Gioia described the text as an ambitious and successful novel in January 2025. Robert Chandler noted in December 2024 that Vasily Grossman repeatedly read Tolstoy's work during the war. Additionally, Tyler Cowen cited the book as a primary literary model and a personal favorite for rereading in 2022 and 2024, prompting host Russ Roberts to echo praise for the novel.
Discussed“and War in peace is the the most ambitious uh successful novel”
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The World of Yesterday
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts and James Marriott discussed and recommended Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday. Across multiple episodes in 2024, 2025, and 2026, Roberts praised the book as an extraordinary depiction of life in Vienna and Europe between the wars, citing its insights into the rise of the Nazis and the influence of World War I on art. Marriott similarly highlighted the work as a wonderful memoir, and Roberts repeatedly urged listeners to read it.
Recommended“His memoir, which I really recommend, which I think your quote is from, it's called The World of Yesterday. It's an extraordinary memoir of life in in in Vienna and in Europe between the wars and then the rise of the Nazis.”
Where to get it
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The Road to Serfdom
F. A. Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom was discussed on EconTalk. Tyler Cowen recommended the book as a worthwhile and much-maligned read, while Russ Roberts cited it to illustrate the complexities of economic figures and to discuss the corrupting nature of centralized states.
Recommended“also wrote to surum is a wonderful book and much maligned”
Where to get it
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Dignity
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently mentioned the book Dignity by Chris Arnade across multiple episodes between 2019 and 2021. Roberts referenced Arnade's granular observations of working-class communities to discuss social disruption, the severing of community ties, and the reasons why many people choose to remain in their hometowns rather than relocate for economic opportunities.
Discussed“I think what's what's clear and what the cause of this we can we can talk about in a minute cuz I think we disagree about the the underlying cause, but you know, this is an issue that Chris Arnade has has written about in his book Dignity and on the on the program that that that just disruption the”
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The Comfort Crisis
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently referenced Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis across episodes from 2021 to 2025. Roberts brought up the book to discuss how modern humans have grown overly accustomed to comfort and luxury, highlighting the importance of seeking physical challenges, getting out into the real world, and embracing hardship in ways comparable to various traditional and foreign philosophies.
Discussed“reminds you of the episode we had with Michael Michael Easter on the comfort zone. We we become accustomed to comfort in the modern world and we don't appreciate it and when it's taken away we are very unhappy to lose those comforts.”
Where to get it
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Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Yossi Klein Halevi frequently discussed Halevi's book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. Roberts praised the book as a brilliant, empathetic work that places competing narratives at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Halevi described the book as an intellectual experiment and personal metaphor intended to present a firm foundation in Jewish history while engaging with Palestinian perspectives.
Discussed“I interviewed yie Klein levy on the program and his book very much put the two different narratives at the center his book Letters to my Palestinian neighbor didn't get that big a reception in in the West Bank in in Gaza”
Where to get it
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Free to Choose
On EconTalk, Milton Friedman's book 'Free to Choose' was discussed across multiple episodes. In January 2025, Michael Munger recommended the book to argue that government activities must be subjected to fundamental tests regarding state involvement. Tyler Cowen also mentioned the popular text in November 2023. Additionally, in September 2020, Robert Chitester discussed its publication plans and argued that it is a more accessible book than 'Capitalism and Freedom'.
Recommended“there's two things that we should be doing and we need to have a copy of maybe uh Milton Friedman's book free to choose and the US Constitution open to the page where the 10th Amendment is”
Where to get it
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Shoshana Zuboff's book 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' was discussed on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and guests Gerd Gigerenzer and Matthew Crawford. The speakers referenced the book while exploring behavioral data, surveillance economics, the assumptions made about algorithmic perfection, and the broader concerns surrounding privacy and the new frontiers of power.
Discussed“and also the other side so this great book by uh shojana supoff yeah about the uh uh both sides assume that the algorithms would be so perfect”
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Orbiting the Giant Hairball
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts recommended Gordon MacKenzie's book Orbiting the Giant Hairball. Roberts praised the book as a fabulous work on corporate culture, creativity, and unconventional thinkers, frequently citing it during episodes exploring organizational behavior and innovation.
Recommended“it's called orbiting the giant hairball it's one of my favorite books and it's a book about culture”
Where to get it
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts discussed Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls across multiple episodes in August 2025. Roberts announced an upcoming EconTalk book club episode dedicated to the novel, shared his experience rereading it fifty years after the first time, and hosted guest David Wyatt to discuss the historical context of the Spanish Civil War, the Abraham Lincoln brigade, and the protagonist Robert Jordan.
Discussed“Our topic for today is Hemingway's novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Where to get it
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Lost in Thought
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts and Kieran Setiya discussed Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz across multiple episodes. Russ mentioned the book to share insights on education and link listeners to previous interviews, while Kieran referenced it when talking about the positive value of mundane activities.
Discussed“The philosopher Zena Hitz has a nice phrase for this in um I'm not sure if it's in her book Lost in Thought or in some of the essays around the book.”
Where to get it
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Lost Connections
Johann Hari's book, Lost Connections: Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope, was featured on EconTalk in September 2021 when the author appeared as a guest with host Russ Roberts. Roberts used the book's title to frame the conversation around depression, societal disconnection, and mental health. In a later episode that November, guest Nina Kraus also referenced Hari's book when discussing the societal factors contributing to modern mental illness and isolation.
Discussed“because i think that part of what disconnects us as a society and um you know is is um you know part of of the the the depression and mental illness that that you know you had a in in the lost connections book right”
Where to get it
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Walden
Henry David Thoreau's Walden was discussed on EconTalk by Kevin Kelly, Tamar Haspel, and Russ Roberts. Kelly cited it as a formative high school read that shaped his contrarian outlook, while Haspel and Roberts critiqued the book harshly, questioning its literary status and canonization. Venkatesh Rao also referenced the work to explain the origin of the term Waldenponding.
Discussed“my my favorite author in high school was Henry David Thoreau and Walden and you know March into a different drum that he was my hero”
Where to get it
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain was recommended multiple times on EconTalk. In February 2024, Charles Duhigg praised the work as a literary masterpiece. Earlier, in June 2022 and April 2022, host Russ Roberts also recommended the book to listeners, highlighting it as a glorious and remarkable analysis where Saunders riffs on classic Russian short stories by authors like Chekhov and Tolstoy.
Recommended“George Saunders who's also an author who who who I whose work I love so it would be a weird it Saunders swiming a pond in the rain is I think a masterpiece I want to recommend that to listeners”
Where to get it
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Errata
Russ Roberts repeatedly recommended George Steiner's memoir Errata across multiple episodes of EconTalk. While discussing topics such as talent, education, the Iliad, and the power of reading with guests like Tyler Cowen and Roosevelt Montás, Roberts praised the memoir as a book full of interesting ideas and highlighted it as one of his favorite works by an author he deeply enjoyed.
