Podcast
Lex Fridman's book list: the books mentioned on Lex Fridman Podcast
Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power. Lex is an AI researcher at MIT and beyond.
Books from the latest episodes
#502 – Psychiatry, Insane Asylums, Mental Illness, ECT, Lobotomies, Freud & Jung
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Madness in Civilization
at 0:05 -
Desperate Remedies
at 0:12 -
On Being Sane in Insane Places
at 7:13 -
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
at 55:22 -
A Beautiful Mind
at 1:19:01 -
Flowers for Algernon
at 1:47:32 -
Asylum
at 1:48:02 -
Wear and Tear or, Hints for the Overworked
at 2:07:21 -
Fat and Blood
at 2:07:37 -
Studies in Hysteria
at 2:18:43 -
The Interpretation of Dreams
at 2:21:42
Most recommended on Lex Fridman Podcast
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was discussed across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast by Lex Fridman, Vitalik Buterin, Saagar Enjeti, and Ben Shapiro. Fridman and other guests recommended the book as a monumental, firsthand historical account of Nazi Germany, while also debating the presence of author bias and its objective descriptive style regarding Adolf Hitler.
Discussed“On the bias front, for example, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer is a good example. It is full of bias. But he was there, and to me, he has written probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, book on the Third Reich ever.”
Where to get it
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The Denial of Death
Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by host Lex Fridman and guests including David Wolpe, Brian Greene, and Sheldon Solomon. Guests reflected on the profound personal influence the book had on their understanding of mortality and human motivation. Fridman also brought up the text to explore terror management theory and the psychological ways individuals cope with the fear of death.
Discussed“Burley brilliant previous guest on this podcast she just released a video where on her bedside was the book denial of death uh by owners Becker which of course you would have on her bedside”
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1984
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests such as Dan Houser, Dmitri Dolgov, and Jeff Kaplan discussed 1984 by George Orwell. They reflected on its impact as a powerful dystopian novel, the hubris of aspiring writers attempting to replicate its greatness, and its availability in various cultural contexts.
Discussed“Well, I've been reading, you know, 1984 or Green Hills of Stranglethorn, and I think it's amazing. And now I'm gonna try to write something that somebody is gonna read.”
Where to get it
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Animal Farm
George Orwell's Animal Farm was mentioned across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast by the host and various guests, including Brian Keating, Yaron Brook, Norman Ohler, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, and Michael Malice. The book was cited variously as a favorite reading recommendation, a dystopian classic, a literary analogy for historical events, and a comparison point for modern political and technological movements.
Discussed“Of course, "The Trial" is a work of fiction, but I think it is often useful to go to the surreal world of literature, even of the over-the-top dystopian variety like "1984," "Animal Farm," "Brave New World," "The Trial," "The Castle," "Metamorphosis," even "The Plague" by Albert Camus...”
Where to get it
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Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning was discussed and recommended across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast by host Lex Fridman and guests including David Wolpe, Elon Musk, Robert Breedlove, and Neri Oxman. Contributors highlighted the book's profound impact on personal philosophy, internal sovereignty, and the human capacity to find meaning, joy, and beauty despite extreme hardships and concentration camp experiences.
Discussed“- And also, I mean, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. - Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
Where to get it
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Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was referenced on several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman and guests including Harvey Silverglate, Norman Ohler, Douglas Murray, Vejas Liulevicius, and Tucker Carlson discussed the book in relation to freedom of speech, historical censorship, Nazi ideology, and the historical context surrounding its author.
Discussed“We should read Mein Kampf.”
Where to get it
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The Brothers Karamazov
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests such as Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson recommended Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, with Peterson arguing it stands as Dostoevsky's crowning literary achievement and Ferguson calling it an essential read for personal growth. Host Lex Fridman frequently returned to the novel across multiple episodes, engaging guests in discussions about its profound exploration of wisdom, love, and human character, and questioning whether it holds the title of the greatest book ever written.
Discussed“Like these characters exist, authors exist, Dostoevsky exists, but also "Brothers Karamazov."”
Where to get it
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Brave New World
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was discussed across multiple episodes. Guests like Dan Kokotov recommended it for its prescience regarding societal sorting, while Lex Fridman referenced it in discussions on dystopian literature and governance models. Dan Houser offered a critique calling the book poorly written, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom discussed Orwell's previous critiques of Huxley's work.
Critiqued“That's my criticism of Brave New World, it's just poorly written.”
Where to get it
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The Idiot
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky was mentioned multiple times across the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman recommended it to embrace an optimistic and naive perspective, noted that he sees himself in the novel's main character, and referenced it alongside guests like Julia Shaw, Neri Oxman, Tim Urban, and Jordan Peterson to discuss naive trust, the character of Prince Myshkin, and Dostoevsky's famous remark that beauty will save the world.
Discussed“I'm sometimes like a Prince Myshkin character from The Idiot by Dostoevsky, where you just see...”
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The Gulag Archipelago
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago' was discussed across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast by host Lex Fridman and various guests, including Douglas Murray, Vejas Liulevicius, Jordan Jonas, and Kevin Spacey. Participants referenced the work to examine Soviet society, the nature of totalitarian fear, and the experiences of loyal communists swept into the purges. Guests also highlighted specific passages concerning the boundary between good and evil in the human heart and how the book shaped their perspectives on spiritual endurance rather than the pursuit of ordinary happiness.
Discussed“The answer to which has to be understood, which is it's what Solzhenitsyn since says at one point in "Gulag Archipelago" in that passage where he describes...”
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was referenced across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman used quotes from the book to conclude episodes, while guests including Elon Musk and Walter Isaacson discussed the novel's philosophical implications on the universe, humor, and how Musk modeled his AI project after it.
Discussed“As Douglas Adams pointed out in his book, sometimes, the answer is arguably the easy part. Trying to frame the question correctly is the hard part.”
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Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari's book 'Sapiens' was referenced on the Lex Fridman Podcast by the host and various guests as a profound exploration of human history and cognition. Guests like Saagar Enjeti recommended the bestseller for offering a comprehensive view of how humans developed, while Lex Fridman and other thinkers like Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett and Norman Ohler invoked the book to discuss the cognitive revolution, storytelling, and the unique human ability to network minds.
Discussed“Like Sapiens by Harari, which is a great book, he also misses that. Like, when it comes to those moments, he writes like, "We don't understand how the first cognitive revolution and the second cognitive revolution actually happened."”
Where to get it
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THE PLAGUE
Albert Camus's novel 'THE PLAGUE' was discussed across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman included the book in discussions on dystopian literature and human responses to crises. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. referenced the work as a parable about enduring insurmountable tasks through duty, while Barry Barish discussed rereading it during isolation. Michael Malice offered a critique, calling the novel an unreadable allegory about Germany conquering France.
Discussed“Of course, "The Trial" is a work of fiction, but I think it is often useful to go to the surreal world of literature, even of the over-the-top dystopian variety like "1984," "Animal Farm," "Brave New World," "The Trial," "The Castle," "Metamorphosis," even "The Plague" by Albert Camus...”
Where to get it
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The Fountainhead
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests such as Yaron Brook and Michael Malice recommended Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead', while other guests and the host discussed its characters, plot, reception, and philosophical themes surrounding rational self-interest.
Discussed“People would say things like, 'I read 'The Fountainhead,' and now I'm getting a divorce,' you know?”
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On the Road
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Lex Fridman and Andrew Callaghan discussed Jack Kerouac's On the Road. They recommended the book as a travel narrative, quoted its ending and favorite lines, noted its rapid composition on amphetamines, and touched upon how frequently Callaghan's own hitchhiking book was compared to it.
Discussed“The end of On The Road by Kerouac: "Forlorn rags of growing... ...old." I just remember closing that and thinking, "What the fuck am I doing in this big... ...world?"”
