Just Start: 100 good and bad self-improvement books

Don't leave it much longer to read the good ones.

Self-improvement is a genre of writing that I think gets an unjust rap. Yes, it can be about exhortations to just try harder or assurances that if you visualise it, everything you want will magically come — but it can also be about ways of communicating better with the people you love, creating stuff that makes you happy, or finding and accepting your place in the world. If you’re looking for one system that will fix your life you’ll probably never find it, but if you want a toolbox for dealing with the day to day, you can assemble it from a hundred different places.

All of which is a prelude to saying that I’ve read a lot of self-improvement books. A lot. When I made this video my tally was 103, and it’s been over a year since then. And so, I thought I’d nick the format from this post (which I disagree with quite a lot of) to give anyone interested my opinions on what’s good, what’s bad, what you can skip, and what you should read immediately. Some notes before we start:

• A lot of these books probably wouldn’t be filed under self-improvement in a shop, but they will definitely improve your life in a tangible, non-abstract way, so I’m putting them in.

• I’ve put notes in where I feel like I need to justify a choice or give more context, but not for every book. If you’re curious about a pick, ask me in the comments.

• I haven’t read everything in the generally-approved self-improvement canon, so if something is missing (eg Start With Why and The Courage To Be Disliked, which I’ve seen very mixed opinions of) that’s probably why.

• Some of these books felt life-changing when I first read them, but have since been discredited or don’t feel so useful. This is what I think of them now.

• Apart from the top ten and the general sections, these aren’t actually in the order I recommend them (so number 34 isn’t ‘better’ than number 39, but section 2 is what you should prioritise over section 3).

• If there’s a hyperlink in the title, that’s a video I’ve made about the book — but you should still actually read it.

Let’s go!

Books which you must absolutely read as soon as possible.

1. 9 Out Of 10 Climbers Make The Same Mistakes by Dave MacLeod (this is technically about climbing, but it’s so good at breaking down the practicalities of skill acquisition that you really should read it anyway)

2. Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

3. Conflict Communication by Rory Miller (this changed my approach to dealing with people more than probably any other book, but nobody’s read it. Get it now!)

4. Range by David Epstein

5. Four Thousand Hours by Oliver Burkeman

6. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

7. On The Shortness Of Life by Seneca

8. Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss

9. Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

10. Peak by Anders Ericsson

Books that are full of good advice or insights, and definitely worth reading.

11. Atomic Habits by James Clear

12. The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg

13. Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg (the three above are all good in different ways. For me, Fogg actually has the best habit system, Duhigg makes the case for habits in the best way, and Clear ties habits to a better quality of life overall in the most compelling way. If you want a summary of how I think they all tie together, you can find one here)

14. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

15. Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

16. Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

17. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky (not very self-help framed but very good on the causes of, and issues caused by, stress)

18. Make It Stick by Henry L. Roediger, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C. Brown

19. How We Learn by Benedict Carey

20. How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

21. Writing To Learn by William Zinsser

22. The Inner Game Of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey

23. The Inner Game Of Work by Timothy Gallwey (I actually think this might be more directly applicable than the tennis book to most people’s lives, thought it’s less fun to read).

24. Antifragile by Nicolas Taleb (his other stuff is mostly worth reading, but I’d say it has less directly ‘helpful’ advice than this one)

25. Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

26. Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull

27. Influence by Robert Cialdini

28. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo (this is pretty simple, but it really helped me be more tidy, soooo)

29. Do The Work by Steven Pressfield

30. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

31. The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters (among other things, this basically fixed my sleep)

32. Meditations For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

33. Never Let Go by Dan John (this has a lot of workout advice, but you could probably use reading it — and its life advice is very much on point too. This also applies to almost every other Dan John book)

34. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive by Charles Duhigg

35. The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

36. The Conquest Of Happiness by Bertrand Russell

37. The 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferris (I actually think this is sort of underrated: buy it just for the bit about learning new skills, ignore the claims about Tim’s deadlift, and use the recipes if you want)