Recommended“and for George Steiner read Errata e-r-r-a-t-a which is his number one book”
Where to get it
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Evil
Host Russ Roberts brought up Roy Baumeister's book Evil on EconTalk multiple times across different episodes, including conversations with Chris Blattman, Anthony Gill, and Paul Bloom. Roberts cited the book to illustrate dark aspects of human behavior and to explore how individuals who commit horrific acts often view themselves as justified, noting that it is a disturbing and fabulous book that he never quite finished.
Discussed“The book by Roy Balmeister called Evil. It says it's called Evil Inside Human Violence and Cruelty.”
Where to get it
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How Innovation Works
How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley was featured on EconTalk. Host Russ Roberts focused an entire episode on the book with Ridley in August 2020 and mentioned it again in September 2020. Later, in February 2025, Peter Boettke recommended the book to illustrate the relationship between freedom and innovation.
Recommended“I'm sure you know Matt Ridley one of my favorite books since the last time we talked is how Innovation Works ... Ridley has this fantastic phrase he says Innovation is the child of freedom and the parent of prosperity”
Where to get it
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If this is a Man
On EconTalk in March and May 2022, host Russ Roberts frequently discussed Primo Levi's memoir If this is a Man. Roberts mentioned assigning the book, which details Levi's time in Auschwitz, to poet and author Dwayne Betts ahead of Betts's guest appearance. Roberts also recommended the book to listeners as advanced reading and brought it up in a conversation with Chris Blattman about human cruelty and violence.
Discussed“i was recently talking to dwayne betts uh the poet and an author about we were talking about it hasn't aired yet but primo levy's book um if this is a man and followed by the truce and then also ralph ellison's book invisible man which is a novel”
Where to get it
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The Brothers Karamazov
EconTalk host Russ Roberts frequently mentioned Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. In April 2022, Roberts named the novel among his top five favorite books. He later discussed René Girard's perspective on the Grand Inquisitor scene with Cynthia Haven in June 2024, and briefly displayed a physical copy of the book alongside guest Dwayne Betts in October 2020.
Discussed“do you know what Gerard thought of uh the grand Inquisitor in uh the brothers katof this idea that that the church had betrayed uh the teaching of Jesus”
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The Gulag Archipelago
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts recommended The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to listeners during a discussion about authoritarian police states. The book was also referenced by Roberts and guest Amor Towles in relation to Soviet prison camps and historical literature.
Discussed“I'm thinking of of Sol n who in the goog and in the first Circle which we we talked about on this program”
Where to get it
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Waiting For "SUPERMAN"
Russ Roberts discussed the documentary film and companion book Waiting for Superman on EconTalk across multiple episodes. In May 2020, he recommended the film as a powerful and moving piece about a Success Academy student. Later, in May 2021 and June 2020, he brought up the work to illustrate systemic issues within teachers unions, noting Diane Ravitch's critical perspective on its marketing of disruption in public education.
Discussed“well i yeah i remember the documentary waiting for superman how a really horrible teacher could just get shuttled to a different school system and get a new start which is somewhat reminiscent of the union power you mentioned earlier with rogue police officers”
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Anarchy, State, and Utopia
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts frequently mentioned Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia across multiple episodes. He recalled reading it shortly after graduating from college and noted that it had a profound, electrifying impact on him. Roberts also referenced the book to discuss economic concepts, such as the value generated by entertainers.
Discussed“thought anarchy state utopia by robert nozick which i have not gone i have not gone back to but it had a huge impact on me”
Where to get it
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Antifragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book Antifragile was referenced on EconTalk by multiple guests and the host. Luca Dellanna brought up the book to explain the barbell strategy of allocating efforts or portfolio assets to safe bets. Russ Roberts referenced the work while discussing the importance of small scale and accountability, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb himself cited the book to provide an example regarding individual-level variations and stress.
Discussed“yes the bubble strategy uh is something that uh uh mentioned uh uh in uh one in antifagile his book antifagile and the idea is that you want to put to allocate part of your efforts or portfolio to Safe bets”
Where to get it
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Fooled by Randomness
On EconTalk between 2019 and 2022, host Russ Roberts repeatedly referenced Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. Roberts used the book to illustrate his early obsession with uncertainty and to discuss how people mistakenly dismiss concepts they believe they already understand.
Discussed“fooled by randomness which was like by tallah was the the beginning of my obsession with being deceived by numbers and the challenge of thinking about uncertainty”
Where to get it
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Milton Friedman
On EconTalk, Peter Boettke, Tyler Cowen, and Russ Roberts discussed Jennifer Burns's Milton Friedman biography to illustrate the intellectual climate of post-war economics and demonstrate broader public interest in economic history.
Discussed“this is really quite well captured in Jennifer Burns's book on Milton fredman”
Where to get it
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Range
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Dwayne Betts referenced David Epstein's book Range in multiple episodes. Roberts used the book to illustrate concepts related to wicked problems, complexity, and the importance of non-experts in solving complex challenges.
Discussed“talking to epstein about absolutely and like range is sort of like like chess is not that interesting”
Where to get it
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Sapiens
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Sebastian Junger both referenced Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens in different episodes. Roberts recalled interviewing Harari about the book and discussed how its themes intersected with narrative economics and human behavior, while Junger cited the book in June 2021 to illustrate points regarding capital protection and historical laws.
Discussed“and along with those laws came laws as yuval harari points out in his brilliant book sapiens once you hit protect money you have to protect the people that lend the money”
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Superintelligence
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Nick Bostrom's book 'Superintelligence' in multiple episodes discussing artificial intelligence and existential risk. Roberts noted that he had interviewed Nicklaus Bostrom back in 2014 and found his book 'Superintelligence' uncompelling and unconvincing, though he also described the work as quite chilling.
Discussed“I mean his book super intelligence you know it's it's quite chilling”
Where to get it
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Thanks A Thousand
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently brought up A.J. Jacobs's book Thanks A Thousand across multiple episodes. He referenced the work to discuss the virtues of gratitude, compare it with guest Ryan Holiday's journaling habits, and highlight the impact of non-fiction writing.
Discussed“and we had aj jacobs on the program with talking about his book thanks a thousand which is a sweet sweet uh pan um ode to to the to the virtues of gratitude”
Where to get it
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The economics of discrimination
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts mentioned Gary Stanley Becker's book The Economics of Discrimination across multiple episodes. In October 2025, he compared Freakonomics to Becker's work to praise its nuance. In November 2023, he defended Becker's legacy against Tyler Cowen by highlighting the subtlety in books like The Economics of Discrimination and A Treatise on the Family. Earlier, in September 2023, Roberts brought up Becker's 1957 book with Roland Fryer to initiate a conversation about the sources of racial disparities and what economists have learned over time.
Discussed“and and I'm going to pay you and and Stephen a a compliment that I I think you'll both appreciate, which is that reading this book reminded me a little bit of reading The Economics of Discrimination by Gary Becker.”