Where to get it
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The Bitcoin Standard
Saifedean Ammous's book The Bitcoin Standard was discussed and recommended across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast by guests including Michael Saylor, Nic Carter, Anthony Pompliano, Alex Gladstein, and host Lex Fridman. The participants praised the book as an essential starting point for understanding Austrian economics, historical inflation rates, and the foundational economic philosophy behind Bitcoin.
Discussed“People should know that you've written the book "The Bitcoin Standard" from 2018, I believe.”
Where to get it
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A new kind of science
Across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman frequently discussed Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science with guests and with Wolfram himself. Fridman credited the book for inspiring his pursuit of artificial intelligence, praised its profound exploration of cellular automata and complex systems, and once named it the single book he would take to a desert island.
Discussed“I'm deeply grateful that you wrote a new kind of science, that you explored this mystery of cellular automata and inspired this one little kid in me to, to pursue artificial intelligence in all this beautiful world.”
Where to get it
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The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by Michael Malice, Lex Fridman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Boris Sofman, and Sean Kelly. Guests explored existential freedom as an act of rebellion against an unfree world, related the book's themes to robot existential angst in popular culture, and noted Camus's famous opening lines.
Discussed“Camus said, I believe, in "Myth of Sisyphus," "the only way to deal with an unfree world, is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."”
Where to get it
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The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins's 'The Selfish Gene' was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guest Andrej Karpathy described how the book profoundly impacted his understanding of altruism and genetic selection, providing a major insight into evolutionary biology. Other guests, including Garry Nolan and Sheldon Solomon, referenced Dawkins's gene-centered view of evolution and the origin of DNA, while Lex Fridman used the book's concepts to discuss the definition of a meme and compare clarity in popular science writing.
Recommended“I was very impacted by the selfish Gene I thought that was a really good book that helped me understand altruism as an example and where it comes from and just realizing that you know the selection is in the level of genes was a huge insight for me at the time and it sort of like cleared up a”
Where to get it
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Deep Work
Cal Newport's Deep Work was frequently discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman recommended the book in multiple episodes—including conversations with Charan Ranganath and Andrew Huberman—to illustrate his approach to productivity and the necessity of focused intellectual work. Fridman also referenced Newport's ideas and systematic work habits when speaking with guests such as Jo Boaler, Wojciech Zaremba, and Ryan Hall.
Recommended“And I'm very much with Cal Newport on this, he wrote "Deep Work," and a lot of other amazing books.”
Where to get it
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Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning
Across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast featuring guests such as James Holland, Barry Barish, Michael Malice, Yeonmi Park, Robert Breedlove, and Andrew Huberman, speakers frequently referenced Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning. The participants discussed the book in relation to the Holocaust and totalitarianism, highlighting its profound philosophical insights into how human beings can confront extreme evil, endure suffering, and find ultimate meaning and joy in difficult circumstances.
Recommended“One is uh man's search for meaning about Victor Franco sort of this philosophical thing about how a human being can confront that and find meaning and what it mean what what does the human condition look like in the context of such uh evil.”
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2001, a Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was referenced across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman quoted Clarke at the end of an episode and discussed the monolith with Stephen Wolfram, while Elon Musk cited the work to illustrate the dangers of programming artificial intelligence to lie. Ariel Ekblaw and Bret Weinstein also referenced the story when discussing intelligent space habitats, HAL, and the concept of robotic childhood.
Discussed“So in "2001: Space Odyssey," what Odyssey clock was trying to say,”
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Atlas Shrugged
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged came up during discussions with guests like Yaron Brook, George Hotz, and Michael Malice, as well as host Lex Fridman. Guests recommended the book alongside The Fountainhead, with Malice advising listeners to read the latter first. Brook discussed Rand's twelve-year writing process and the book's publication, while Hotz described it as entertaining despite comparing its reading experience to pornography.
Discussed“But can we stay in the mythic register with "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged?"”
Where to get it
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Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests Anca Dragan and Marcus Hutter, along with host Lex Fridman, discussed Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig's textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Hutter hailed it as the AI Bible and a foundational text, while Dragan and Fridman shared how reading it early in their lives inspired their journeys into artificial intelligence.
Discussed“when I was in 12th grade I got my hands on a PDF copy in Romania of Russell Norvig a I modern approach I didn't know anything about AI”
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Dune
Frank Herbert's novel Dune was discussed on several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman, along with guests Dan Kokotov, Ryan Hall, and Thomas Tull, referenced the book. Participants praised it as the greatest science fiction novel of all time, highlighted its deep exploration of human interactions, politics, and philosophy, and mentioned elements like space-folding navigators and cinematic adaptations while incorporating its quotes and recommendations into the conversations.
Recommended“And now let me leave you with some words from Frank Herbert in "Dune".”
Where to get it
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was discussed across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast between 2021 and 2026. Guests Andrew Scull and Norman Ohler, along with host Lex Fridman, examined the novel and its film adaptation in relation to the history of psychiatry, the depiction of asylum conditions, and public perceptions of electroconvulsive therapy. They also discussed how Kesey's experiences as a participant in CIA-funded LSD trials directly inspired him to write the book.
Discussed“And of course in the popular mind I think the, probably the most famous, instance of telling the public about some of these interventions was the film of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where you see Jack Nicholson giving I think the performance of a lifetime who is given ECT, electroconvulsive therapy,”
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The beginning of infinity
Richard Craib told Lex Fridman that David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity was perhaps his favorite book because of its optimistic worldview. Natalya Bailey brought up the book to explain how it introduced her to rigorous ideas in physics and philosophy, while Aravind Srinivas, Neal Stephenson, and Steven Pinker also referenced the work to discuss explanations, the endless expansion of knowledge, and human progress.
Discussed“Like that's the whole concept of 'The Beginning of Infinity' book by David Deutsch.”
Where to get it
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, translated by Clara Bell, was discussed across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guests including Dan Houser, Jeremi Suri, Fiona Hill, and Niall Ferguson praised the work in translation, with Ferguson noting that the book's concluding essay on historical determinism inspired him to become a historian. Additionally, host Lex Fridman mentioned Tolstoy's authorship of the novel during a discussion with Michael Malice.
Recommended“War and Peace is one of the best novels written in Russian, I would argue.”
Where to get it
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Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas R. Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" was discussed across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guest Eugenia Kuyda cited it in September 2020 as a major influence on her thinking about complexity and meaning when starting her company. Other guests also referenced the book during their appearances: Ben Goertzel brought it up regarding AI and logic, Adam Frank used it to illustrate Buddhist koans, Leslie Kaelbling described reading it in high school as formative for her interest in AI, and Roger Penrose recalled a conversation he had with Hofstadter about the book's conclusions.
Discussed“And every koan, you know, if you've ever read 'Godel, Escher, Bach', he's got a whole chapter on koans. They're kind of non-logical problems that you have to work on.”
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Solaris
Stanisław Lem's novel Solaris came up across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman referenced the book to reflect on the complexities of human communication and to describe the exploration of human nature. Guests including Lee Cronin, Ben Goertzel, and Joscha Bach also mentioned the work; Cronin used it to illustrate the concept of intelligence emerging before life, Goertzel discussed it among science fiction inspirations, and Bach touched on its themes while talking about a thinking planet.
Recommended“and now let me leave you with some words from stanislav Lam and Solaris how do you expect to communicate with the ocean when we can't even understand one another”
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Moby Dick
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" was mentioned across various episodes by guests such as Neri Oxman, Neal Stephenson, Barry Barish, and Sheldon Solomon, as well as host Lex Fridman. Guests discussed how the novel inspired architectural and design work, how it impacted their literary pursuits, and how its themes relate to resource limits.
Discussed“I remember when we did the Mandela Pavilion, we read 'Moby Dick,' the whiteness of the whale, the albino, the different, the other. And that got us to work on melanin.”
