Books · SparkToro · 2022
“This is Geraldine's favorite cookbook.”
Rand Fishkin, Cofounder & CEO, SparkToro
100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer
A cookie-focused baking book mixing perfected classics with inventive recipes worth returning to again and again.
43 picks for “books for a first-time founder”
43 picks for books for a first-time founder.Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“For people that are just like, "I want to start a business," and they're like, "I don't know what to do, how to do it," they're totally green, then Ready, Fire, Aim is usually the book that I recommend. … It gets people into the action mindset, leaning towards action instead of analysis.”
Brian Dean, Founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics
Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat
The book Brian gives first-time founders: a kick toward action over analysis paralysis, with a framework for spotting and scaling traction.
Books · Acquired · 2024
“I have read the book Wool, which is the first in the series that is the Silo series on Apple TV+... It is awesome. The book is so good, a new addition to my favorite sci-fi books and sci-fi series.”
David Rosenthal, Co-host, Acquired
Wool
The first book in the Silo series — a new addition to his favorite sci-fi, so good he read it after the show pulled him in.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I think I mostly borrowed this from Arthur Brooks’ book From Strength to Strength, but you’ll find it in a few different “prioritize your life” advice books. And that is, I think we sometimes get too oriented toward tasks, jobs, things we need to do with our time. And if you flip it and think about people, it’s easier to see your priorities.”
Claire Hughes Johnson, Former COO of Stripe; author of Scaling People
From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
The book that gave her the people-over-tasks reframe: prioritize who you want time with, and your schedule clarifies itself.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“So I'd say my favorite book of all times, and I made it mandatory reading for my command staff when I took over as the chief... The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell. One of my all time favorite reads, because it forces you to understand that no matter what your challenge and no matter what your problem is, it goes back to problem solving... And I love that book. I've read it three times, I think.”
Cathy Lanier, Chief Security Officer, NFL; former DC Metropolitan Police Chief
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Her favorite book of all time and mandatory reading for her command staff, reframing any problem as findable, solvable tipping point.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“Somehow came across The Gulag Archipelago. And I was fairly young. I was probably 17, 18 when I first read it. And it impacted me in a lot of ways... a lot of what he talks about is, that happiness can't be our ultimate goal in life. We have to have purpose.”
Jordan Jonas, Winner of History's "Alone"; wilderness survival instructor
The Gulag Archipelago
Solzhenitsyn's account of the Soviet camps reshaped how he thinks about suffering and purpose, that happiness can't be the goal.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“Of Wolves and Men is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read, and it really shattered the mold. It redefined what, let's just call it nonfiction nature writing could be.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
Of Wolves and Men
Lopez's nature writing that Tim calls one of the best nonfiction books he has read, for redefining what the genre could be.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“the books that I have found most helpful are Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. I think everybody should read that... Really fantastic book on behavioral change and shaping behavior overall.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
Don't Shoot the Dog
Pryor's classic on shaping behavior through positive reinforcement, the book Tim found most helpful for dog training and behavior change broadly.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“If you want to plug for a book that I've really, really enjoyed over the last year, very inspiring... is Trejo by Danny Trejo. Absolutely mind-blowing book... I cried several times. I laughed several times, and I was incredibly inspired and came out reading that book, belief in humanity.”
Sami Inkinen, Co-founder & CEO, Virta Health
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood
Actor Danny Trejo's memoir, the one book this guest says left him crying, laughing, and newly hopeful about people.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“If you watch or read the book, it's called 11/22/63. It's a book written by Stephen King, unbelievable book about a guy who basically finds a time machine and goes back in time to prevent JFK from being assassinated.”
Morgan Housel, Author of The Psychology of Money; partner at Collaborative Fund
11/22/63
A time-travel novel about going back to stop the JFK assassination, used as a vivid lesson in how impossible trends are to predict.
Books · Acquired · 2025
“It's called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It's a fantasy trilogy... This thing was so compelling. I couldn't believe how good it was.”
Michael Lewis, Author; host of Against the Rules
The Name of the Wind
An 800-page fantasy his son pressed on him — the rare novel that pulled him out of a research-only reading year and that he couldn't believe was so good.
Books · Acquired · 2025
“One great book I read for research was Last Man Standing to prep for the Jamie Dimon interview... Total page turner.”
Ben Gilbert, Co-host, Acquired
Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase
The Jamie Dimon biography he read to prep for the interview — a total page-turner on Dimon's ascent and JPMorgan.
Books · Acquired · 2025
“I just love reading Morgan Housel and his new book, The Art of Spending Money, is really fun. It's where I get most of my latent ideas of, hey, dummy money's not going to make you any happier.”
