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Aubrey Marcus' Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Aubrey Marcus recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Aubrey Marcus' favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose book cover1

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Eckhart Tolle

4.4

Building on the astonishing success of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: He implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity.

Tolle tells us there is good news, however. There is an alternative to this potentially dire situation. Humani
The 48 Laws of Power book cover2

The 48 Laws of Power

Robert Greene

4.4
This amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive book synthesizes the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz with the historical legacies of statesmen, warriors, seducers, and con men throughout the ages.
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph book cover3

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

Ryan Holiday

4.4
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius

We are stuck, stymied, frustrated. But it needn’t be this way. There is a formula for success that’s been followed by the icons of history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—a formula that let them turn obstacles into opportunities. Faced with impossible si
The Alchemist book cover4

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

4.2
Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. What starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treas
The War of Art book cover5

The War of Art

Steven Pressfield

4.3
The Art of War meets "The Artist's Way" in this no-nonsense, profoundly inspiring guide to overcoming creative blocks of every kind.
Ego is the Enemy book cover6

Ego is the Enemy

Ryan Holiday

4.4
As in the Obstacle is the way, Ryan holiday delivers practical and inspiring philosophy, this time exploring a powerful concept that runs back centuries, across borders and schools of thought: Ego. Ego is our biggest enemy. Early in our careers, it can prevent us from learning and developing our talents. When we taste success, ego can blind us to our own faults, alienate us from others and lead to
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom book cover7

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills

4.4
In The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. The Four Agreements are: Be Impeccable With Your Word, Don't Take Anything Personally,
Mastery book cover8
In this book, Robert Greene demonstrates that the ultimate form of power is mastery itself. By analyzing the lives of such past masters as Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Leonard da Vinci, as well as by interviewing nine contemporary masters, including tech guru Paul Graham and animal rights advocate Temple Grandin, Greene debunks our culture’s many myths about genius and d
The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship, A Toltec Wisdom Book book cover9

The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship, A Toltec Wisdom Book

Miguel Ruiz

4.5
In The Mastery of Love, don Miguel Ruiz illuminates the fear-based beliefs and assumptions that undermine love and lead to suffering and drama in our relationships. Using insightful stories to bring his message to life, Ruiz shows us how to heal our emotional wounds, recover the freedom and joy that are our birthright, and store the spirit of playfulness that is vital to loving relationships. The
10

Island

Aldous Huxley

4.1
In his final novel, which he considered his most important, Aldous Huxley transports us to the remote Pacific island of Pala, where an ideal society has flourished for 120 years.

Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events are set in motion when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faran
The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) book cover11

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

Patrick Rothfuss

4.6
Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.

The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the mur
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature book cover12

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

Matt Ridley

4.2
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening n
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence book cover13

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Michael Pollan

4.5
Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? One of America's most admired writers takes us on a mind-altering journey to the frontiers of human consciousness

When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality book cover14

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá

4.3
Sex at Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts. This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.” — Andrew Weil, M.D.

Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that
The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire book cover15

The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire

David Deida

4.4
What is your true purpose in life? What do women really want? What makes a good lover? If you're a man reading this, you've undoubtedly asked yourself these questions-but you may not have had much luck answering them. Until now. In The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida explores the most important issues in men's lives--from career and family to women and intimacy to love and spirituality--to of
Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work book cover16

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

Steven Kotler, Jamie Wheal

4.2
National Bestseller

CNBC and Strategy + Business Best Business Book of the Year

It’s the biggest revolution you’ve never heard of, and it’s hiding in plain sight. Over the past decade, Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk, Special Operators like the Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, and maverick scientists like Sasha Shulgin and Amy Cuddy have turned everything we thought we kn
The Road book cover17

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

4.0
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have noth
Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, the Power of Naps, and the New Plan to Recharge Your Body and Mind book cover18

Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, the Power of Naps, and the New Plan to Recharge Your Body and Mind

Nick Littlehales

3.9
Proven solutions for a better night's sleep, from the "sleep guru" to elite athletes
One-third of our lives--3,000 hours a year--is spent trying to sleep. The hours we spend in bed shape our moods, motivation, alertness, decision-making skills, creativity...in short, our ability to perform. But most of us have disturbed, restless nights, relying on over-stimulation from caffeine and sugar to drag u
Turning Pro book cover19