Where to get it
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The Fatal Conceit
F. A. Hayek's book The Fatal Conceit was discussed on EconTalk across several episodes. In May 2009, Dan Klein cited the book to explain the evolutionary emergence of social norms and incentives. Later, in November 2021, Emily Oster referenced a famous paragraph from the book to illustrate the dangers of mixing family life with the macro economy. Mike Munger also quoted the text in September 2026 regarding how people live simultaneously within different orders.
Discussed“So now going back to, and this is from the fatal conceit, part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts, and our emotions in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders, according to different rules.”
Where to get it
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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Marie Kondo's bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, came up in discussions across multiple episodes of EconTalk. In January 2020, Adam Minter mentioned her work on decluttering, which inspired a television series. Later, in February 2022, Russ Roberts referenced the book while discussing skill acquisition and problem-solving. In February 2025, Michael Easter noted how people began discarding items en masse following the book's release.
Discussed“and this was especially true after the the art of tidying up was that the name of the book”
Where to get it
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The Social Contract
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts reminisced about reading Robert Ardrey's The Social Contract in his youth, noting how the book blew his mind and inspired him before graduate school.
Discussed“Um I remember reading this a book called The Social Contract by Robert Arrey.”
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The Sound and the Fury
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts frequently brought up The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner to illustrate the difficulties readers face with classic literature and opaque styles. Roberts recounted his own unsuccessful attempt to read the novel as a teenager and mentioned that the author himself was dismissed early on, using the book to discuss the broader process of struggling through complex material before eventually coming to appreciate it.
Discussed“having tried to read um um Sound the Sound of the Fury and at 16 and not getting very far and thinking, well, it's just a bad book.”
Where to get it
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The Truce
The Truce by Primo Levi came up on EconTalk in discussions hosted by Russ Roberts. In May 2022, Roberts mentioned Primo Levi's memoir sequel about the aftermath of Auschwitz while speaking with guest Dwayne Betts. Roberts revisited the book in July 2025, using it to highlight the painful and challenging journey of returning to Italy from Auschwitz and to discuss the role of barter during difficult situations.
Discussed“I probably talked about it in the episode with um Dwayne Betts when we talked about Primo Levy as well as Ralph Ellison. And in his book, The Truce, where Primo Levy talks about coming back from Awitz and we're trying to get back to Italy, which is a long meandering, painful, and challenging journey. There's an immense amount of”
Where to get it
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The Puzzler
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts discussed and recommended A.J. Jacobs's book, The Puzzler, highlighting Jacobs's dedication to the project, referencing observations made in the text about social science research and puzzles, and thanking the author for his appearance.
Discussed“he was last year in november of 2018 talking about his book 2 11.7 thanks a thousand 3 13.1 his latest book is the puzzler one man's quest to solve the most baffling puzzles ever”
Where to get it
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Neighborhood Defenders
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Katherine Levine Einstein discussed her book Neighborhood Defenders in an episode dedicated to the topic. Einstein explained that the term was borrowed from 1960s and 1970s school desegregation opposition research to describe local housing opponents. Roberts and Einstein examined the critical portrayal of these neighborhood defenders, and in a later episode, guest Bryan Caplan referenced the book while discussing land use meetings and local opposition to development.
Discussed“I don't remember you might have actually interviewed them the neighborhood Defenders did you interview the authors of that book I don't remember who wrote it uh so it's three authors one of them last name Einstein so that one's memorable but anyway uh this is a book where they actually got transcripts from pretty much all the land meetings”
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The road
On the December 2, 2024, episode of EconTalk titled Translating Life and Fate, host Russ Roberts and guest Robert Chandler discussed and recommended Vasily Grossman's short story collection The Road. Roberts encouraged listeners to read the collection as an introduction to Grossman, while Chandler shared details from his editorial process in compiling the shorter pieces.
Discussed“the road is a uh short story of Grossman's and it's the title as well of a uh an edited alumn that you did of his shorter writings”
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Alchemy
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Rory Sutherland thoroughly discussed Sutherland's book Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense. Roberts and Sutherland explored key themes from the text, including the quirks of human behavior, loss aversion, sunk cost bias, unconventional hiring practices, and the parallels between advertising and nature, such as the comparison of flowers to weeds with marketing budgets. Guest Paul Bloom also recommended the book as an insightful read on human psychology and business.
Recommended“and it's fantastic book by Rory Sutherland who's an an admin I guess in the UK called Alchemy”
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Everything Flows
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and translator Robert Chandler discussed Vasily Grossman's shorter novel Everything Flows. Russ Roberts recommended the book as a great, accessible alternative for listeners who might feel intimidated by Grossman's larger works, mentioning it in conversations about camp literature and human suffering. Robert Chandler provided deep insights into the literary and linguistic challenges of translating the harrowing text, specifically highlighting the brutal and crystal-clear depiction of the terror famine chapter.
Discussed“because he does seem a um I mean even even the most awful passages of his writing like um the trinka article and the account of the terror famine in everything flows”
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Beowulf
On an episode of EconTalk featuring Zach Weinersmith, host Russ Roberts and his guest discussed Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. The conversation touched upon the enduring popularity of the opening monster fights, stylistic alliteration features, and the broader role of the epic poem in a liberal arts education.
Discussed“people find Milton very difficult but people will still pick up like the Sheamus Haney edition of Beowulf and read the first 30 which is all monster fights and kind of Mumble through the middle part”
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The Calculus of Consent
Michael Munger brought up The Calculus of Consent by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock on EconTalk to explain the foundational origins of public choice theory. Munger discussed how the 1962 book outlines constitutions as sets of rules and noted its initial optimism regarding the science of constitutions. Don Boudreaux also referenced the work, highlighting it as the single most iconic book in public choice scholarship.
Discussed“but the real origins of public choice and particularly the first of what we now think of as the the public choice pentateuch the five founding books of public choice was the calculus of consent and the calculus of consent takes up some of the work written by it was written by james buchanan and gordon tullock it was published”
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The Hidden Half
Michael Blastland's book The Hidden Half was discussed on EconTalk across multiple episodes. In December 2020, host Russ Roberts welcomed Blastland to the show to talk about his work, exploring the opening chapter about crayfish and the author's reference to Friedrich Hayek's Nobel Prize speech. Roberts later revisited the book in January 2021 during a conversation with Matthew Crawford, using Blastland's example of European Union GDP explanations to illustrate broader points about GDP aggregation versus individual welfare.
Discussed“Yeah, I I saw recently in uh Michael Blastland's book uh The Hidden Half, I think he tells this that where I saw this, the the defender of of uh European Union explaining to the uh British working class woman that that uh GDP is going to go up if we stay in the EU”
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A soldier of the great war
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts and Mark Helprin discussed A Soldier of the Great War, with Roberts praising the novel as a masterpiece and Helprin reflecting on his diverse body of work.