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The Fellowship of the Ring
On various episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests such as Marc Andreessen, Todd Howard, Po-Shen Loh, Manolis Kellis, and Garry Kasparov referenced J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings. The speakers and host utilized the classic fantasy novel to draw thematic parallels, illustrate immersive world-building, discuss storytelling inspiration, and exemplify literary tropes.
Discussed“If we can draw parallels to the Hobbit or whatever.”
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Life and Fate
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate was discussed by Douglas Murray, Niall Ferguson, and Dan Houser. Murray repeatedly referenced the book to explore its insights on antisemitism and its description of anti-Semitism as doing everything at the same time. Ferguson recommended reading the novel to understand the horrors of the Eastern Front in World War II, and Houser expressed his admiration for a specific portion of the narrative.
Discussed“- I love the bit in Life and Fate when you get...”
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Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment was discussed across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guests such as Ronald Sullivan, Niall Ferguson, and George Hotz, along with host Lex Fridman, referenced the novel in conversations about justice, personal identity, and ethics. Ronald Sullivan and George Hotz both recalled how the book deeply influenced them in their youth, with Hotz noting that it helped steer him away from criminal behavior.
Discussed“is it better than crime and punishment”
Where to get it
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The Black Cloud
Fred Hoyle's classic science fiction novel The Black Cloud was discussed across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Richard Dawkins mentioned it as an influential work of science fiction, while Nick Lane fondly recalled reading it as a teenager and how its non-carbon-based lifeforms challenged his understanding of biology. Lex Fridman noted connections between the novel and advancements in natural language processing. Christof Koch also brought up the book to illustrate radically different potential forms of consciousness and intelligence, highlighting the story of an astronomical cloud coming between the Earth and the Sun.
Discussed“When I was about, I guess, 15 or 16, I remember reading a book by Fred Hoyle called "The Black Cloud," which, I was a budding biologist at the time, and this was the first time I'd come across someone really challenging the heart of biology”
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The Emperor's New Mind
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Roger Penrose's book was discussed in relation to physics, computation, and consciousness. In March 2020, during an episode featuring the author, Lex Fridman read an opening quote from the text about children posing basic questions and concluded the interview with another excerpt regarding technicality and obviousness. In July 2022, Demis Hassabis mentioned reading the book while discussing his debates with Penrose over whether consciousness is purely computational.
Discussed“he he thinks that consciousness is more than just a computation uh do you think all of it the whole shebang is can be can be a competition yeah i've had many fascinating debates with uh sir roger penrose and obviously he's he's famously and i read you know emperors of new mind and and uh and his books uh”
Where to get it
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The War of Art
Steven Pressfield's The War of Art was featured on the Lex Fridman Podcast by guests including Ryan Schiller, Joe Rogan, and Jeff Atwood, as well as by host Lex Fridman. The speakers recommended the book for its powerful insights on creative struggle, overcoming resistance, and respecting the muse. Jeff Atwood also referenced the text when discussing the inherent difficulties and suffering associated with the writing process.
Recommended“i guess i'll say i really like the book the the war of art um which is a book about creative resistance and the creative struggle and what it means to be creative”
Where to get it
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The Worm at the Core
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests and the host discussed The Worm at the Core by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Lex Fridman recommended the book for its psychological experiments, while guests like Eugenia Kuyda and Joe Rogan, alongside Fridman himself, explored its themes regarding terror management theory and how the fear of death drives human behavior.
Discussed“there's a there's a bunch of philosophers ernest becker and uh sheldon solomon they believe that death is the at the core of everything wrote this book warm at the core”
Where to get it
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The Art of War
Sun Tzu's The Art of War was referenced across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Host Lex Fridman used passages from the classic text during closing remarks and discussed its core thesis that no country benefits from prolonged conflict. Guest Aravind Srinivas quoted the book to analyze modern business strategy regarding competitor weaknesses, while martial artist Ryan Hall debated how people often misapply or superficially quote the text's axioms.
Discussed“you know, there's this quote in 'The Art of War,' like 'Make the weakness of your enemy a strength.'”
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The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and other works were discussed across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. In June 2023, Bert Kreischer recalled discovering Hemingway while working at Barnes and Noble and shared a conversation about the author's distinctive titles. Additionally, Lex Fridman, Barry Barish, and David Eagleman mentioned various Hemingway books and short stories in different interviews.
Discussed“And so he wrote very simply, and it wasn't until after I read a bunch of Ernest Hemingway, I was working at Barnes and Noble, and this person said, 'Don't you love his titles?' And I was like, 'Yeah, 'Sun Also Rises'.' And they're like, 'Yeah, but no, 'The Sun Also Rises'.' And I was like, 'Yeah, 'Sun Also Rises'.'”
Where to get it
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The Wealth of Nations
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was discussed across several episodes. Cenk Uygur brought up the book to emphasize that free markets do not mean an absence of government. Jennifer Burns quoted Smith regarding classical economics, Steve Keen critiqued Ricardo in comparison to Smith's work, and Travis Oliphant mentioned discovering the book during his self-guided study of economics.
Discussed“Classical economics does not really use math, is very close to political economy. It's concerned with, as Smith puts it, "The wealth of nations."”
Where to get it
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The Book of Five Rings
Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings came up across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guests such as Ed Calderon, Richard Haier, Robert Breedlove, and Ryan Hall referenced the historic martial arts and strategy text. They discussed it in relation to personal training, the generalization of skills, foundational strategic axioms of conflict, and philosophical influences on equanimity.
Discussed“like I got that book that book of five rings before I went into training”
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The Fabric of Reality
The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch came up across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Neal Stephenson mentioned it in episode 240 for its ideas on the power of explanations and static civilizations. Richard Craib cited it in episode 159 as possibly his favorite and most optimistic book. In episode 157, Natalya Bailey discussed how the book introduced her to formal ideas in physics and philosophy. Additionally, Lee Cronin referred to the book in episode 404 to illustrate an example of inductivism involving a farmer and a chicken.
Discussed“I think it's in the "Fabric of Reality" from David Deutsch, where basically, you know, the farmer is feeding the chicken every day and the chicken's getting fat and happy.”
Where to get it
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Red Famine
On Lex Fridman Podcast, Michael Malice recommended Anne Applebaum's Red Famine for detailing the Holodomor and Stalin's actions. Lex Fridman also discussed reading the book as part of his background preparation for an interview and mentioned it when discussing historical famines and government manipulation of data.
Discussed“So, for example, I read Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. It's about Holodomor.”
Where to get it
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Surfaces and Essences
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander's book Surfaces and Essences was discussed by guests Eugenia Kuyda, Melanie Mitchell, Leslie Kaelbling, and Guido van Rossum. Guests cited the book, alongside related works by Hofstadter, as formative influences that shaped their perspectives on analogy, complexity, artificial intelligence, and human consciousness.
Recommended“my choice is um so the one book that really influenced me a lot when i was building starting out this company maybe 10 years ago uh was gb go to leicester block and um i like everything about it”
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Bible
The Bible was discussed across various episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. In an interview with Kanye West, the guest suggested the Bible contains contradictions that require a pastor to unpack and interpret. In other episodes, guests referenced texts such as Charles Murray's Human Diversity and David Marr's Vision while discussing topics ranging from biological differences to primitive sensory systems.
Discussed“I believe now you could go to the Bible, and one thing's going to say one thing, another thing may be contradicted in a way. And then the pastor has to unpack it.”
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Bloodlands
Lex Fridman mentioned Timothy Snyder's book Bloodlands across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast in late 2022. Fridman described it as one of the most upsetting books he had ever read, citing it during discussions on historical suffering, famine, and the human capacity to rationalize atrocities.
Discussed“but another excellent book on on the topic and by the way thank you for recommending that to me”
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Life Ascending
Nick Lane's book Life Ascending came up across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. In September 2022, Lex Fridman discussed the book's subtitle, The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, while reviewing Lane's bibliography. Andrej Karpathy mentioned reading the book in October 2022 during a conversation on the origins of life and basic chemistry. Fridman referenced the book again in June 2024 and June 2025, highlighting its cataloging of major evolutionary milestones such as DNA, photosynthesis, and complex cells.