Turning Pro

Steven Pressfield

4.4
The follow up to the War of Art. In the War of Art Pressfield identifies the enemy to living an authentic life – resistance. In Turning Pro, Pressfield teaches you how to defeat it.
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists book cover20

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Neil Strauss

4.1
Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to prot
Cyrano de Bergerac book cover21

Cyrano de Bergerac

Edmond Rostand

3.9
This acclaimed adaptation for the stage has garnered such reviews as: "Emotional depth Rostand himself would surely have envied...Burgess' extravagant verse keeps its contours, yet trips off the tongue almost as though it were contemporary speech." -London Times. Performance rights available from Applause.
Zen in the Art of Archery book cover22

Zen in the Art of Archery

Eugen Herrigel

4.3
The path to achieving Zen (a balance between the body and the mind) is brilliantly explained by Professor Eugen Herrigel in this timeless account.

This book is the result of the author’s six year quest to learn archery in the hands of Japanese Zen masters. It is an honest account of one man’s journey to complete abandonment of ‘the self’ and the Western principles that we use to define ourselves. P
23

Awakening Spirits

Tom Brown Jr.

4.3
For the first time, Tom Brown, Jr.--America's most acclaimed outdoorsman--shares the unique meditation exercises used by students of his personal Tracker classes. These techniques for finding inner peace and harmony with nature are based on the wisdom of his greatest teacher, a native American called Grandfather. Now all of us can learn these spiritual lessons of life through the earth around us--
24

Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book without Instructions

Daniele Bolelli

4.1
Create Your Own Religion is a call to arms--an open invitation to question all the values, beliefs, and worldviews that humanity has so far held as sacred in order to find the answers we need to the very practical problems facing us.

Writer, philosopher, and professor of comparative religion, Daniele Bolelli, leads the reader through three thousand years of mythology, misogyny, misinformation, and
Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1) book cover25

Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)

E L James

4.0
When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants h
Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization book cover26

Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization

Graham Hancock

4.5
Graham Hancock's multi-million bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods remains an astonishing, deeply controversial, wide-ranging investigation of the mysteries of our past and the evidence for Earth's lost civilization. Twenty years on, Hancock returns with the sequel to his seminal work filled with completely new, scientific and archaeological evidence, which has only recently come to light...

Near t
27

Not Afraid

Daniele Bolelli

4.7
"The honesty and authenticity in Daniele's writing is truly inspirational. Most books about life are written with kid gloves and give us old school clichés to handle adversity. Daniele has gone through some of the most difficult situations a father, husband, and all around warrior can go through. He gives us an honest look into the pain, heartache, and process of fighting back against things that
28

Rise of the Mystics (Beyond the Circle, #2)

Ted Dekker

4.6
Some say the great mystery of how one can live in two worlds at once died with Thomas Hunter many years ago. Still others that the gateway to that greater reality was and is only the stuff of dreams. They are all wrong.

Rachelle Matthews, who grew up in the small town of Eden, Utah, discovered just how wrong when she dreamed and awoke in another world. There she learned that she was the 49th Mystic
29

Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance

Emily Fletcher

4.2
A National Bestseller

Foreword by Mark Hyman, MD
Preface by Andrew Huberman, PhD


You know you should be meditating, so what’s stopping you? This entertaining and enlightening book by the founder of Ziva Meditation—the favorite training for high achievers—will finally take meditation mainstream.


In our high-stress, overworked lives, we think the answer to accomplishing more is to do more. But the best
30

The 49th Mystic (Beyond the Circle, #1)

Ted Dekker

4.5
Some say the great mystery of how one can live in two worlds at once died with Thomas Hunter many years ago. Still others that the gateway to that greater reality was and is only the stuff of dreams.

They are wrong. In the small town of Eden, Utah, a blind girl named Rachelle Matthews is about to find out just how wrong.