38. The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

39. The Status Game by Will Storr

40. Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Books that are pretty good but not actually essential to your quality of life

41. The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

42. Originals: How Non-conformists Change the World by Adam Grant

43. Life Time by Russell Foster

44. The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

45. Getting Things Done by Dave Allen

46. The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova

47. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

48. The Expectation Effect by David Robson

49. What Doesn't Kill You by Scott Carney

50. When by Daniel H Pink

51. Happy by Derren Brown

52. Drive by Daniel H Pink

53. The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel (possibly a bit discredited now)

54. Willpower by Roy R. Baumeister (see above)

55. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (see above)

56. The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova

57. Ultralearning by Scott H. Young

58. Nudge by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler

59. The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman

60. Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

61. The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton

62. Mindset by Carol Dweck

63. Leadership And Training For The Fight by Paul R. Howe

64. Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer (I actually think this is a fantastic book and well worth reading, but not actually that directly useful, which is why it isn’t higher)

65. Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool by Taylor Clark

66. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation by Gabriele Oettingen

67. How We Learn To Move by Rob Gray

68. The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage - Ryan Holiday

69. The Way of the Fight by Georges St-Pierre

70. Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

71. The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind by Jonah Berger

72. The Passion Paradox by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

73. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

74. Think Like An Artist by Will Gompertz

Books that have basically one good or two good ideas but back it up with anecdotes, science and practical advice that make the insights stick (so it might be worth reading the whole book, but also you might be fine reading a summary)

75. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

76. Deep Work by Cal Newport

77. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

78. Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin

79. The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gatwande

80. Hyper Focus by Chris Bailey

81. Strong Enough? by Mark Rippetoe

82. Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke

83. Good To Great by Jim Collins

84. Quit by Annie Duke

85. How To Decide by Annie Duke

86. Organise Tomorrow Today by Jason Selk

87. How To Talk To Anyone by Leil Lowdes

88. Linchpin, Tribes, and Permission Marketing by Seth Godin (I’m counting these as one corpus of ideas, but they’re all good)

Books that basically have one good idea that would work fine as a summary / essay

89. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

90. Win Or Learn by John Kavanagh

91. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

92. Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron

Books that are great if you’re starting a business or self-employed but probably not useful otherwise

93. $100m offers Alex Hormozi

94. Copywriting Secrets by Jim Edwards

95. Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley

96. Dotcom Secrets by Russell Benson

97. The E-Myth by Michael Gerber

Books that I don’t recommend, either because they seem to be misunderstanding something fundamental or they’re full of logical fallacies, survivor bias, etc. or just don’t include any useful advice.

98. Bounce by Matthew Syed

99. Reinvent Yourself by James Altucher

100. Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

     And that’s it! Hopefully that’ll keep you busy for a while. By the way, if you want my best attempt to synthesise all of the most important stuff from these into one system, I’ve done that here.

     Have a great weekend!
     Joel x

Stuff I like

📖 Book - Why Don’t We Learn From History? by BH Liddell Hart

A very kind reader got me this book — I won’t say who, but thank you! — and I raced through it once I got a chance to sit down with it.

🎶 Hype Music - Etude Op. No. 4, Chopin (“Torrent”)

In case you’re not familiar with the terminology, etudes are usually one-instrument pieces, designed as an exercise to improve the technique or demonstrate the skill of the player. This is my favourite of Chopin’s — it’s absolutely unrelenting and brilliant writing inspiration music — and I will never, ever be able to play it myself.

🎲 Game - Don’t Get Got

This isn’t a sit-down ‘game’ in the traditional sense: you get six ‘missions’ to complete (like ‘Deliberately lose in a race against another player’ or ‘Get another player to high-five you three times in a day’) and the game goes on until you get caught trying to do them (other players can call you out) or someone completes three. It’s great, and it’s brought a newly sneaky dynamic to family interactions for the past month now.

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