Recommended“Really, we can go back to the entire history of life on Earth, and a previous podcast guest, Nick Lane, does a great job of this in his book, "Life Ascending," listing these 10 major inventions throughout the evolution of life on Earth, like DNA, photosynthesis, complex cells, sex, movement, sight, all those kinds of things.”
Where to get it
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Love and Math
Edward Frenkel's book Love and Math was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by host Lex Fridman and guest Peter Woit across multiple episodes. Fridman enthusiastically recommended the book to listeners and quoted its opening lines during an interview with Frenkel, while Woit referenced it to illustrate unifying concepts in number theory.
Discussed“You open your book "Love and Math" with a question. "How does one become a mathematician? There are many ways that this can happen. Let me tell you how it happened to me."”
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Snow Crash
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests and the host frequently referenced Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash. Neuralink co-founder DJ Seo shared that it was one of the first books he read while learning English, Lex Fridman noted its significance in originating the term metaverse, and George Hotz recommended it to listeners.
Discussed“Some of the first set of books that I picked up are "Ender's Game," the whole saga by Orson Scott card, and "Neuromancer" from William Gibson, and "Snow Crash" from Neal Stephenson.”
Where to get it
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The Old Man and the Sea
Lex Fridman discussed Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Fridman recommended the novel as a shorter and better alternative for stories about fish, compared its themes to Moby-Dick, and referenced it when discussing life struggles, luck, and perseverance.
Discussed“there's probably echoes that represent the 20th century now in old man in the sea by hemingway that also has similar i guess themes”
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Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes's novel Flowers for Algernon was discussed on several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman brought up the book in conversations with Tommaso Poggio, Richard Haier, and others to explore themes of institutional care, human intelligence, and whether genius is a gift or a curse. Regina Barzilay also referenced the novel to draw parallels to computer-augmented human cognition.
Discussed“Now that reminds me of Flowers for Algernon. That doesn't have a happy ending, and it's not about mental health necessarily, but it's about the journey of institution in relation to the health of a patient.”
Where to get it
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The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was brought up on the Lex Fridman Podcast by guests Marc Andreessen, Todd Howard, Po-Shen Loh, and Garry Kasparov. The speakers referenced the epic fantasy to explain narrative tropes like the ring of power, to discuss tonal differences in fantasy media, to cite sources of personal inspiration regarding campaigns against adversity, and to illustrate philosophical points about good and evil.
Discussed“And for people who don't catch the reference, that's "Lord of the Rings."”
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Finnegans Wake
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman and guest Karl Deisseroth discussed James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake. Fridman noted that Deisseroth quoted the book, which prompted a conversation about the emotional impact of Joyce's unconventional language and how its stylistic qualities mirror the language and thought patterns found in schizophrenia.
Discussed“so you quote finnegan's wake uh mad props for that james joy's book i took a class on james joyce in college”
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Human Action
Ludwig von Mises's Human Action was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by guests including Javier Milei, Robert Breedlove, and Saifedean Ammous. Milei described how reading the book over a weekend caused a true revolution in his thinking. Breedlove recommended it to intellectual skeptics of Bitcoin and referred to it as the bible of Austrian economics, while Ammous noted it as a major treatise on economics written in the 1940s.
Discussed“and I remember for example the experience of reading Human Action by mises and this was a book that I didn't know about and I remember that on the following weekend I started to read this book right from the first page and I didn't stop until I finished it and that was a true revolution in my head”
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The Communist Manifesto
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests John Clarke, Vejas Liulevicius, and Zev Weinstein discussed The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Clarke noted that the text is frightening when read in a modern context, Liulevicius examined its role as a call to arms during the 1848 revolutions, and Weinstein compared its potential danger across different historical eras.
Discussed“I would love to sort of talk about the works of Marx, "The Communist Manifesto" and the "Das Kapital."”
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Ender's Game
On Lex Fridman Podcast, Orson Scott Card's 'Ender's Game' came up in conversations with guests like DJ Seo, Ryan Hall, and Rosalind Picard. Guests recalled reading the science fiction novel in their youth as an early influence on their thinking about technology and conflict. Lex Fridman also referenced the book alongside its sequel to discuss how science fiction connects readers with characters and helps alleviate loneliness.
Discussed“Some of the first set of books that I picked up are "Ender's Game," the whole saga by Orson Scott card, and "Neuromancer" from William Gibson, and "Snow Crash" from Neal Stephenson.”
Where to get it
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Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman brought up the novella with guests like Jordan Peterson to examine young men falling into cynicism, bitterness, and the psychological states of incels. Kelsi Sheren also referenced Dostoevsky's work while discussing how bitterness grows within a person's mind, drawing parallels to destructive historical figures.
Discussed“- If there's a young man in their twenties listening to this, how do they escape the pull of Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground"?”
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The Case Against Reality
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman and guest Robert Breedlove discussed Donald David Hoffman's book The Case Against Reality across episodes such as #293 and #176. Fridman introduced Hoffman and his extensive scientific papers, engaging him on the book's bold claim that the world seen by human eyes is not real, while Breedlove noted that the book heavily shaped his personal perspective on space-time and reality.
Discussed“yes uh in his bookcase against reality yeah many more than a few”
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Infinite jest
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guest George Hotz and host Lex Fridman discussed David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest across multiple episodes. Hotz recommended the book as an enjoyable read that fosters personal growth and noted that it explores wireheading. In a later appearance, Hotz brought up the novel again to illustrate a cautionary future of hyper-engaging and addictive AI-generated content, referencing the book's premise of a compulsively viewable tape. Additionally, Michael Kearns cited Infinite Jest as his favorite novel during his appearance on the podcast.
Discussed“So, 'Infinite Jest,' it's introduced in the first 50 pages is about a tape that once you watch it once, you only ever wanna watch that tape. In fact, you wanna watch the tape so much that someone says, 'Okay, here's a hack saw, cut off your pinky and then I'll let you watch the tape again,' and you'll do”
Where to get it
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Maps of Meaning
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Robert Breedlove recommended Jordan B. Peterson's Maps of Meaning as a deep dive into mythology and social structures to challenge materialist worldviews. Oliver Anthony later referenced the book to explain psychological and political differences among individuals, and Sheldon Solomon discussed past academic disagreements with Peterson surrounding the work.
Discussed“Like just in our structure and the way we, you know, again, it goes back to that Jordan Peterson lecture about, I think in Maps of Meaning where he talks about people who think more conservatively or more liberally about things like it's been applied to politics, but it's based more in psychology than anything.”
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Superintelligence
Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. On August 16, 2022, Lex Fridman and Duncan Trussell praised the book as an extraordinary work exploring the exponential risks and potential paths of artificial intelligence. Marc Andreessen mentioned the book on June 22, 2023, to critique its arguments in relation to modern AI safety discussions. Additionally, Michael Littman referenced reading Bostrom's book on December 13, 2020, as part of his broader study of general artificial intelligence frameworks.
Discussed“So the book Super Intelligence, right, which is like the Nick Bostrom's book, which is like the origin of a lot of this stuff, which was written, you know, whatever, 10 years ago or something.”
Where to get it
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We the Living
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Yaron Brook, Tyler Cowen, and Lex Fridman discussed Ayn Rand's novel We the Living in different episodes. Yaron Brook highlighted the book as Rand's first and most autobiographical novel during a discussion on Objectivism, while Tyler Cowen and Lex Fridman reflected on its depiction of Russia and its significance among her literary works.
Discussed“You mentioned "We the Living" is one of the books that you like of hers the most.”