When a procedure meant to restore Rachelle's sight goes awry, she begins to dre
31

The Book of Freedom: The Mastery Trilogy: Book III

Paul Selig

4.7
The third work in channeler Paul Selig's acclaimed Mastery Trilogy guides readers to the knowledge of their true selves.

"The crown jewel of the mastery trilogy--the most important spiritual work of our time."--Aubrey Marcus, New York Times bestselling author of Own the Day, Own Your Life, founder and CEO of Onnit

The channeled literature of Paul Selig--who receives clairaudient dictation from unsee
32

The Book of Truth: The Mastery Trilogy: Book II

Paul Selig

4.8
As recently seen on ABC's Nightline, channeler Paul Selig presents the second work in his acclaimed Mastery Trilogy. The Book of Truth casts your relationships--and what they reveal about you--in a dramatic and radical new light.

The channeled literature of Paul Selig--who receives clairaudient dictation from unseen intellects called the Guides--has quickly become the most important and celebrated
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge book cover33

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

Jeremy Narby

4.4
This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences," leads the reader through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge.In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals
The Fifth Sacred Thing book cover34

The Fifth Sacred Thing

Starhawk

4.5
From the bestselling author of The Spiral Dance comes an unforgettable epic, similar to The Handmaid's Tale in its brilliant dramatization of the choices we must make to insure the survival of our selves, our society, and our planet.
The Journeys of Socrates book cover35

The Journeys of Socrates

Dan Millman

4.5
The international bestselling author is bck with a page-turning tale of the origins of the peaceful warrior

In the heart of nineteenth century Tsarist Russia an orphaned boy born of both Jewish and Cossack blood desperately seeks to find a place in a dangerous world. Sergei Ivanov’s (Socrates’) journey from a military academy to America is a spellbinding and tragic odyssey of courage and love. This
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge book cover36

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Carlos Castaneda

4.3
Decades ago the University of California Press published a remarkable manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents & the revolution in cognition it demands. In a
37

The Toltec Art of Life and Death: Living Your Life as a Work of Art

Don Miguel Ruiz, Barbara Emrys

4.1
A HarperElixir Book

The beloved teacher of spiritual wisdom and author of the phenomenal New York Times and international bestseller The Four Agreements takes readers on a mystical Toltec-inspired personal journey, introducing us to a deeper level of spiritual teaching and awareness.

In 2002, Don Miguel Ruiz suffered a near fatal heart attack that left him in a nine-weeks-long coma. The spiritual jo
The Warrior Ethos book cover38

The Warrior Ethos

Steven Pressfield

4.3
WARS CHANGE, WARRIORS DON'T We are all warriors. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in. Do we fight by a code? If so, what is it? What is the Warrior Ethos? Where did it come from? What form does it take today? How do we (and h
The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts about Life, Death and the Universe book cover39

The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts about Life, Death and the Universe

Carlos Castaneda

4.2
World-renowned bestselling author Carlos Castaneda's Selection of his wrtings on the shamans of ancient Mexico.

Originally drawn to Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus for his knowledge of mind-altering plants, bestselling author Carlos Castaneda soon immersed himself in the sorcerer’s magical world entirely. Ten years after his first encounter with the shaman, Castaneda examines his field
40

Tripping Over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine's Most Entrenched Paradigms

Travis Christofferson

4.6
A masterful synchronization of history and cutting-edge science shines new light on humanity's darkest diagnosis.

In the wake of the Cancer Genome Atlas project's failure to provide a legible roadmap to a cure for cancer, science writer Travis Christofferson illuminates a promising blend of old and new perspectives on the disease. Tripping over the Truth follows the story of cancer's proposed metab
You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter book cover41

You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter

Joe Dispenza

4.5
Is it possible to heal by thought alone—without drugs or surgery? The truth is that it happens more often than you might expect. In You Are the Placebo, Dr. Joe Dispenza shares numerous documented cases of those who reversed cancer, heart disease, depression, crippling arthritis, and even the tremors of Parkinson’s disease by believing in a placebo. Similarly, Dr. Joe tells of how others have gott
42

Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More

Joe Vitale, Ihaleakala Hew Len

4.2
43

Vedanta Treatise The Eternities

A.Parthasarathy

4.5