Discussed“and then there was um the soldier of the Great War which was a very realistic sort of tlan type of Novel Freddy and Frederica which is a comic novel”
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In Search of Lost Time
On EconTalk, Tyler Cowen recommended trying In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust again using the Lydia Davis translation, Erik Hoel briefly mentioned the book while discussing his reading habits, and Russ Roberts strongly critiqued the first volume as unbearable and unreadable.
Discussed“I mean there's nothing sadder than that remembrance of things past only has seven volumes”
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The life you can save
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts discussed Peter Singer's book The Life You Can Save across multiple episodes. Roberts highlighted the tenth-anniversary edition, noted the shallow pond thought experiment, and informed listeners that the book could be downloaded for free from the accompanying organization's website.
Discussed“and i'll remind listeners that shallow pond is the centerpiece of his book the life you say we did an interview on that um a while back we'll put a link to it”
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Conflicted
Ian Leslie's book Conflicted was discussed on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts and the author himself. Ian Leslie described the mission of the book as helping people have better disagreements, while Russ Roberts praised specific insights from the text during Leslie's appearances on the podcast.
Discussed“He was last here in June of 2021 discussing his book Conflicted.”
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The descent of man
On EconTalk, Matt Ridley and Susan Cain brought up Charles Darwin's 1871 book The Descent of Man. Matt Ridley cited the text to illustrate Darwin's hypothesis on sexual selection, beauty, and his scientific disagreements with Alfred Russel Wallace, while Susan Cain mentioned the book to discuss animal empathy and how animals react to the suffering of others.
Discussed“So, there's a wonderful quote from The Descent of Man, which was his 1871 book, where he says, "The most refined beauty may serve as a sexual charm and for no other purpose."”
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1984
On EconTalk, guest Doug Lemov highly recommended George Orwell's 1984 after rereading it, asserting that every student should experience the brilliant and essential work. Lemov also cited the novel as a prime example of crucial cultural capital found in books, while Mike Munger previously referenced the text to illustrate concepts of constant societal surveillance and the panopticon.
Discussed“Almost everything that's in most important to society has been written and captured in books. And if I know those books and I have access to them, then I can connect to people about, you know, I can, if you refer to Shakespeare or to 1984, if I don't know anything about George Orwell in 1984, I can't even have”
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Into Thin Air
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts recommended Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air as an extraordinary read, while guest Annie Duke discussed the book in relation to an Everest climbing expedition. Russ Roberts also used the book to question the limits of human risk-taking.
Discussed“uh they were part of uh the climbing expedition chronicled in John cracker was Into Thin Air uh Rob Hall was their expedition leader”
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Midlife
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts discussed Kieran Setiya's book Midlife across multiple episodes. Roberts highlighted the book's central focus on the midlife period and used its concepts, such as the distinction between telic and atelic activities, during conversations with his guests.
Discussed“well I'm thinking about Karen such as example from his book midlife that we talked about italic and italic activities tele meaning having a goal”
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Universal Economics
On EconTalk, David Henderson and Russ Roberts discussed Universal Economics by Armen Albert Alchian and William Richard Allen. Henderson recommended the updated edition edited by Jerry Jordan for its comprehensive analysis and affordability, while Roberts referenced the textbook's economic insights.
Discussed“I'm reminded of a wonderful analysis in Alchin and Allen's textbook which I now think has been called is called universal economics.”
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Determined
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Robert Sapolsky's book Determined during conversations regarding free will and determinism. Roberts used the book to frame previous debates, discuss why Sapolsky rejects quantum indeterminacy, and conclude his interview with the author.
Discussed“Uh, related episodes on the other side of the free will determinism debate include uh, my discussion with uh, Robert Sapolski on his book determined and the recent episode with Gerv Sururi on his book with Jay Mlen, the emergent mind.”
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Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts and guest Tyler Cowen discussed F.A. Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1 in January 2022 and November 2023. Cowen compared Hayek's works and expressed a preference for this book over The Constitution of Liberty. Roberts brought up the work to examine the distinctions between law and legislation and to draw parallels with the common law tradition and social norms.
Discussed“but I read law legislation and Liberty and I don't think it totally makes sense”
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Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 19
On EconTalk, F. A. Hayek's book Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 19 was discussed by Russ Roberts and Tyler Cowen. In the episode 'Tyler Cowen on the GOAT of Economics', Russ Roberts brought up the work while discussing distinctions between law and legislation, and Tyler Cowen expressed his preference for it over The Constitution of Liberty. Additionally, in 'Moshe Koppel on Norms, Tradition, and Resilient Societies', Russ Roberts mentioned the book to draw a parallel between the common law tradition and social norms.
Discussed“but I read law legislation and Liberty and I don't think it totally makes sense”
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Primal Intelligence
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts mentioned Angus Fletcher's book while comparing different defenses of intuition. Roberts also discussed specific aspects of the book he appreciated, noting the lack of pretense regarding neuroscience and praising its reliance on a wide range of experiences and real-world applications. Furthermore, Roberts referenced the historical vignettes and narratives featuring various prominent figures contained within the book.
Discussed“Then I interviewed Angus Fletcher recently his book primal intelligence is very much a defensive intuition slightly different interpretation than yours but but in the ballpark.”
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Talent
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross's book Talent during multiple episodes. In August 2022, Roberts asked Cowen about the real-world advice and academic perspectives featured in the book. Later, in October 2022, Roberts recalled an interview he conducted with Cowen regarding the book and discussed a surprising interview question Cowen had suggested within its pages.
Discussed“when I interviewed Tyler Cowan about his book Talent he suggested as an interview question which I found surprising”
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The First Cell
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts discussed Azra Raza's book across two episodes. In March 2020, Roberts introduced the author and her newly published work, using the title to ask her about alternative approaches to cancer treatment. In April 2020, Roberts brought up the book again to highlight the heartbreaking and powerful willingness of patients with devastating diseases to endure terrible treatments in the hope that they might work.
Discussed“And when I was talking to Azra Raza about her book, The First Cell, one of the things in that book that just is heartbreaking and and powerful is the willingness of people with devastating diseases to endure terrible treatment because it might work, even when it's a long shot.”
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As I Lay Dying
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts recommended William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying as an accessible entry point into the author's work, sharing that it became one of his favorites after taking a literature course. In another episode, guest Tyler Cowen similarly advised readers to start with As I Lay Dying when exploring Faulkner's writing.
Recommended“so, but I took the course and uh, one of the I think the first Faulner we read was As I Lay Dying and As I Lay Dying is a book I recommend. I uh spoiler I love Faulner became one of my favorite writers and it wasn't so enamored of Conrad by the end of the course... and when”
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Einstein's Dreams
Alan Lightman's book Einstein's Dreams was recommended by host Russ Roberts across two episodes of EconTalk. In April 2020, Roberts strongly recommended the book toward the end of his conversation with Lightman. Later, in November 2024, Roberts praised the work again, calling it a wonderful early book by the author and encouraging all listeners to read it.