Where to get it
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On Intelligence
Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee's book On Intelligence was discussed across several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. François Chollet noted that reading the book as a teenager deeply influenced his view of the mind as a multi-scale hierarchical system, while Lex Fridman referenced the work during conversations with Dileep George and Jeff Hawkins regarding brain-inspired artificial intelligence, the neocortex, and hierarchical temporal memory theory.
Discussed“another book that i read around the same time that had a big impact on me uh and and there was actually a little bit of overlap with john pierre as well and i read it around the same time is jeff hawkins on intelligence which is a classic and he has this vision of the mind as a multi-scale”
Where to get it
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Meditations
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by host Lex Fridman, guest Lars Brownworth, and guest Ryan Hall. Fridman and Brownworth both recommended reading the work to gain insight into the mind and humble nature of a Roman leader, while Hall referenced the Stoic philosophy within it regarding focusing on what is within human control.
Recommended“Marcus Aurelius in the Roman Empire is an example that, you know, reading Meditations is also just an insight into the mind of a man who's to himself”
Where to get it
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The Master and Margarita
Recommended“um the master in margarita that's a deadly book i've read that i think four times and i still there's still it's unbelievably deep”
Where to get it
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On Writing
On multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast between 2018 and 2021, guests and the host discussed Stephen King's On Writing. Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett recommended the book for its writing tips interlaced with personal history, while Lex Fridman and Jeff Atwood referenced it to explore the grind and emotional toll of the writing process.
Discussed“if we could take a little bit of a tangent stephen king on writing you as a great writer you you're dropping a hint here that the ideas don't come to you that it's a grind of sort of it's almost like you're mining for gold”
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Reinforcement Learning
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto's textbook Reinforcement Learning was recommended by Lex Fridman and Marcus Hutter. Additionally, guest David Silver and Fridman mentioned reading the seminal technical specification when discussing their early experiences with reinforcement learning.
Recommended“I recommend a cent of money as a great book on this history”
Where to get it
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The Double Helix
James Watson's The Double Helix was featured on the Lex Fridman Podcast in multiple episodes. Walter Isaacson mentioned it in episode 395 as an inspirational book that sparked Jennifer Doudna's interest in science. Eric Weinstein recommended the book in an earlier episode for its candid depiction of the human elements behind DNA research, and Sam Harris brought it up in episode 185 to discuss the egocentric motivations driving scientific discovery.
Recommended“So her father drops a book on her bed called the "Double Helix," the book by James Watson on the discovery of the structure of DNA...”
Where to get it
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Wonderful Life the Burgess
Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life was discussed on several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Dennis Whyte and the host both praised it as an all-time favorite work focused on the Cambrian explosion of life. Betül Kaçar brought up the book to contemplate Gould's famous evolutionary thought experiment regarding whether the tape of life would replay the same way if rewound, while Risto Miikkulainen referenced the text to explore concepts of uniqueness and irreplaceability.
Recommended“one of my favorite books of all time from Stephen J Gould if you've never read that book it kind of blows your mind it's about the Cambrian explosion of life”
Where to get it
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Siddhartha
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse was mentioned across multiple episodes. Lex Fridman recommended it in July 2021 and discussed its Buddhist themes with Sean Kelly in September 2021. Additionally, Andrew Callaghan shared in April 2024 that the book inspired his early interest in Eastern philosophy and psychedelic culture.
Discussed“Unfortunately, it was the kind of meditative path or the eastern path that I took and fused that with psychedelic culture in Seattle that took me down the psychedelic use rabbit hole in the first place. So, (chuckles) I'd say it all started with "Siddhartha". - "Siddhartha". That's a good book.”
Where to get it
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The Giver
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Sara Seager recommended The Giver by Lois Lowry as a book that left a profound impact on her life. Later, Lex Fridman discussed the novel in multiple episodes, including an AMA and a conversation with Michael Malice. Fridman shared that it was the first philosophical book he read in English after moving to America as a teenager. He noted that the story helped spark his thinking about the world during a period when he felt like an outcast and needed to readjust to a new country.
Discussed“the first one i remember reading in english was the giver that sort of helped me start thinking about this world”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
James Joyce's novel Ulysses was discussed on multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Guest Norman Ohler recommended it as an influential book from his youth, while host Lex Fridman and guest Sheldon Solomon both admitted to struggling significantly with reading the dense novel, noting that it required cliff notes or took decades to attempt.
Recommended“Yeah, it's Ulysses by James Joyce. Ulysses is good, but only when you're in your early 20s, living in New York, and you're writing your first book, and you just have taken LSD.”
Where to get it
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Foundation
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests Ariel Ekblaw, George Hotz, and Ryan Hall discussed Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Ariel Ekblaw recalled reading the Foundation trilogy as a favorite childhood science fiction story following Hari Seldon, while George Hotz and Ryan Hall mentioned reading the classic sci-fi series as part of personal reading projects.
Discussed“probably a sick asimov foundation trilogy this is a amazing story of harry selden”
Where to get it
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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by Lex Fridman, Bassem Youssef, and Ben Shapiro. Guests described it as a widely influential anti-Semitic work, examined its popularity and origins in the Arab world, and used references to it to critique modern conspiracy theories.
Discussed“You gave a lecture on 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.' It's widely considered to be the most influential work of anti-Semitism ever, perhaps. Can you describe this text?”
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Wrestling Tough
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests Tom Brands, Josh Barnett, and host Lex Fridman discussed Wrestling Tough by Mike Chapman. Fridman brought up the book to examine the psychology and physical limits of wrestling, referencing athletes like Bill Cole in the new edition. Tom Brands mentioned the book when talking about motivational quotes, while Josh Barnett used it to explore how wrestlers harness anger against opponents.
Discussed“i think it was a first wrestling tough book but it's good it's a good book”
Where to get it
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The Machiavellians
Marc Andreessen referenced The Machiavellians by James Burnham on the Lex Fridman Podcast to discuss the Italian realist school of political philosophy and the iron law of oligarchy. Michael Malice also recommended the book as a top choice on the podcast, describing it as a work about how politics actually functions rather than how people imagine it. Lex Fridman later referenced Burnham's book when talking with Michael Malice about political power and resistance.
Recommended“called The Machiavellians by this guy James Burnham, who has had a big impact on me.”
Where to get it
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The Road to Reality
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Roger Penrose's book The Road to Reality was highlighted by guests as an exceptionally deep and comprehensive guide to modern physics. Neal Stephenson and Eric Weinstein both praised the book for its capacity to bridge foundational concepts with the complex boundaries of physics equations and scientific inquiry.
Discussed“I know Roger Penrose has like his Road to Reality series for like basic physics getting up to everything we know”
Where to get it
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Dear Reader
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Yeonmi Park recommended Michael Malice's book Dear Reader. Later, in other episodes, Lex Fridman discussed the unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong-il alongside Malice's other works and mentioned that Malice was working on a short book about anarchy.
Discussed“dear reader the uh unauthorized autobiography Kim Jong-il”
Where to get it
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Encountering the Holy Spirit in Every Book of the Bible
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests and the host discussed the Bible across various episodes. Lex mentioned feeling embarrassed about never having read the Bible directly while consuming secondary literature, Yaron Brook noted a survey ranking it as the most influential book for CEOs, and Rosalind Picard suggested that educated people should read it.
Discussed“but i'm embarrassed to say that first of all i've never read the bible which is embarrassing to say it's like i read a bunch of stuff about the bible not the bible itself and the same not equating them”
Where to get it
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Principles
Ray Dalio's book Principles came up on the Lex Fridman Podcast when Lex Fridman recommended it alongside Dalio's newer work on the geopolitics of the changing world order. In other episodes, guests referenced the book to support various discussions. Brian Keating cited Dalio's definition of an expert while discussing cosmology and science, and Kevin Systrom mentioned the principles upheld at Bridgewater when talking about the firm's unique organizational culture.
