If you could recommend one book to a man to read in his early 20’s, what would it be?

40 comments

1. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck” – Mark Manson

   Teaches you not to sweat the small stuff, and things you have no control of, helps with stress.

2. Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action by Robert P. Murphy, economist. It’s thicc.

3. Atomic Habits by James Clear

4. Starting Strength

5. The Five Love Languages book

6. “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. Absolute game changer.

7. Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War and how to Apply It To Modern Every Day Life

8. The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Vincent Peale

9. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

10. 12 Rules for Life -Jordan Peterson

11. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

12. Triphasic Training

13. Probably The Catcher in the Rye. I read it in my teens but I think it would be equally effective if I read it in my early 20’s. I didn’t get anything esoteric or dark out of it. I just saw the most fully fleshed out human being I had ever read at that point in my life. Holden’s just some traumatized kid, no more no less. I got to be annoyed by someone like me, and reflect on how shallow my thinking actually was through his eyes (Holden is soo fucking self righteous and annoying, I wasn’t THAT bad but I could see the similarities). He’s just a scared kid trying to rationalize things he can’t. Made me realize I was too. In some ways I still am.

14. Roll of Thunder of Hear My Cry

15. Atlas Shrugged

16. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. Implement his system, succeed financially.

17. The alchemist

18. The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s long so you’ll feel accomplished for having read it, but moreover it’s *badass* and you’ll get a sneak peak at what “playing the long game” is like in the adult world.

19. Crime & Punishment

20. Investing for Dummies

21. Rich Dad Poor Dad

22. Jurassic Park.

23. Java for dummies. Learning how to code helped me so much

24. Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett.

    GNU PTerry

25. How To Win Friends and Influence People

26. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom. Superb book about life and what is important!

27. If you struggle with feeling ashamed a lot or building close social connections I’d say “No More Mister Nice Guy”.

    If not “When I Say No I Feel Guilty” is a good read on basic assertivness for adults and how people try to manipulate us.

    And if you feel specific shortcomings you probably would probably require a different book than either of those mentioned above

28. A short stay in hell.

29. Wild At Heart by John Eldredge

30. The Alchemist by P. Coelho

31. The Old Man and the Sea, Siddhartha.

32. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

33. 48 Laws of Power. Changed everything for me.

34. The Happiness Trap

    The Scout Mindset as a runner up, but definitely in second place. The author clearly points out that the mindset of making your mental map, your understanding of situations and questions, as accurate as possible is far better than simply defending your point of view and attacking others’. Problem is that her examples also pretty clearly shows that she doesn’t actually live by that philosophy, so it gets to be a tiresome read about halfway through.

35. Bible

36. The alchemist by paulo cohelo

37. Ishmael – Daniel Quinn

38. Animal Farm.

39. 12 rules for life – Jordan Peterson

40. FRIDAY by Robert Heinlein.