175 books Naval Ravikant mentioned

Credit: TechCrunch

I've got dozens of other books that I'm reading. It's almost not useful for me to go through them because what will happen is, someone in the audience would be like, oh I should read the same books Naval is reading, and they go read them. And then they'll end up on some "Naval recommended" lists, but the reality is that 80 of them are not very good and there's only a few that I could actually unequivocally recommend. I would unequivocally recommend David Deutsch's books.

This list is curated from 794 mentions and sorted by most mentioned, then by date of most recent mention. The more a book is mentioned, the more likely it's recommended and a favorite... or they just like talking about it a lot!

Last updated: 2 May 2023.

35
mentions

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
by David Deutsch

I was pleasantly surprised a couple of years back when I opened an old book that I’d read a decade ago called The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. Sometimes you read a book and it makes a difference right away. Sometimes you read a book and you don’t understand it; then you read it at the right time and it makes a difference. This time I went through it much more meticulously than I had in the past. Rather than reading it to say I was done reading it, I read it to understand the concepts and stopped at every point where something was new. It started re-forming my worldview. It changed the way that I think. I credit this book as being the only book in the last decade—except maybe a few of Nassim Taleb’s works and maybe one or two other scattered books—that made me smarter. They literally expanded the way that I think. They expanded not just the repertoire of my knowledge but the repertoire of my reasoning.

View all 35 sources

31
mentions

Skin in the Game
by Nassim Taleb

Nasim Talab had that great blog post and chapter in his book Skin in the Game about the intolerant minority.

View all 31 sources

29
mentions

Ficciones
by Jorge Luis Borges

Try Borges’ short stories next, in “Collected Fictions” or “Labyrinths.”

View all 29 sources

28
mentions

The Book of Life
by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti, who is a lesser known guy, an Indian philosopher who lived at the turn of the last century is extremely influential to me. he’s an uncompromising, very direct person who basically tells you to look at your own mind at all times. So I have been hugely influenced by him. Probably the best book of his that I like is one called The Book of Life, which is excerpts from his various speeches and books that are stitched together.

View all 28 sources

26
mentions

Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang

Love Ted Chiang, but don’t think he needs my ideas.

View all 26 sources

26
mentions

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
by Matt Ridley

Fantastic. Also read Matt Ridley. 🙏

View all 26 sources

26
mentions

The Great Challenge
by Osho

Popper, Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Osho, Krishnamurti, DeMello, Seneca, Kapil Gupta, Taleb, there are too many...

View all 26 sources

25
mentions

Total Freedom
by Jiddu Krishnamurti

From “Total Freedom.” It’s all over but particularly “A Dynamic Society” and “Living in Ecstasy.” pic.twitter.com/sPhZSMwxPh

View all 25 sources

21
mentions

Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson

Lord of Light, Snow Crash, Borges and Ted Chiang short stories.

View all 21 sources

21
mentions

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

I love that book so much.

View all 21 sources

20
mentions

Spiritual Enlightenment
by Jed McKenna

Read everything Jed McKenna ever wrote and you're going to get your fill on this stuff.

View all 20 sources

19
mentions

Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse

Depends what you want. Science or philosophy or...? Beginning of Infinity, Rational Optimist, Skin in the Game are all amazing. If you want more eastern philosophy, try Siddhartha, I am That, Jed McKenna.

View all 19 sources

18
mentions

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini

Robert Cialdini and Scott Adams.

View all 18 sources

15
mentions

Awareness
by Anthony de Mello

Popper, Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Osho, Krishnamurti, DeMello, Seneca, Kapil Gupta, Taleb, there are too many...

View all 15 sources

14
mentions

Think on These Things
by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Popper, Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Osho, Krishnamurti, DeMello, Seneca, Kapil Gupta, Taleb, there are too many...

View all 14 sources

14
mentions

Six Easy Pieces
by Richard P. Feynman

Start with The Beginning of Infinity. Then read Matt Ridley, Nick Szabo, David Deutsch, Nassim Taleb, Schopenhauer, Peter Thiel, Popper, Feynman, Art DeVany, Scott Adams, Jed McKenna. Recognize them when they challenge socially enforced mass-delusions with science and logic.