Discussed“in principles he says an expert is someone who's done something three times successfully like you can do one something correctly”
Where to get it
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Something Deeply Hidden
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Lex Fridman repeatedly brought up Sean Carroll's book on quantum mechanics, Something Deeply Hidden. Fridman mentioned the book during introductory remarks, discussed its subject matter with Carroll in a later interview, and referenced what Isaac Newton might have thought of it.
Discussed“You wrote the book "Something Deeply Hidden on the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics" and a new book coming out soon, part of that, "Biggest Ideas in the Universe" series we mentioned called "Quanta and Fields."”
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' was referenced multiple times on the Lex Fridman Podcast to discuss the decline of global violence and conflict. In episode #142, the host spoke with Manolis Kellis about how the act of civilization has dramatically reduced violence. In an episode featuring Kai-Fu Lee, the host highlighted Pinker's book regarding the decrease in global conflict. Additionally, Pieter Abbeel mentioned the work in episode #18, citing it as evidence that violence has consistently decreased over time.
Discussed“so you again i want to go back to pinker yeah and the better angels of our nature the whole concept that civilization and the act of civilizing has dramatically reduced violence dramatically”
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The Dialogues of Plato
Plato's Dialogues of Plato came up on the Lex Fridman Podcast in conversations with guests Tyler Cowen, Sean Kelly, and Sergey Nazarov. Tyler Cowen and Sergey Nazarov both described how reading Plato's dialogues during their early teenage years had a profound impact on them, with Nazarov specifically noting that works like Protagoras and Gorgias taught him how to evaluate information and engage in dialogue.
Discussed“plato says in the republic it's a kind of myth but you know he he says people will understand their their condition”
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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been discussed on several episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Dr. Charan Ranganath recommended the book while discussing paradigms and scientific revolutions. Douglas Lenat and Jed Buchwald both mentioned Kuhn's famous work to explore how humans become locked into specific ways of thinking and to examine the paradigmatic structure of scientific progress.
Recommended“Have you ever read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn?”
Where to get it
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21 Lessons for the 21st Century
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Yuval Noah Harari's book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century was discussed in several episodes. Host Lex Fridman listed it among the author's influential works, guest Nick Lane brought it up to examine its view of biochemistry as an algorithm that artificial intelligence could hack, and Jack Dorsey referenced it to discuss perspectives on meditation and human self-awareness.
Discussed“author of several highly acclaimed, highly influential books, including Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.”
Where to get it
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Consider the Lobster
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman mentioned David Foster Wallace and his short story Consider the Lobster while discussing veganism and animal suffering with RZA. In other episodes, guests like Sean Kelly and Cal Newport discussed Wallace's unfinished novel The Pale King, talking about the author's moving letters, the themes of boredom and meaninglessness, and how the writing process drove him to distraction.
Discussed“especially there's a there's a guy named david foster wallace he wrote a short story called consider the lobster”
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Contact
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Clara Sousa-Silva, Manolis Kellis, and Richard Dawkins all discussed Carl Sagan's novel Contact. Clara Sousa-Silva brought up the book on episode 195 to explain how it resonated with her childhood aspirations and shaped her early thoughts on space and life. Manolis Kellis mentioned the book on episode 142 to discuss space travel and communication. Richard Dawkins discussed Sagan's novel on episode 87 while talking about alien contact and radio signals.
Discussed“when i was little it was contact the book the carl sagan book i really thought i was just like ellie uh and i was going to become ali i really resonated with me that character and the notions of life and space in the universe”
Where to get it
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Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone
Lex Fridman discussed Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone by Hunter S. Thompson across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast. He brought up the book with Dan Houser, who expressed his deep love and obsession for Thompson's work during his youth, and also mentioned it in conversations with Sarma Melngailis and Michael Kearns regarding their early reading habits and high school backgrounds.
Discussed“- Plus there's the caricature of the drug world of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That's an interesting one. - I love the book so much. I was obsessed by it when I was about 17, 18. And I enjoyed the film, but I preferred the book.”
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Lex Fridman brought up Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas across multiple episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast, prompting guest Dan Houser to express his deep love for the book.
Discussed“- Plus there's the caricature of the drug world of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That's an interesting one. - I love the book so much. I was obsessed by it when I was about 17, 18. And I enjoyed the film, but I preferred the book.”
Where to get it
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Homo Deus
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Yuval Noah Harari's book Homo Deus was discussed in multiple contexts. Guest Russ Tedrake recommended it in August 2020 as an essential follow-up to Sapiens. Later, in episode #390, host Lex Fridman questioned Harari extensively about specific passages in the book, including his characterization of Adolf Hitler's resume and rise to power, as well as his analysis of how 19th- and 20th-century humanism sprouted distinct political offshoots.
Discussed“author of several highly acclaimed, highly influential books, including Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.”
Where to get it
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Lila
Robert M. Pirsig's book Lila was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast by guest Robert Breedlove and Peter Wang. Breedlove highly recommended the book, describing it as a beautiful work where the author refutes causality and argues that value is fundamental. Wang referred to Lila as Pirsig's follow-on sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, using it to elaborate on layers of human existence and metaphysics.
Discussed“and in his um follow-on book uh has a sequel to it called lila”
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Capitalism and freedom
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Milton Friedman's book was cited in discussions concerning free-market capitalism and the limits of government power. In January 2025, Jennifer Burns detailed how Rose Friedman helped compile the author's random notes into the finished book, which became a core component of the conservative movement. In February 2022, John Abramson referenced the text to outline Friedman's views on the legitimate functions of government while speaking with Lex Fridman.
Discussed“Friedman and the importance of his books, 'Free to Choose,' 'Capitalism and Freedom,' the television series he did, all of these were like core components...”
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The Art of Computer Programming
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Donald Knuth's foundational work on algorithms and computation was discussed directly with the author and other guests. In December 2019, Fridman and Knuth reviewed the 1962 table of contents, the multi-decade writing process, and Knuth's ongoing life goal to complete the series. In September 2021, Rodney Brooks referenced the first volume of the book to illustrate early computer science definitions of computation.
Discussed“and donald knuth uh in his first volume of his you know art of computer programming in around 1968 says well what's computation”
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Russo-Ukrainian War
Serhii Plokhy's Russo-Ukrainian War was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. In January 2025, Lex Fridman recommended the book as essential reading for understanding the history leading up to the conflict. Previously, in March 2024, Fridman introduced Plokhy on the show by highlighting his extensive historical works on Ukraine, Russia, and the Soviet Union, specifically naming The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History and referencing his earlier book The Frontline.
Recommended“If forced to recommend two, at this moment, I would say the Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy and The Showman by Simon Schuster, which is a good personal behind-the-scenes biography of the President focused on 2022.”
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Vital Question
Nick Lane's book, The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it is?, was discussed on the Lex Fridman Podcast. Lex Fridman introduced biochemist Nick Lane by highlighting the book as one of his favorite science works, and guest Andrej Karpathy mentioned that reading the book helped change his perspective on the origin of life, making him believe it resulted from basic chemistry rather than a rare magical event.
Discussed“I used to think origin of life was very um it was this magical rare event but then you read books like for example McLean um the vital question a life ascending Etc and he really gets in and he really makes you believe that this is not that rare basic chemistry”
Where to get it
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Changing World Order
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Brian Armstrong, Lex Fridman, and Ray Dalio discussed Ray Dalio's book Changing World Order in late 2021 and mid-2022. The participants explored historical cycles, reserve currencies, and the rise and fall of various empires, such as the Dutch and British empires. Ray Dalio also drew parallels between historical cycles and writings like Plato's Republic.
Discussed“he talks in there he looks back at history right he looks at like empires and you know going back to various chinese empires the dutch and ottomans and everybody and how did they rise”
Where to get it
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The Road to Serfdom
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, guests Jennifer Burns and Javier Milei discussed F.A. Hayek's famous book The Road to Serfdom. They examined its arguments warning against planned economies and used the text to illustrate the view that any middle-ground economic solution between capitalism and socialism is inherently unstable.