Recommended“I've read Einstein's Dreams, which one of your earliest books, which is a wonderful, recommend it to listeners.”
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Janesville
On EconTalk, Doug Irwin and Arthur Diamond both recommended Amy Goldstein's book Janesville to discuss the social consequences, struggles, and realities faced by communities when a major factory closes.
Recommended“There is a very good book by a Washington Post journalist called Jainsville. It's about Jamesville, Ohio, Wisconsin, where a GM plant closes down...”
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On Liberty
On the EconTalk podcast, John Stuart Mill's book On Liberty came up in two separate episodes. In November 2023, Tyler Cowen appeared on the show ("Tyler Cowen on the GOAT of Economics") and listed Mill's works, including On Liberty and Utilitarianism, as wonderful works to read. Later, in a December 2022 episode ("Monica Guzman on Curiosity and Conversation in Contentious Times"), host Russ Roberts also recommended the book to listeners, stating that if they had not read it recently, they should do so.
Recommended“so of course there's on Liberty there's utilitarianism”
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Six Days of War
Michael B. Oren's Six Days of War was recommended on EconTalk by host Russ Roberts in February 2024, when Roberts praised it as a superb treatment of the Six-Day War. Matti Friedman also recommended the book during an episode in June 2022, describing it alongside Abraham Rabinovich's work as a fantastic historical account.
Recommended“he's the author of many books but I particularly want to recommend six days of War June 1967 in the making of the modern Middle East which is a superb treatment of the Six Day War”
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The Noble Lie
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts recommended Gary Greenberg's book The Noble Lie during multiple episodes. Roberts used the book to discuss how people self-suppress the truth and take strong positions for a supposed higher good.
Recommended“and he has a very powerful book called The Noble lie which I recommend where he talks about how people self-sup the truth”
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The Seven Silly Eaters
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Mary Ann Hoberman's The Seven Silly Eaters across two episodes in 2023 and 2024. Roberts recommended the title as one of his favorite rhyming children's books and a beloved choice for slightly older kids.
Recommended“I'm just going to put in a vote for um slightly older age than the than say um good night moon but a slightly older age would would be the Seven Silly Eaters um and uh the gardener those are two books I love we'll put up links to it”
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The Wisdom of Insecurity
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Alan Watts's book The Wisdom of Insecurity in episodes from March 2024 and November 2025. Roberts brought up the 1950s text to discuss how human beings adapt to rapid technological change, dealing with reality, and addressing problem-solving, noting that the book's insights felt as though they could have been written in the present day.
Recommended“Or uh there's I love this one. I got Alan Watts in the wisdom of insecurity which is a a book I kind of love and kind of it's a book it's fascinating book. I'll mention it for a second. It was written in 1951 or 52. I think it could have been written yesterday. It's all about how the”
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A Conflict of Visions
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts recommended Thomas Sowell's 'A Conflict of Visions' in May 2025 while discussing differing visions of human nature and public policy. Later in February 2025, Peter Boettke also brought up the book on the podcast to examine opposing views on social organization.
Recommended“I'm looking at my notes and I've got Thomas Soul's Conflict of Visions in the next paragraph, which is an extraordinary book, by the way, and uh I strongly recommend it.”
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General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
On EconTalk, Tyler Cowen recommended reading at least chapter 12 of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money. Robert Shiller also mentioned the 1936 book during a separate episode to discuss Keynes's marketing savvy and self-promotion tactics.
Recommended“even kan's general theory if you don't want to read the whole book just read chapter 12”
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Grit
Angela Duckworth's book Grit came up on EconTalk in two separate episodes. Annie Duke recommended that everyone read the book during her appearance on the power of quitting. In a later episode, Stephen Dubner mentioned Duckworth's book while discussing human motivations and self-perception, reflecting on the insights he learned from her.
Discussed“The other big thing I learned, this was something big I learned from a psychologist from Angela Duckworth who wrote the book Grit and I did a podcast with Angela for a few years.”
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If a Place Can Make You Cry
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts mentioned Daniel Gordis's book If a Place Can Make You Cry, strongly recommending the powerful book while discussing Gordis's move to Israel from Los Angeles during the Second Intifada.
Recommended“you moved here in 1998 from Los Angeles and you published a remarkable book a very powerful book titled if a place can make you to cry dispatches from an anxious State I strongly recommend it”
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In the First Circle
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book In the First Circle on multiple occasions. During an episode with Tyler Cowen, Roberts included it in his top five books. Later, in a conversation with Lisa Cook regarding the Soviet regime and patents, Roberts brought up the book again to draw a parallel between the historical attempt by the Soviet regime to have its scientists and mathematicians innovate inside the gulag and the broader impact of fear on scientific innovation.
Recommended“in the first circle by alexander sochninson”
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Israel
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Daniel Gordis's book Israel: A Concise History across episodes in April 2022 and April 2023. Roberts noted that he was reading his colleague's book and recommended the work to listeners who wanted more historical background on the region.
Recommended“if you want more of the history you can read Danny's earlier book Israel concise history a fantastic read I recommend it”
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Sum
David Eagleman's book "Sum" came up on EconTalk across different episodes. Tyler Cowen briefly brought up the book in an April 2022 discussion on reading. Later, in the July 21, 2025 episode, James Marriott recommended "Sum" to listeners, describing it as a short, lovely, thought-provoking, and extraordinary book that he frequently gives away to others.
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.”
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The Castle
On EconTalk, Erik Hoel recommended David Macaulay's book Castle during the episode titled Does Parenting Make You a Better Person? in July 2024, citing it as an example of a work that illustrates background mechanisms. Later, in October 2020, Zena Hitz appeared on the podcast and mentioned Franz Kafka's The Castle, recalling that it was her father's favorite book when she was a child, which she used to illustrate the reading habits of past generations.
Recommended“but yeah I I recommend David mccaulay uh his books castle and others which show how things work in the background”
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The Least of Us
On EconTalk, Sam Quinones's book The Least of Us was mentioned in October 2021. Russ Roberts first noted the forthcoming book while discussing upcoming podcast episodes, and then brought it up again a week later as the central topic of an interview with the author focusing on fentanyl, meth, and American resilience.
Discussed“His latest book, and the topic of today's episode, is The Least of Us, True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.”
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The master and his emissary
On EconTalk, Russ Roberts mentioned Iain McGilchrist's book while discussing two kinds of attention with Daniel Coyle, encouraging listeners to explore the dense work. In an earlier episode, Russ Roberts also referenced the book while discussing historical shifts in the dominance of the extrinsic perspective.
Recommended“And of course, you referenced the work of Ian McGrist, the master and his emissary, and his a past econ where we talked about that those two kinds of attention. And I encourage listeners to go back and listen to that episode to to look at I would say read his book, but his book is quite dense and quite”
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The Secret of Our Success
On EconTalk, Dwarkesh Patel brought up Joseph Henrich's book to explain human cultural evolution and cooperation, noting that success relied on more than pure intelligence alone. Later, on another episode, Moshe Koppel discussed the same book to provide a specific anthropological example of traditions surrounding food preparation among the Tukanawans in the Amazon.