Ben Gilbert, Co-host, Acquired
The Art of Spending Money
Morgan Housel's fun new book — where Ben gets most of his reminders that money alone won't make you happier.
Books · Acquired · 2025
“Emperors of Chocolate by Joel Glenn Brenner... It's the dual history of Hershey and Mars together... It's just a masterpiece. It's so good.”
David Rosenthal, Co-host, Acquired
Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
The dual history of Hershey and Mars — a masterpiece he leaned on for the Mars episode.
Books · Acquired · 2024
“years ago, I read Bill Walsh's book... He wrote this book called The Score Takes Care of Itself, and it's so good. It's just like a great leadership book, but the title says it all.”
David Rosenthal, Co-host, Acquired
The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership
Legendary 49ers coach Bill Walsh's leadership book — where scripting the first plays came from, and a perfect fit for Acquired's ethos.
Also recommended
The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I'm not a big book gifter other than recommend for my Virta team... The Score [Takes] Care of Itself, the 49ers coaches, Walsh's book.”
Sami Inkinen, Co-founder & CEO, Virta Health
Books · Patrick Collison · 2026
“Charlie Munger's collected talks and mental models on rationality, business judgment, and avoiding predictable stupidity.”
Patrick Collison, Co-founder & CEO, Stripe
Poor Charlie's Almanack
Charlie Munger's collected talks and mental models on rationality, business judgment, and avoiding predictable stupidity.
Books · SparkToro · 2023
“It's for your friend who swears they can't cook no matter how hard they try.”
Amanda Natividad, VP Marketing, SparkToro
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat
The book that builds a true beginner's intuition for cooking, ideal for a well-meaning but frustrated home cook.
Books · SparkToro · 2023
“This book compiles a history of the ways in which we thought alcohol might help medicinally.”
Andrew Bohrer, Bartender and cocktail authority
Doctors and Distillers by Camper English
A history of the medicinal claims behind drink, well researched and made for the insufferable cocktail-party guest.
Books · SparkToro · 2024
“Her long-awaited pastry cookbook, Bodega Bakes, is finally out.”
Geraldine DeRuiter, James Beard award-winning food writer
Bodega Bakes by Paola Velez
A pastry cookbook inspired by Dominican heritage and corner-store treats, quintessentially New York City.
Books · SparkToro · 2024
“It is a delightful read and has a lot for anybody interested in a fancy drink alcoholic or otherwise.”
Andrew Bohrer, Bartender and cocktail authority
The Bartender's Pantry by Jim Meehan and Bart Sasso
A book on making cocktail ingredients at home, what matters, and the ethics behind them, a delightful read.
Books · SparkToro · 2024
“This real, physical, printed(!) magazine is dedicated to supporting women in the world of food and drink.”
Scott Heimendinger, Culinary inventor; founder, Seattle Ultrasonics
Cherry Bombe Magazine
A printed magazine dedicated to women in food and drink, a tactile gift for an enthusiast.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I go to the bookstore to find a book to help me get started. And I basically saw The 4-Hour Workweek, grabbed it, and it just sort of spoke to me. … It blew my mind. I read the book. I'm like, "Well, I could start a business."”
Brian Dean, Founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics
The 4-Hour Workweek
The book that convinced a broke, inexperienced Brian he could start a business; he followed it step by step and built two companies on it.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I would also say Blink. Blink is another one that I only read because I liked Malcolm Gladwell, but Blink, for people in high-paced professions, Blink is one that helps you really evaluate how you make decisions, how you rely on your instinct and your experience and how much that matters. So those are two of my favorites.”
Cathy Lanier, Chief Security Officer, NFL; former DC Metropolitan Police Chief
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Her pick for anyone in a high-paced profession, on how instinct and experience drive fast decision-making under pressure.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“For example, Ben Bikman wrote a book on this and doing hundreds of podcasts on insulin resistance, reversing insulin resistance and low carb ketogenic being effective for that.”
Dominic D'Agostino, Tenured Associate Professor, Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
Why We Get Sick
Bikman's book on insulin resistance, cited as the definitive case for how a low-carb, ketogenic approach reverses it.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“of John W. Gardner, who was a wise man in residence at Stanford Business School... He'd written a great book, a little book back a number of years ago on self-renewal, and I was very interested in the question of... why would some entities or some people have a life of continuous self-renewal.”
Jim Collins, Author and management researcher ("Good to Great", "Built to Last")
Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society
The book by Stanford mentor John Gardner that planted the question of self-renewal Collins would chase for decades.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I discovered it in an old bookstore that my dad and I visited when I was in Vancouver, Canada, for the World’s Fair in ’86. And I found this thing... I was just stunned with all the references to prior work that revealed to me that the kinds of things I’d been thinking about were actually real and that people had investigated it.”
Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology, Tufts University
The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life
The bioelectricity classic Levin found in a Vancouver bookstore as a kid that proved his earliest ideas about living electricity were real.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“One particular author that I love is Lem, Stanisław Lem... Oh, he’s amazing. So, Solaris was his... He’s a master of the absurd and kind of releasing the assumptions that we all have in ways that kind of illustrate how narrow thinking and things like that is just beautiful.”
Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology, Tufts University
Solaris
Levin's favorite sci-fi author's signature novel, prized for upending the assumptions we carry about what alien minds and life could be.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“One is They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson... Very fast read. It’s like a page and it just reminds us all how silly some of our preconceptions are.”
Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology, Tufts University
They're Made Out of Meat (in Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories)
A one-page Terry Bisson short story Levin loves for how fast it skewers our preconceptions about what a mind has to be made of.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“There’s another one I like... I think that it’s The Fires Within by Clarke... Imagine there’s some creatures that live in the core of the earth and they come out to the surface... everything that we see here that’s solid is like a thin gas to them.”
Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology, Tufts University
The Fires Within (in The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke)
An Arthur C. Clarke story Levin uses to show how observer-dependent the line is between agents and the fleeting patterns they dismiss.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“I have recommended Radical Candor to pretty much everybody I know who's a content creator trying to figure out their business. ... Kim Scott is just phenomenal. ... her quad chart of how to provide feedback to people was really instrumental to me.”
Michelle Khare, Creator and host of YouTube's "Challenge Accepted"
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
A management classic whose feedback quadrant taught her to be directly honest instead of falling into ruinous empathy.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“The other one is The Great CEO Within, which is a really fast and easy read. And for anyone who didn't start in Silicon Valley or a startup culture or a startup of any kind, was really helpful to me to just understand here's what a company is and how it works.”
Michelle Khare, Creator and host of YouTube's "Challenge Accepted"
The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building
A fast, tactical company-building primer she gifts to anyone who never came up through startup culture.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“And then I've given Adam Grant's Originals to a few people too. ... It's like Tim, Adam Grant, Kim Scott, these are Mount Rushmore for me.”
Michelle Khare, Creator and host of YouTube's "Challenge Accepted"
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Adam Grant's study of how original thinkers succeed, a book she has given to several people.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“She told me of this concept of the Six Thinking Hats. ... It's six different techniques of being able to assess and determine if an idea is good or how to solve a problem. ... That concept of the six hats is really, really impactful to me.”
Michelle Khare, Creator and host of YouTube's "Challenge Accepted"
Six Thinking Hats
A decision framework of six mental "hats" that reframed her default pessimism into a structured way to pressure-test ideas.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“So one is going to be The Effective Executive from Peter Drucker, classic, old, short, incredible bang for the buck.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Effective Executive
Drucker's short, durable classic on executive judgment, named as a top framework for deciding what to do and what to ignore.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, I mentioned it earlier, is hilarious. Also an incredibly accurate and enjoyable, warts and all, ride through the US.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
Travels with Charley
Steinbeck's road trip memoir that Tim finds hilarious and a fast, warts-and-all ride through a quirky America.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“The 80/20 Principle, Richard Koch, that just never gets old. It just does not get old... he really walks the talk.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
The 80/20 Principle
Koch's evergreen guide to focusing on the vital few, praised by Tim as timeless and written by a practitioner who walks the talk.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“is to read a book called The High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil... Arguably, one of the best certainly, angel investors in the last few decades. I mean, his hit rate is absolutely insane.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
High Growth Handbook
Gil's operating manual for scaling venture-backed companies, recommended by Tim citing Gil's extraordinary investor and operator track record.
Also recommended
The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“Actually the High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil is much, much, much new[er]. And I know you've interviewed Elad. So it's in a professional setting.”
Sami Inkinen, Co-founder & CEO, Virta Health
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“you should go read Alice in Wonderland. Read the whole thing, not just quotes from it.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll's classic, which Tim urges reading in full rather than as quotes, naming it among the books he keeps for himself.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“The Blue Ocean Strategy, probably worth checking out. Because if you choose to compete in a crowded category, you just have a harder road ahead of you. So creating a category of one in a sense.”
Tim Ferriss, Author and podcast host, The Tim Ferriss Show
Blue Ocean Strategy
The strategy classic Tim suggests for founders, on creating an uncontested category of one rather than fighting in a crowded market.
Books · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026
“This is why also in The Great Nerve, which is a book written by Kevin Tracey, it's a great book. There's an extended chapter about Wim Hof.”
Tim Ferriss, Host, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Great Nerve
Kevin Tracey's book on the vagus nerve and bioelectronic medicine, with an extended chapter on Wim Hof.