Discussed“And so he writes this book that becomes incredibly famous, 'The Road to Serfdom,' basically saying, taking these steps towards a planned economy...”
Where to get it
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Enlightenment Now
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now was recommended by guest Sebastian Thrun in December 2019 during a discussion on human progress and civilization. Previously, in October 2018, Pinker himself suggested reading sections of the book when asked how to communicate engineering culture and AI to the public.
Recommended“Steven Pinker who as a very famous author and philosopher whom I really adore wrote a great book called enlightenment now and that's maybe the one book I would recommend”
Where to get it
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How to Win Friends and Influence People
On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Jonathan Haidt and Sebastian Thrun recommended Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Thrun described the 1936 book as a practical guide containing the complete framework for building interpersonal connections and empathy.
Recommended“i mean i could say you know go read the calling in american mind i could say go read dale carnegie how to win friends and influence people”
Where to get it
The other 1,001 books mentioned on Lex Fridman Podcast, ranked, with the latest episode and time
- Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
- Capitalism, the unknown ideal by Ayn Rand
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
- Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
- A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, Sheba Blake
- AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee
- Deep Undercover by Jack Barsky, Cindy Coloma
- Dreams of a final theory by Steven Weinberg
- Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
- The Evolution of Beauty by Richard O. Prum
- The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
- Blitzed by Norman Ohler
- Das Capital Volume One by Karl Marx
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
- Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
- Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
- MOBY-DICK; or, THE WHALE by Herman Melville
- Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
- Principles of economics by Carl Menger
- Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
- The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
- The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
- The Upanishads by Swami Paramananda
- Layered Money by Nik Bhatia
- Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
- Novacene by James Lovelock
- Projections by Karl Deisseroth
- Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
- The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier
- The Book of Why by Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie
- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams
- A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
- Free Will by Sam Harris
- How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
- How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
- Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark
- Pere Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
- Philosophy by Ayn Rand
- Reinforcement Learning by Rich Sutton
- Rise by Brigitte Gabriel
- Stalin and Europe by Timothy Snyder
- The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
- The Federalist papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, James Madison, John Jay
- The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil
- The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer
- Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
- Collapse by Jared M. Diamond
- Das Kapital by Karl Marx
- Elements by Euclid
- Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler
- Genesis by Bernard Beckett
- Henry Kissinger and the American Century by Jeremi Suri
- How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
- Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
- Livewired by David Eagleman
- Lord of Flies by William Golding
- Neuromancer by William Gibson
- On Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas Murray
- Perceptrons by Marvin Lee Minsky
- Relativity by Albert Einstein
- The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray
- The Birdman of Lauderdale by Clay Christensen
- The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
- The Dead by James Joyce
- The doors of perception by Aldous Huxley
- The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
- The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl
- The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- The Republic by Plato
- The talent code by Daniel Coyle
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
- War on the West by Douglas Murray
- What is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- Civil War by Other Means by Jeremi Suri
- The Bhagavad gita by Juan Mascaró
- What's Our Problem? by Tim Urban
- Transformer by Nick Lane
- Birth and Death of Meaning by Ernest Becker
- escape from evil by ernest becker
- The Unseen Body by Jonathan Reisman
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- Existence and being by Martin Heidegger
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- The concept of time by Martin Heidegger
- Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
- What It Takes by Stephen A. Schwarzman
- A World Without Email by Cal Newport
- Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean M. Carroll
- Skunk Works by Leo Janos
- The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager
- American Cosmic by Diana Walsh Pasulka
- Anthem by Ayn Rand
- Capital by Karl Marx
- Evolutionary Psychology : The New Science of the Mind by David Buss
- Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley
- Galileo's Error by Philip Goff
- Grundrisse by Karl Marx
- My Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman
- New Breed by Kate Darling
- On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt
- Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane
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- Nation of Victims by Vivek Ramaswamy
- New Domesday Book: Return of owners of land, 1873. 4v by . Great Britain. Parliament
- New Right by Michael Malice
- Newton: Philosophical Writings by Isaac Newton
- Nigger by Dick Gregory
- Nigger - The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy
- Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg
- Nuclear Folly by Serhii Plokhy
- Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen
- Observing the erotic imagination by Robert J. Stoller
- On Being Sane in Insane Places by David L. Rosenhan
- On Beyond Zebra! by Dr. Seuss
- On love by Alain De Botton
- On the Essence of Language and the Question of Art by Martin Heidegger
- On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians by Vladimir Putin
- One State, Two States by Benny Morris
- One, Two, Three-- Infinity by George Gamow
- Operation paperclip by Annie Jacobsen
- Opticks by Isaac Newton
- Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning
- Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins
- Overdosed America by John Abramson
- Parallel Distributed Processing by David E. Rumelhart, James L. McClelland, PDP Research Group
- Perceptrons by Marvin Minsky
- Perceptrons, Reissue of the 1988 Expanded Edition with a new foreword by Léon Bottou by Marvin Minsky, Seymour A. Papert
- Perestroika by Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev
- Phenomena by Annie Jacobsen
- Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton
- Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Plants of the Gods by Richard Evans Schultes
- Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 by Plutarch
- Power hold'em strategy by Daniel Negreanu
- Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead
- Private Truths, Public Lies by Timur Kuran
- Probabilistic Robotics by Sebastian Thrun, Wolfram Burgard, Dieter Fox
- Profiles in courage by John F. Kennedy
- Proof and the Art of Mathematics by Joel David Hamkins
- Protagoras by Plato
- Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion by Sergei Nilus
- Prozac nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
- Puzzle Box by Andy Parr, Donald Knuth, Ed Pegg, Jr., Erich Friedman, Gianni A. Sarcone, Helen Grabarchuk, Hasan Yurtoglu, Richard Candy, Suzanne Hazard, Tanya Grabarchuk
- Quantum Computing since Democritus by Scott Aaronson
- Race, crime, and the law by Randall Kennedy
- Radical Markets by Eric A. Posner
- Recursive function theory : [proceedings of the Fifth Symposium in Pure Mathematics of the American Mathematical Society ; held at the Hotel New Yorker, New York, New York, April 6 - 7, 1961] by Pure Mathematics Symposium
- Reflections on Language by Noam Chomsky
- Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart A. Kauffman
- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
- Reputation and Power by Daniel Carpenter
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter
- Rigged by Mollie Hemingway
- Righteous victims by Benny Morris
- Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky
- Rocky III by Robert E. Hoban
- Run River by Joan Didion
- Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin
- Second Treatise of Government by John Locke
- Securitising Identity by Ben Rich
- Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
- Selected Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred Charles Kinsey
- Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi
- Shape by Jordan Ellenberg
- Shoninki by Masazumi Natori
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse Illustrated Edition by Herman Hesse
- Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
- Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak by Larry Smith
- Slouching Toward Nirvana by Charles Bukowski
- Smuggler by Roger Reaves
- So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
- Social Statics by Herbert Spencer
- Socialism by Ludwig Von Mises
- Software by Rudy Rucker
- Solaris by Stanislav LEM
- Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
- Stalin's citizens by Serhy Yekelchyk
- Stalin's Master Narrative by David Brandenberger
- Stalin's war by Ernst Topitsch
- Star Wars - From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig Symposium
- Steve Allen Music Book by Steve Allen
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
- Stuart's Fancy Drinks and How to Mix Them by Thomas Stuart
- Studies in Hysteria by Sigmund Freud
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
- Surprise, Kill, Vanish by Annie Jacobsen
- Surreal Numbers by Donald Ervin Knuth
- Symbolism, the Sacred and the Arts by Mircea Eliade
- Synchronicity by Carl Jung
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
- Teaching Tricks to Canaries and Cage Birds by Carolyn Knapp
- Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
- Tetris by Box Brown
- Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
- The purpose driven church by Rick Warren
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
- The Age of Em by Robin Hanson
- The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- The Alchemist Graphic Novel by Paulo Coelho
- The Anarchist Handbook by Unknown
- The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
- The Authoritarian Moment by Ben Shapiro
- The Big Rig by Steve Viscelli
- The black banners by Ali H. Soufan
- The Black Hole War by Leonard Susskind
- The Blind Spot by Adam Frank
- The book of electricity by Geoffrey Gerard
- The book of Exodus by Chadwick, G. A.