Recommended“Joseph Henrik has this wonderful book about this. It wasn't just it wasn't um just intelligence, it wasn't even mainly intelligence.”
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The Sweet Spot
On EconTalk, host Russ Roberts mentioned Paul Bloom's book The Sweet Spot across different episodes. Roberts initially previewed the upcoming release when discussing why people voluntarily seek out challenging and difficult experiences, and later referenced the book to explore how a certain amount of suffering gives life meaning.
Discussed“this comes back to a book uh a psychologist wrote uh he's on my program right now which was that there's a sweet spot uh and and that a little bit of suffering is part of what gives life its meaning.”
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The Year of Living Constitutionally
A.J. Jacobs's book The Year of Living Constitutionally was featured across two episodes of EconTalk. On May 6, 2024, host Russ Roberts interviewed the author about the title, focusing on one man's humble quest to follow the Constitution's original meaning. Later, on June 10, 2024, Roberts briefly revisited the conversation while introducing a discussion with Yuval Levin, praising Jacobs's work as a wonderful book and conversation.
Recommended“uh and of course we've recently talked about the Constitution with AJ Jacobs in his Year of Living constitutional I know you heard that episode it was a wonderful book and a wonderful conversation I appreciate that we'll put a link up to it”
Where to get it
The other 519 books mentioned on EconTalk, ranked, with the latest episode and time
- Truffle Hound by Rowan Jacobsen
- Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
- Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
- African Genesis by Robert Ardrey
- Anna Karenina by Лев Толстой
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Bittersweet by Susan Cain
- Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren by John Maynard Keynes
- Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Ending Medical Reversal by Vinayak K. Prasad, Adam S. Cifu
- Foundations of Economic Analysis by Paul Anthony Samuelson
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- No Rules Rules: Netflix and the culture of reinvention by Hastings, Reed, Meyer, Erin
- Nudge by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
- One Fat Englishman by Kingsley Amis
- Politics by Aristotle
- Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen
- Studying with Miss Bishop by Dana Gioia
- The Black Poets by Dudley Randall
- The constitution of liberty by Friedrich A. von Hayek
- The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich August Hayek
- The Economists' Hour by Binyamin Appelbaum
- The Heart Aroused by David Whyte
- The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
- The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl
- The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
- The Uses of Pessimism by Roger Scruton
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
- Theory of the Consumption Function by Milton Friedman
- Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson: The Poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Where We Are by Roger Scruton
- Who by Fire by Matti Friedman
- Why We Drive by Matthew B. Crawford
- Radical Uncertainty by John Kay
- Secondhand by Adam Minter
- Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic
- Of Sound Mind by Nina Kraus
- I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán
- Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- When Police Kill by Franklin E. Zimring
- The Constitution of Knowledge by Jonathan Rauch
- Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
- Cogs and Monsters by Diane Coyle
- Monsters by Diane Namm
- The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines by Gaurav Suri
- A Shot to Save the World by Gregory Zuckerman
- Great Ideas for VBS by John Robert Cutshall
- The Voltage Effect by John A. List
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- Ergodicity by Luca Dellanna
- Free Agents by Kevin J. Mitchell
- On Settler Colonialism by Adam Kirsch
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
- Fluke by Brian Klaas
- Freedom and the Law by Bruno Leoni
- John & Paul by Ian Leslie
- The Economics of Violence by Gary M. Shiffman
- The Scaling Era by Dwarkesh Patel
- Uncharted by Margaret Heffernan
- Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929 by Hillel Cohen
- The Mattering Instinct by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
- How to Change by Katy Milkman
- The Kindness of Strangers by Michael E. McCullough
- The Pacific and Other Stories by Mark Helprin
- A Question of Freedom by Reginald Dwayne Betts
- Blind Spots by Marty Makary
- English Pastoral by James Rebanks
- Food Intelligence by Julia Belluz
- Lost in Math by Sabine Hossenfelder
- Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
- Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
- Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
- The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories by Frank Rose
- The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks
- A Line in the Sand by James Barr
- Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
- His Greatest Speeches by Diana Schaub
- A Dove of the East by Mark Helprin
- Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
- Ellis Island by Mark Helprin
- Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer
- How Minds Change by David McRaney
- Madam Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini
- Mine! by Michael A. Heller
- Pumpkinflowers by Matti Friedman
- Refiner's Fire by Mark Helprin
- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
- THE ECONOMIC NATURALIST by Robert H. Frank
- The Intelligence of Intuition by Gerd Gigerenzer
- The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- All Desire is a Desire for Being by René Girard
- America in Black and White by Stephan Thernstrom, Abigail Thernstrom
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Believe by Ross Douthat
- Big Business by Tyler Cowen
- Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman
- Climate Future by Robert S. Pindyck
- Economic Risks of Climate Change by Trevor Houser
- Exponential by Azeem Azhar
- Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin
- Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter
- In Defense of Sunlight by Rowan Jacobsen
- Late Admissions by Glenn C. Loury
- Melting Point: Family, Memory and the Search for a Promised Land: A Groundbreaking Family History for Fans of Edmund de Waal and Philippe Sands by RACHEL. COCKERELL
- Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
- Napoleon by Andrew Roberts
- Narrative Economics by Robert J. Shiller
- On Human Nature by Roger Scruton
- One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
- Poorly Understood by Mark Robert Rank
- Rescuing Socrates by Roosevelt Montás
- Rule Makers, Rule Breakers by Michele Gelfand
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
- The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will
- The Control Heuristic by Luca Dellanna
- The Cult of Smart by Fredrik deBoer
- The Elements of Euclid by Euclid
- The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup
- The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
- The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai
- The Lost Art of Dying by L. S. Dugdale
- The Oceans and the Stars by Mark Helprin
- The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- The Republic by Plato
- The Sea We Swim In by Frank Rose
- The Ulysses Theme by W. B. Stanford
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- To Boldly Grow by Tamar Haspel
- Tribal by Michael Morris
- Willful by Richard Robb
- by Unknown
- 99 Poems by Dana Gioia
- A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne
- Achilles in Vietnam by Jonathan Shay
- Adventurer by Leo Damrosch
- Adventures in the screen trade by William Goldman
- An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman
- An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus
- Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
- Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
- CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? by ANTHONY TROLLOPE
- Chatter by Ethan Kross
- Churchill by Andrew Roberts
- Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
- Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
- Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen
- Dark, Salt, Clear by Lamorna Ash
- Do No Harm by Marsh, Henry
- Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Endurance by Alfred Lansing
- Essays in positive economics by Milton Friedman
- European Self-representations at the New York World's Fair of 1939 by David E. Nye
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood
- Gulag by Anne Applebaum
- How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
- I Can't Stop Thinking About VAR by Daisy Christodoulou
- International Institutions of the Middle East by James Worrall
- Knowledge And Decisions by Thomas Sowell
- Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
- Leisure by Josef Pieper
- Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
- Madison's Metronome by Greg Weiner
- Meditations by Aurelius Marcus
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness by Patrick House
- One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle
- Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
- Pop Internationalism by Paul Krugman
- Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
- Quran by Talal Itani
- Samuel Pepys by Claire Tomalin
- Statistics for Public Policy by Jeremy G. Weber
- The Alien Corn by William Somerset Maugham
- The Challenge of Affluence by Avner Offer
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
- The Elements of Justice by David Schmidtz
- The Evolution of Beauty by Richard O. Prum
- The Gardener by Dabney Day
- The golden asse of Lucius Apuleius by Ovid
- The Happy Hypocrite by Max Beerbohm
- The Hat by Brian Way
- The Hungry Soul by Leon Kass
- The Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
- The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
- The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
- The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- The Mitten by Unknown
- The Once and Future King by T. H. White
- The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture by Yoram Hazony
- The Politics of Institutional Reform by Terry M. Moe
- The Principles of Psychology by William James
- The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium by Martin Gurri
- The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown
- The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill
- The Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa S. Kearney
- The ultimate resource by Julian Lincoln Simon
- The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Patrick Henrich
- The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown
- The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich
- Three Uses of the Knife by David Mamet
- Trouble with Trolls by Jan Brett
- Viral by Matt Ridley, Alina Chan
- We Were The Future by Yael Neeman
- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... by Steven Pinker
- Wild Souls by Emma Marris
- Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic by Constance Kamii
- A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
- A Beginner's Guide to America by Roya Hakakian
- A City in Winter by Mark Helprin
- A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith
- A Complicated Jew by Hillel Halkin
- A Discourse on the Method by René Descartes
- A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers
- A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 by Andrew Roberts
- A Kingdom Far and Clear by Mark Helprin
- A Kingdom Far and Clear Limited Edition Calla Editions by Mark Helprin
- A monetary history of the United States by Milton Friedman
- A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
- A Nation at Risk by United States. National Commission on Excellence in Education
- A new kind of science by Stephen Wolfram
- A positive program for laissez faire by Henry Calvert Simons
- A Treatise on the Family by Gary S. Becker
- Actual Minds, Possible Worlds by Jerome Seymour Bruner
- Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life by James R. Otteson
- Against the Grain by James C. Scott
- All God's Children by Fox Butterfield
- All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior
- Alone by Richard E. Byrd
- Altneuland by Theodor Herzl
- American Midnight by Adam Hochschild
- An American dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Anointed by Toby Stuart
- Anthem by Ayn Rand
- Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach by Stuart Russell
- Ball Four by Jim Bouton
- Barkskins by Annie Proulx
- Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith
- Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz
- Birds as Individuals by Len Howard
- Black Bourgeoisie by E. Franklin Frazier
- Black Boy by Richard Wright
- Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
- Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks
- Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam
- But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
- Can poetry matter? by Dana Gioia
- Candide by Francois Voltaire
- Capitalism, the unknown ideal by Ayn Rand
- Chaos by James Gleick
- Churchill and Orwell by Thomas E. Ricks
- Circles of Compensation by Kent Calder
- Cribsheet by Emily Oster
- Crisis of the House Divided by Harry V. Jaffa
- Cross Purposes by Jonathan Rauch
- Cultural Literacy by Eric Donald Hirsch
- Curious by Ian Leslie
- Curious George Discovers the Rainbow by H A Rey
- Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
- Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
- Democide by Rudolph J. Rummel
- Deterrence; the Legal Threat in Crime Control by Franklin E. Zimring
- Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
- Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes
- Economics by Paul A. Samuelson
- Economics of the Public Sector by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen
- Evolution of Desire by Cynthia L Haven
- Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly
- Expecting better by Emily Oster
- Faerie queene by Edmund Spenser
- Famine, affluence, and morality by Peter Singer
- Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
- Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts
- Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
- Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley
- Free Will by Sam Harris
- Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil
- Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway
- Groundhog Day by Lynn Peppas
- Henry Hikes to Fitchburg by D. B. Johnson
- Homer: Iliad Book XVIII by Homer
- Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- How to Stay Smart in a Smart World by Gerd Gigerenzer
- How to Think Like Shakespeare by Scott Newstok
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Human Capital by Gary S. Becker
- Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
- I Have a Dream by Rachid Ba
- I, Pencil - My Family Tree As Told to Leonard E. Read by Leonard Edward Read
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
- Identity Economics by George A. Akerlof
- Impossible Takes Longer by Daniel Gordis
- In Defense of Troublemakers by Charlan Nemeth
- In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
- Information Rules by Carl Shapiro
- Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
- Judaism Straight Up by Moshe Koppel
- Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
- Keeping Their Marbles by Tiffany Jenkins
- Kidnap by Anja Shortland
- La Boheme by .Giacomo Puccini
- Land Use without Zoning by Bernard H. Siegan
- Land, Politics and Nationalism by Philip Bull
- Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 3 by F. A. Hayek
- Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
- Letter from Birmingham Jail by MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare
- Mapmatics: A Mathematician's Guide to Navigating the World by Unknown
- Meet Me at the Lighthouse by Dana Gioia
- Memoirs of the Second World War by Winston Churchill
- Mirrors in the Brain by Giacomo Rizzolatti
- Moneyball by Michael Lewis
- Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
- My Brilliant Friend by Chiara Lagani
- My Father Left Me Ireland by Michael Brendan Dougherty
- My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen
- Nanomedicine by Robert A. Freitas
- Nanosystems by K. Eric Drexler
- Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger
- No Two Alike by Judith Rich Harris
- Normal People by Sally Rooney
- Normative Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Value Alignment by Nicholas Kluge Corrêa
- Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
- Omeros by Derek Walcott
- On copia of words and ideas (De utraque verborem [sic] ac rerum copia) by Desiderius Erasmus
- On Revolution by Hannah Arendt
- On the Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd
- On Writing by Stephen King
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
- One Man's Meat by E. B. White
- Order Without Law by Robert C. Ellickson
- Ovid's Metamorphoses by Ovid
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Pensées by Blaise Pascal
- Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
- Philosophical Explanations by Robert Nozick
- Philosophy of Right by Georg H. W. Hegel
- Politics by Principle, Not Interest by James M. Buchanan
- Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren
- Price Theory by Milton Friedman
- Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall
- Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill
- Principles of Space Anthropology by Cameron M. Smith
- Radetzky march by Joseph Roth
- Random Acts of Medicine by Anupam B. Jena, Christopher Worsham
- Rationality by Steven Pinker
- Reality In Advertising by Rosser Reeves
- Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
- Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle
- Richard II by William Shakespeare
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- Sakhalin Island by Anton Chekhov
- Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
- Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan P. Lightman
- Second Nature by Haim Ofek
- Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai
- Sheppey by William Somerset Maugham
- Shibumi by Trevanian
- Simone Weil's The Iliad, Or, The Poem of Force by Simone Weil
- Slaying Goliath by Diane Ravitch
- Social by Matthew D. Lieberman
- Socialism by Ludwig Von Mises
- Sophie's Choice by William Styron
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- Strangers and Intimates by Tiffany Jenkins