View all 14 sources

13
mentions

Direct Truth
by Kapil Gupta

It moves around. Keep coming back to I Am That, Direct Truth, Vasistha's Yoga, Jed McKenna, and Ashtavakra Gita.

View all 13 sources

13
mentions

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
by Richard P. Feynman

I loved him because Feynman was one of the first characters that I encountered that did science and serious work and was accomplished in so-called real life. He was a character, he was a happy person. He was deeply philosophical, he didn’t take himself nor life too seriously. He appreciated the mysteries of life, he appreciated living life and he had a lot of fun along the way. To me, he was like a full-stack intellectual hacker of life. And was just very inspirational to me as a kid, growing up.

View all 13 sources

12
mentions

The Lessons of History
by Will Durant, Ariel Durant

It's a great little book.

View all 12 sources

11
mentions

The Origins of Virtue
by Matt Ridley

The Origins of Virtue, The Evolution of Cooperation, The Strategy of Conflict. Or just play multiplayer negotiation games like Diplomacy.

View all 11 sources

11
mentions

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track
by Richard P. Feynman

Start with The Beginning of Infinity. Then read Matt Ridley, Nick Szabo, David Deutsch, Nassim Taleb, Schopenhauer, Peter Thiel, Popper, Feynman, Art DeVany, Scott Adams, Jed McKenna. Recognize them when they challenge socially enforced mass-delusions with science and logic.

View all 11 sources

10
mentions

Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius

Best classic book philosophy, intro, someone starting out? I love Siddhartha, Herman Hesse’s book. For someone who’s more advanced, Jiddu Krishnamurti; I like his Total Freedom book. Osho’s Great Challenge, Michael Singer’s Untethered Soul. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

View all 10 sources

9
mentions

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
by Carlo Rovelli

Deutsch, Taleb, and Feynman mainly. Also Bohr, Schrödinger, Mandelbrot, Chait, Gödel, Rovelli, others (I know, some are mathematicians and some have never written a formal book on philosophy). On the non-physicist Western side, currently reading Schopenhauer.

View all 9 sources

9
mentions

The Origin of Species
by Charles Darwin

For example, instead of reading a business book, pick up Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Instead of reading a book on biology or evolution that’s written today, I would pick up Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Instead of reading a book on biotech right now that may be very advanced, I would just pick up The Eighth Day of Creation by Watson and Crick. Instead of reading advanced books on what cosmology and what Neil Degrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking have been saying, you can pick up Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces and start with basic physics.

View all 9 sources

9
mentions

Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
by Charles T. Munger

[The five wisest people living today are] Jed McKenna, @KapilGuptaMD, Charlie Munger, @nntaleb One, and one who won’t want to be named

View all 9 sources

8
mentions

The Logic of Scientific Discovery
by Karl Popper

Nobody agrees on what the right philosophy is and they contradict each other. So I would say read Deutsch / Popper and leave it at that.

View all 8 sources

8
mentions

The Untethered Soul
by Michael A. Singer

Michael Singer, by the way, he has a good book called The Untethered Soul.

View all 8 sources

8
mentions

The Power of Now
by Eckhart Tolle

Hard on Twitter. You can read DeMello, J Krishnamurti, Jed McKenna, Michael Singer, Rupert Spira, Osho, Tolle, etc.. Different ones appeal to different people.

View all 8 sources

8
mentions

Permutation City
by Greg Egan

Current reading list. Most into “The Beginning of Infinity” and “What is Life?” at the moment. pic.twitter.com/L1JncsXiIL

View all 8 sources

8
mentions

The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
by James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg

I think what does happen is that we're moving to the age of the sovereign individual. If you haven't read that book, I highly recommend it, even though it's almost 20 years old. It's very prophetic.

View all 8 sources

7
mentions

Vasistha's Yoga
by Vālmīki

It moves around. Keep coming back to I Am That, Direct Truth, Vasistha's Yoga, Jed McKenna, and Ashtavakra Gita.

View all 7 sources

7
mentions

Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu

Siddhartha, Vasistha’s Yoga, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching. I’m always going through one of these books at any given time and usually rereading for inspiration.