- The Book of Genesis by Ronald Hendel
- The Book of Mormon by Unknown
- The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
- The Brain in Context by Jonathan D. Moreno, Jay Schulkin
- The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz
- The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky, Anatoly Shcharansky, Ron Dermer
- The cell by Geoffrey M. Cooper
- The Chess Computer Handbook by David N. L. Levy
- The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt
- The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge by Vernor Vinge
- The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Marcel Proust
- The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle
- The Cossack Myth by Serhii Plokhy
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant
- The crowd by Gustave Le Bon
- The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. Vol. 2. [-3-4]. by Edward Gibbon
- The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg
- The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu by Maurice Joly
- The diaries of Theodor Herzl by Theodor Herzl
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
- The Eden Project by James Hollis
- The elegant universe by Brian Greene
- The end of history by Francis Fukuyama
- The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
- The Essential Stalin by Joseph Stalin
- The Ethical Algorithm by Michael Kearns, Aaron Roth
- The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle
- The Exodus by Richard Elliott Friedman
- The Feeling of Life Itself by Christof Koch
- The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Phillips Feynman
- The First Man by Albert Camus
- The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg
- The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles
- The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
- The Frontline by Serhii Plokhy
- The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku
- The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill
- The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Horace Barnett Samuel
- The Go Programming Language by Alan A. A. Donovan, Brian W. Kernighan
- The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
- The Goodness Paradox by Richard Wrangham
- The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Edward N. Luttwak
- The great degeneration by Niall Ferguson
- The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time Book 2) by Robert Jordan
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, D. E. Tarver
- The History, Civil, Political and Military, of the Southern Rebellion by Orville James Victor
- The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury
- The Iliad by Homer
- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
- The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
- The Invincible by Stanisław Lem
- The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer
- The journalist and the murderer by Janet Malcolm
- The Kingdom by Christian Redford
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
- The Language of God by Francis Collins
- The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
- The Lessons of History by Will Durant
- The Long Shadow of Antiquity by Gregory S. Aldrete
- The Lost World by Michael Crichton
- The Man from St. Petersburg by Ken Follett
- The Man With the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming
- The Managerial Revolution by Unknown
- The Manticore by Robertson Davies
- The Mathematica Book by Stephen Wolfram
- The Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen
- The Mind in the Cave by J. David Lewis-Williams
- The mind is flat by Nick Chater
- The mind of a mnemonist by Alexander Luria
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
- The Monthly Review by Ralph Griffiths
- The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein
- The Most Human Human by Brian Christian
- The Nazi war on cancer by Proctor, Robert
- The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The New Testament: an Introduction for the General Reader by Oscar Cullmann
- The non-existent manuscript by Cesare G. De Michelis
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
- The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- The origins of political order by Francis Fukuyama
- The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
- The Penguin dictionary of curious and interesting numbers by David G. Wells
- The phenomenology of spirit by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- The phenomenon of science by Valentin Fedorovich Turchin
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde
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- The prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
- The Principia by Isaac Newton, I. Bernard Cohen
- The Prometheus Project by Gerald Feinberg
- The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren
- The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell
- The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- The Rebel by Albert Camus
- The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons
- The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
- The Road Not Taken, and Other Poems by Robert Frost
- The Ron Paul Revolution by Ron Paul, Charlotte Iserbyt
- The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- The Scientist in the Crib by Alison Gopnik
- The Second Mountain by David Brooks
- The Second World War by Sir Winston S. Churchill
- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
- The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Jack Weatherford
- The Secret History of the Mongols by The Arth Estate
- The Secret History of the Mongols by Urgunge Onon
- The shadow university by Alan Charles Kors
- The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont
- The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- The society of mind by Marvin Minsky
- The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney
- the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur
- The System by Robert B. Reich
- The Talmud of Babylonia by Jacob Neusner
- The theory of money and credit by Ludwig von Mises
- The Thin Red Line by James Jones
- The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
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- The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J. Sandel
- The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
- The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences by Eugene Paul Wigner
- The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge by Abraham Flexner
- The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience by Robert Masters
- The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony
- The Wall by Pink Floyd
- The War in the West - A New History by James Holland
- The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
- The White Album by Joan Didion
- The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A. M. by John Wesley
- The World Computer by Jonathan Beller
- The World of Ice & Fire by George R. R. Martin
- The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs
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- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- Thirteen days in September by Lawrence Wright
- Three felonies a day by Harvey A. Silverglate
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- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
- Vision by David Marr
- War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
- Warren Buffett and the interpretation of financial statements by Mary Buffett
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- Wear and Tear or, Hints for the Overworked by Silas Weir Mitchell
- WHAT IS LIFE?. by I. SCHROEDINGER
- What is to be done? by Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky
- What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski
- Who are We? by Samuel P. Huntington
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- Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman
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Latest mentions
“He has authored many books that I highly recommend including Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine”
“and Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness.”
“then via a very famous study that's a scientific fraud by David Rosenhan called On Being Sane in Insane Places where he claimed to have sent in pseudo patients to the hospital”
“And of course in the popular mind I think the, probably the most famous, instance of telling the public about some of these interventions was the film of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where you see Jack Nicholson giving I think the performance of a lifetime who is given ECT, electroconvulsive therapy,”
“One of the people who received insulin coma therapy—have you seen the film A Beautiful Mind? Mm-hmm, he did. Receive insulin coma therapy.”
“Now that reminds me of Flowers for Algernon. That doesn't have a happy ending, and it's not about mental health necessarily, but it's about the journey of institution in relation to the health of a patient.”
“And my friend Patrick McGrath, who's a novelist, wrote a book called Asylum. Patrick grew up in the grounds of Broadmoor. Broadmoor is England's premier hospital for the criminally insane, and he was babysat by some of the patients.”
“Weir Mitchell wrote two popular bestsellers, self-help books, suppose you'd call them in the modern genre. One was called Wear and Tear. The pace of modern life, the telegraph, the railway was all too much.”
“The solution was Fat and Blood. That was the title of the other book. You got scrawny, nouveau, nervous, twitchy. And what you really needed was to build back up your strength. including your nervous strength.”
“And Breuer collaborate on a book called Studies in Hysteria, and they're a series of case vignettes in there of patients Freud has treated.”
“He writes The Interpretation of Dreams, for example, because he begins to regard dreams as an arena where these hidden memories, these suppressed- ... things reemerge in disguised form in your dream life.”
“Um, David Graeber wrote this wonderful piece Bullshit Jobs, back in, I think it was maybe early 2010s.”
“- I read this book The Fourth Turning. You check that out. It talks about this notion of”
“You have Uncle Tom's Cabin earlier in the decade in 18-- and what... And the impact that that had on attitudes towards slavery.”
“We should read Mein Kampf.”
“that I assigned in the class was Huckleberry Finn. And a lot of the students said they wouldn't read Huckleberry Finn”
“you have written one of the books is Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 AD to the First Crusade.”
“Famously in the UK, there was something called the New Domesday Book, and they archived lots of stuff on BBC microcomputers. Within 10 to 15 years, no one had the right software to play that. I think it was 20 years or something like that, and someone had to go and reverse engineer this, and that was like 20 years.”
“Marcus Aurelius in the Roman Empire is an example that, you know, reading Meditations is also just an insight into the mind of a man who's to himself”
“Well, I've been reading, you know, 1984 or Green Hills of Stranglethorn, and I think it's amazing. And now I'm gonna try to write something that somebody is gonna read.”
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