- Superagency by Reid Hoffman
- Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock
- Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Swan Lake by Mark Helprin
- Teachings from the Worldly Philosophy by Robert L. Heilbroner
- Terra Incognita by Rodney Broome
- The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
- THE ALLIANCE by Reid Hoffman
- The Anarchist Cookbook by William F. Powell, William Powell, William Powell, Peter M Bergman
- The antitrust paradox by Robert H. Bork
- The Arrogant Ape by Christine Webb
- The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
- The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
- The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray
- The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons
- The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- The Charterhouse of Parma by John). STENDHAL (Marie-Henri Beyle) (BERRYMAN
- The Children of Men by P. D. James
- The Chosen by Chaim Potok
- The Circle by Dave Eggers
- The city of the yellow devil by Maxim Gorky
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry M. Goldwater
- The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber
- The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch
- The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
- The Economics of Welfare by Arthur Cecil Pigou
- The education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
- The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle
- The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza
- The End Of Science by John Horgan
- The Enneads by Plotinus
- The Ethics by Benedict de Spinoza
- The Eudaemonic Pie by Thomas A Bass
- The evolution of cooperation by Robert M. Axelrod
- The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel
- The First Circle by Александр Солженицын
- The flowers of evil by Charles Baudelaire
- The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes
- The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman
- The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel
- The Geek Way by Andrew McAfee
- The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
- The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg
- The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
- The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
- The Hot Hand by Ben Cohen
- The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly
- The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
- The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty by James M. Buchanan
- The Long Fix by Vivian Lee
- The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- The Method by Isaac Butler
- The Moral Circle by Jeff Sebo
- The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan
- The Nature of Things by Lucretius Lucretius
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- The ones who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
- The Other America by Michael Harrington
- The Passover Plot by Hugh J. Schonfield
- The Pencil of Nature by William Henry Fox Talbot
- The Perfect Tuba by Sam Quinones
- The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
- The Philadelphia Negro by W. E. B. Du Bois
- The Philosophical Dilemma and the Conception of Truth by William James
- The Price We Pay by Marty Makary
- The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by David Ricardo
- The Problem of Social Cost by Ronald Harry Coase
- The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon
- The Scapegoat by René Girard
- The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
- The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
- The season by William Goldman
- The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- The Sensory Order by Friedrich a Hayek
- The Soul of Civility by Alexandra Hudson
- The Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch
- The Stand by Stephen King
- The storm of war by Andrew Roberts
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- The Swordfish and the Star by Gavin Knight
- The Territorial Imperative by Robert Ardrey
- The Theory of Interest by Irving Fisher
- The theory of money and credit by Ludwig von Mises
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
- The Tree of Life and Prosperity by Michael A. Eisenberg
- The Use of Knowledge in Society by Friedrich August Hayek
- The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
- The Veil of Snows by Mark Helprin
- The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
- The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard
- The Western Canon by Harold Bloom
- The Will to Believe by William James
- The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
- The Works of Virgil by Virgil
- The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs
- Thomas B. Love correspondence to Franklin D. Roosevelt, and accompanying materials by Thomas Bell Love
- Through a Glass Darkly by Trevor Blakemore
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Train Whistle Guitar by Albert Murray
- Understanding by Design by Grant P. Wiggins
- Utopia by Thomas More
- Victory Over Myself by Floyd Patterson
- Violent Saviors by William Easterly
- Wealth and Welfare, by A. C. Pigou,... by Arthur Cecil Pigou
- What Good Are the Arts? by John Carey
- What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy
- What Is It Like to Be a Bat? by Thomas Nagel
- White Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader
- Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
- Worse Than Slavery by David M. Oshinsky
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
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Latest mentions
“Our topic for today is fertility and demography, based on a recent paper he wrote, he co-authored with Patrick Norick, and that paper is Terra Incognita, the Economics of a Shrinking World, a paper I found, to be honest, shocking in its claims, but the claims are mostly facts.”
“I want to close with a tribute to Julian Simon. Yeah. Julian Simon's book, The Ultimate Resource, which I recommend to listeners, we haven't talked much about that over the years on this show, but you point out in a recent paper that in 1960, South Korea had a little over a million births.”
“And one of her most famous books is Gravity and Grace. And what that was, was basically her, her friend, who is a French Catholic farmer, Gustave Thibon”
“I was so fascinated by James' work, which I'd read the varieties of religious experience before, but I went back and read it again.”
“the quote comes from her book, The Sovereignty of Good, which is just a long essay that she wrote in the late 60s.”
“So now going back to, and this is from the fatal conceit, part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts, and our emotions in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders, according to different rules.”
“So in 1821, Friedrich Hegel published a book, The Philosophy of Right.”
“So I mentioned reading the Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.”
“Um, I'm going to invoke uh one [snorts] of my favorite short stories. I don't I don't know if you can get it online anymore, but it used to be online. It's called The Ones Who Walk Away from Omalis.”
“He was the last here in October of 2021 talking about his book Truffle Hound. That episode tied for first place in our annual poll of favorite episodes of the year.”
“His latest book is In Defense of Sunlight, The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure. Rowan, welcome back to EconTalk.”
“I have the 2011 artificial intelligence textbook by Russell and Norvig on my shelf. It's about 1,100 pages long. Of those 1,100 pages, about 16 total are devoted to neural nets.”
“You talk about the influence of Clayton Christensen on Jensen Huang's thinking and it's a little bit different than the one that you attribute to to Jensen Huang.”
“Reminded me of um the portrait of Steve Jobs in in Walter Isaacson's book, a book that I did not read for a long time because every review of it said the same thing.”
“And of course, you referenced the work of Ian McGrist, the master and his emissary, and his a past econ where we talked about that those two kinds of attention. And I encourage listeners to go back and listen to that episode to to look at I would say read his book, but his book is quite dense and quite”
“She took an old monastery and retrofitted it so that everything in it was from 1959 as if you know the Dean Martin records and a copy of Port Noise Complaint and all the furnishings...”
“She on a whim publishes a book. Um, it's now sold millions and millions and millions of copies. It's called the artist's way and it's a series of exercise built on letting go of control...”
“My guest is author Rachel Cochel. Her book, which is the subject of today's conversation, is The Melting Point: Family Memory and the Search for a Promised Land.”
“I mean it's interesting because even Herzel when he first um you know he wrote this little book as he called it which was other people called it a pamphlet. a very slim volume called the Jewish state and even in that book that his sort of first uh founding of of modern Zionism he uh suggested that there could”
“His memoir, which I really recommend, which I think your quote is from, it's called The World of Yesterday. It's an extraordinary memoir of life in in in Vienna and in Europe between the wars and then the rise of the Nazis.”
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