Books Recommended by Bryan Callen
Bryan Callen is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer and podcaster.
He got his start as an original cast member of the comedy sketch television series MADtv. He then went on to play roles on shows and movies such as “The Hangover”, “Bad Santa”, “Sex and the City”, “Entourage”, “Californication”, “7th Heaven”, and many others. He’s also a regular on ABC’s “The Goldbergs”, as well as his own spinoff show “Schooled”.
He also hosts “The Fighter & The Kid” with Brendan Schaub, one of the top-rated iTunes podcast. Callen tours the world as a solo stand-up comedian, as well as in tandem with Schaub.
Books recommended by Bryan Callen:
In Bryan Callen’s words:
So here are my three must read books. I've been reading a lot of great books like: Outsmart Your Instincts, The Culture Code, and Antonio Damasio’s The Strange Order, and sometimes when you read a lot of nonfiction it’s very enriching, sometimes you need a novel. I really believe you should take a minute and read something beautiful. Listen, listen to Lolita by Nabokov. But also listen to Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and listen to Richard Poe narrate that. Those are two of the greatest feats of the english language that I can think of. Then there’s Fortress of Solitude, an amazing book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, these are great novels. Cold Mountain is a beautiful novel, Snow Falling On Cedars, I mean they’ve been around for a while. But goddamnit, get those under your belt. Those are the novels I think you should read. You know Love In The Time Of Cholera it just makes you ache. Kind of like a Hemingway thing, where Hemingway “ahh!”, it’s the same thing, you know. So I don’t know, I’m a fan of all those books. Those are my 3 slash 20 books.
22 books recommended by Bryan Callen
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Everybody should read it, it’s an amazing book. A brief history of humankind but it brings us to the present day.
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Another book, Homo Deus. He talks about where we’re heading technologically and he’s really done the research, really looking honestly medical research, what to expect the next 30 years. [...] Not only are we gonna’ live much longer if you have the money, but the… Read the full quote
Another book, Homo Deus. He talks about where we’re heading technologically and he’s really done the research, really looking honestly medical research, what to expect the next 30 years.
[...] Not only are we gonna’ live much longer if you have the money, but the real question he ends the book in a way is “we have to decide as human beings, for the first time in history we can control our own revolution. We have to ask ourselves what we wanna become.” That’s a really big responsibility. What do you wanna become? Because that question can be answered, we have the technology to answer that question. And it can get silly when we can splice our genes with a lion or with a gorilla, but more importantly we’ll be able to splice our genes with synthetic biology. That’s a very big question.
The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
I remember reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. That's good fodder for a young man. It sets these bold, stark characters - you could even call them Christ figures - and you think to yourself, 'I want to be that'.
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
I remember reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. That's good fodder for a young man. It sets these bold, stark characters - you could even call them Christ figures - and you think to yourself, 'I want to be that'.
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
I probably have recommended The Art of Learning and The 4-Hour Body, I'm not kidding, more than any other books.
The Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to [the] compassionate side of life, or of thought... Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me, and not in a way I could put my finger on...… Read the full quote
Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to [the] compassionate side of life, or of thought... Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me, and not in a way I could put my finger on... It made you just glad to be alive, [realizing] how vast this world is, and how similar and how different we are.
The 4 Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman
by Tim Ferriss
I probably have recommended The Art of Learning and The 4-Hour Body, I'm not kidding, more than any other books.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to [the] compassionate side of life, or of thought... Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me, and not in a way I could put my finger on...… Read the full quote
Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to [the] compassionate side of life, or of thought... Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me, and not in a way I could put my finger on... It made you just glad to be alive, [realizing] how vast this world is, and how similar and how different we are.
On the Genealogy of Morality
Of course, I read Nietzsche. On the Genealogy of Morality, etc, where the truths and the truisms are really cut and dried in a lot of ways. It's the equivalent of, I guess, intellectual red meat.
A Renegade History of the United States
What I like about Thaddeus is that his book he actually takes a look at things I never heard. I was a history major and historians tend to be pretty conservative, stagy people, right? Your average college history teacher is a pretty conservative guy, even… Read the full quote
What I like about Thaddeus is that his book he actually takes a look at things I never heard. I was a history major and historians tend to be pretty conservative, stagy people, right? Your average college history teacher is a pretty conservative guy, even though he might be very left wing, they’re conservative people [...]
And when they write history, they always write it from this really stagy kind. You hear about the events. You actually don’t hear about what it was like in the brothels, you don’t hear like what it smelled like in the bars, you don’t hear about the noise, you don’t hear about things that actually have an effect on people. Who were the criminals? How safe were the streets? Where are the prostitutes? Who was actually getting laid? Was there actually a lot of black and white sex that went on in the revolutionary war? Which apparently there was.
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
There’s a guy who I just had on my podcast, Mark Deresiewicz, who wrote a book called Excellent Sheep. He was a Yale professor, and took a look at the essentially what was wrong with higher education, at these elite institutions, primarily places like Amherst… Read the full quote
There’s a guy who I just had on my podcast, Mark Deresiewicz, who wrote a book called Excellent Sheep. He was a Yale professor, and took a look at the essentially what was wrong with higher education, at these elite institutions, primarily places like Amherst and Yale and Harvard. And one of the things he said is that we’re breeding excellent sheep. You’ve got 31 flavors of vanilla.
These kids are so obsessed with essentially achievement for its own sake, not fulfillment or meaning, but rather achievement for its own sake, so they can get into a great – become rich doctors or lawyers, or consultants or investment bankers. And even that becomes an extension of what they’ve been doing their whole life, which was hey, I want to please my boss, jump through these loopholes and be in an elite person. And it’s an interesting book. But one of the things he talked about was that these elite institutions are – there’s a feeder system of about 100 high schools in this country, about 100 high schools, and that’s it, that provide students to these universities. So something like QuestBridge is desperately needed, so that we can create an equality of opportunity. That’s always what it is, right?