View all 7 sources

7
mentions

The Order of Time
by Carlo Rovelli

Deutsch, Taleb, and Feynman mainly. Also Bohr, Schrödinger, Mandelbrot, Chait, Gödel, Rovelli, others (I know, some are mathematicians and some have never written a formal book on philosophy). On the non-physicist Western side, currently reading Schopenhauer.

View all 7 sources

7
mentions

Transmetropolitan
by Warren Ellis

No single favorite, but I liked V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Boys, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Sandman, and The Unwritten.

View all 7 sources

6
mentions

Counsels and Maxims
by Arthur Schopenhauer

Popper, Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Osho, Krishnamurti, DeMello, Seneca, Kapil Gupta, Taleb, there are too many...

View all 6 sources

6
mentions

Illusions
by Richard Bach

Great book!

View all 6 sources

6
mentions

Reality is Not What it Seems
by Carlo Rovelli

Deutsch, Taleb, and Feynman mainly. Also Bohr, Schrödinger, Mandelbrot, Chait, Gödel, Rovelli, others (I know, some are mathematicians and some have never written a formal book on philosophy). On the non-physicist Western side, currently reading Schopenhauer.

View all 6 sources

6
mentions

The Boys
by Garth Ennis

No single favorite, but I liked V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Boys, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Sandman, and The Unwritten.

View all 6 sources

5
mentions

The Fabric of Reality
by David Deutsch

One day I picked up David Deutsch’s The Fabric of Reality in a bookstore and started reading it. The first chapter described what I was trying to achieve in my life. It was putting into words what I felt my university studies and my general outlook on life was about.

View all 5 sources

5
mentions

The Three-Body Problem
by Liu Cixin

There's a trilogy by Liu Cixin, a physics-based sci-fi thriller. [Talk about the dark forest hypothesis]

View all 5 sources

5
mentions

The Wealth of Nations
by Adam Smith

For example, instead of reading a business book, pick up Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Instead of reading a book on biology or evolution that’s written today, I would pick up Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Instead of reading a book on biotech right now that may be very advanced, I would just pick up The Eighth Day of Creation by Watson and Crick. Instead of reading advanced books on what cosmology and what Neil Degrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking have been saying, you can pick up Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces and start with basic physics.

View all 5 sources

5
mentions

V for Vendetta
by Steve Moore

No single favorite, but I liked V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Boys, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Sandman, and The Unwritten.

View all 5 sources

5
mentions

Planetary
by Warren Ellis

No single favorite, but I liked V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Boys, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Sandman, and The Unwritten.

View all 5 sources

5
mentions

The Sun Rises in the Evening
by Osho

Can I recommend one Osho book? I would recommend a book called "The Sun Rises in the Evening". I haven't read all of it yet, I've been going through it, but it's my favorite one so far and I'm savoring it. I've literally been half highlighting half of every page.

View all 5 sources

4
mentions

Bhagavad-Gita
by Vyasa

This is the oldest wisdom in the book. Go to the Bhagavad-Gita. It says you are entitled to your labor but not to the fruits of your labor.

View all 4 sources

4
mentions

Letters from a Stoic
by Seneca

Popper, Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Osho, Krishnamurti, DeMello, Seneca, Kapil Gupta, Taleb, there are too many...

View all 4 sources

4
mentions

Lord of Light
by Roger Zelazny

Lord of Light, Snow Crash, Borges and Ted Chiang short stories.

View all 4 sources

4
mentions

Being Aware of Being Aware
by Rupert Spira

Krishnamurti, I don’t know, Kapil Gupta, Rupert Spira.

View all 4 sources

4
mentions

Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
by Matt Ridley

Matt had a bigger influence on pulling me into science, and a love of science, than almost any other author. His first book that I read was called Genome. I must have six or seven dog-eared copies of it lying around in various boxes. It helped me define what life is, how it works, why it’s important, and placed evolution as a binding principle in the center of my worldview. That’s a common theme that runs across Matt’s books.

View all 4 sources

4
mentions

The Unwritten
by Mike Carey