Books Recommended by Cal Newport

Indistractable is a master class in understanding the root cause of distraction. Recommended for anyone looking to do more deep work.

Some authors give advice. Ryan Holiday distills wisdom. This book is a must read for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the frenetic demands of modern life.

Busyness is meaningless. What matters is consistently executing the work that actually matters. This book shows you how.

Ultralearning is like a superpower in our competitive economy. Read this book! It will change your life.

Jarvis makes a compelling case for making your business better instead of bigger. A must-read for any entrepreneur who prioritizes a rich life over riches

Seth Godin’s book, The Dip, is an important initial meditation on this subject, and one I found immensely useful, but I’m not aware of many other books that tackle this topic.

This is all to say that I was, quite naturally, excited to learn that my friend Jimmy Soni was co-authoring a big new biography of Shannon. The resulting book came out earlier this week (I read a review copy — it’s great).

Fortunately, we gain new insight into this question from Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli’s excellent new biography, Becoming Steve Jobs.

No Hard Feelings is one of the most original, insightful, and laugh out loud funny business books I've read in a long time. It will transform the way you think about the role of feelings in the workplace.

For a great study in the reality of “24 hours a day and forget everything else” technical work at the highest level, I recommend Birth of a Theorem.

Here is why I endorse Ramit’s book: The content is targeted like a laser beam and solves a real problem. Specifically, it describes a six-week program to help young people get their finances in order.

David Epstein, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene and Range, has a new book out called Inside the Box. As with all of Epstein’s books, I really enjoyed it. He’s one of the best storytellers currently working in idea writing.

Laura Vanderkam delivers a compelling and evidence-based argument that busyness is overrated in our current culture. Living a full life, at work and at home, is about doing the right things well, and confidently missing out on everything else.

I recently began reading Haruki Murakami’s excellent mini-memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. If your life requires a non-trivial amount of creative work, I highly recommend this quick read.

A deeply researched and compelling guide to breaking through the inevitable obstacles on the path to meaningful accomplishment.

my friend Dan Schawbel has a new book out this week called Back to Human. It provides a compelling and evidence-based argument for the importance of old-fashioned, non-technological interaction in leading successful teams. I’ve always liked Schawbel’s work, but this book hits particularly close to the types of issues I write about here

This is why I am happy to enthusiastically recommend Isa Adney’s new book: Community College Success. If you’re in community college and are looking for advice tailored to your specific setting, Isa’s book is a great place to start.

Die Empty looks past simple slogans to highlight detailed strategies for building a meaningful life; a must-read for anyone interested in moving from inspiration to action.

Josh Millburn, of The Minimalists fame, just published a memoir about his transition to simplicity: Everything that Remains. I found it compelling — a more literary look at a world often confined to the how-to genre.

Stephen Manes, in his excellent 1994 book, Gates, underscores the Microsoft founder’s fierce (sometimes bordering on sociopathic) competitive instincts.

my longtime friend and collaborator Scott Young has a fantastic new title out this week called: Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery. I think Scott has written the ultimate (and approachable) guide to getting better at the stuff that matters. If you’re interested in engineering a deeper life, you need this book in your proverbial toolkit.

For more on this technique, I recommend William Powell’s delightful 2010 techno-history, Hamlet’s Blackberry.

I recently read an advance copy of Laura Vanderkam’s excellent new book, I Know How She Does It, which tackles the topic of how successful women manage the tension between professional and family life.

Joshua and Ryan have penned an urgent manifesto for the growing movement away from the material and towards the meaningful. An important book for our current moment.

one of my favorite bloggers, Liz Thames of Frugalwoods fame, recently published her first book: Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living. I recently interviewed Liz for my upcoming book on digital minimalism, and was fascinated by the conversation. I recommend both her blog and book.

One of the best thrillers of the 1990s. I re-read this book in honor of Halloween this year (but didn't finish until November) and was pleased to find that it held up.

I'm a big fan of Susan Casey, who has perfected a style of nature journalism that's built around a narrative of personal adventures. (I recommend you start with The Devil's Teeth.)

this doesn’t mean that Scott’s book only contained 30 pages that interested me: it’s a complicated and interesting work of literary techno-social criticism — which came close to winning the Samuel Johnson Prize two years ago — that I found thought provoking throughout.

I was recently re-reading one of my favorite history of technology titles, Tom Standage’s The Victorian Internet.

It may go without saying that I highly recommend The Way of Excellence. It’s a must-read book that offers a path toward the discipline of mastery, competence, and mattering.

After years of people recommending him to me, I finally took the plunge into the literary world of Wendell Berry. Now I can’t help but wonder what took me so long. This 2018 collection of Berry’s best essays is a fantastic introduction into his genre-defining polemic style, which mixes razor-sharp commentary with a poetry grounded in lived experience

If you’re attracted to the idea of an artisan woodworker learning his craft, I recommend the surprisingly thoughtful (and quite aspirational) memoir, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman.

Steve also just published a great new book that I highly recommend: Win the Inside Game.

My friend Tammy Strobel’s new book, You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap), was released today as well. I devoured a review copy of this title and found it exceptionally stimulating.