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Chelsea Handler's Top Book Recommendations

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

I've Been Thinking . . .Reflections, Prayers, and Meditations for a Meaningful Life book cover1

I've Been Thinking . . .Reflections, Prayers, and Meditations for a Meaningful Life

Maria Shriver

4.5
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“[I've Been Thinking…] is beautiful...I felt your soul on these pages.” –Oprah Winfrey

“If you are feeling stuck, lost, or you just need a pick-me-up, this is the book for you. Shriver’s wisdom will fill you up.” —Hoda Kotb, coanchor, The Today Show

A book of reflections for those seeking wisdom, guidance, encouragement, and inspiration on the road to a meaningful
Chelsea Handler portraitDeedee Magno Hall portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler and Deedee Magno Hall.
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Chelsea Handler

One of my favorite people just wrote a book. She gives guidance to everyone who crosses her path, even me. Andy she doesn’t even drink. @mariashriver https://t.co/W3P80U5JWx [source]

Deedee Magno Hall portrait
Deedee Magno Hall

I’ve been thinking...about motherhood & parenting. I read this in @mariashriver’s book. “The most important thing I could do and can do is to love- #LOVE openly and love unconditionally.” 🙏🏻 Happy Blessed Sunday everyone❤️ https://t.co/bfE7ZPM42B [source]

Man's Search for Meaning book cover2

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

4.5
Preview Summary
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we can
Tony Robbins portraitDustin Moskovitz portraitEv Williams portrait Recommended by Tony Robbins, Dustin Moskovitz, Ev Williams, and 60 others.
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Chelsea Handler

One of those beautiful accounts of a terrible time in our history. His calm and sagaciousness, while witnessing one horror after another played out during his time in three separate concentration camps, is awe inspiring. [source]

Tony Robbins portrait
Tony Robbins

Life Coach

Another book that I’ve read dozens of times. It taught me that if you change the meaning, you change everything. Meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life. [source]

Dustin Moskovitz portrait
Dustin Moskovitz

Co-founder/Facebook and Asana

Dustin Moskovitz recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

Anna Karenina book cover3

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

4.1
Tolstoy's epic novel of love, destiny and self-destruction, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition from Penguin Classics. Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously
Chelsea Handler portraitMarvin Liao portraitAudrey Russo portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler, Marvin Liao, Audrey Russo, and 5 others.
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Chelsea Handler

I don't know if I have to expound on why I love this book, but everyone should read this author, and this was the first one of his works I read. So, it's like a first boyfriend. Or my first Cabbage Patch Kid. [source]

Marvin Liao portrait
Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Audrey Russo portrait
Audrey Russo

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path? Answer: Anything by Peter Senge. The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz Once you are Lucky, Twice you are good – Sara Lacey Revolutionary Wealth – Alvin Toffler Black Swan – Taleb Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen Pao. Creative Class – Richard Florida Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics – Kathleen Spears The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Any book by Herman Hesse The Art of War by Sun Tzu. [source]

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything book cover4

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Joshua Foer

4.2
Preview Summary
The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory

An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes." He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tri
Bill Gates portraitChelsea Handler portraitDeborah Blum portrait Recommended by Bill Gates, Chelsea Handler, Deborah Blum, and 4 others.
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Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Of the five books I finished over vacation, the one that impressed me the most – and that is probably of broadest interest – is Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by science writer Joshua Foer. This is an absolutely phenomenal book that looks at memory and techniques for dramatically improving memory. Foer actually mastered these techniques, which led him to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. His book gives fascinating insights into how the mind works. [source]

Deborah Blum portrait
Deborah Blum

This book focuses not so much on the scientists but more on the consequence and meaning of memory for the rest of us. Within the framework of a memory championship, Foer looks at this almost obsessive interest in learning, how to remember everything. He asks the really interesting philosophical question, which is, are we defined by what we remember? [source]

The House of Mirth book cover5

The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton, Anna Quindlen

4.0
A literary sensation when it was published by Scribners in 1905, The House of Mirth quickly established Edith Wharton as the most important American woman of letters in the twentieth century. The first American novel to provide a devastatingly accurate portrait of New York's aristocracy, it is the story of the beautiful and beguiling Lily Bart and her ill-fated attempt to rise to the heights of a
Chelsea Handler portraitJay McInerney portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler and Jay McInerney.
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Chelsea Handler

A timeless story we have seen play out for hundreds of years — yet, it feels like it would only apply to modern day society in the form of a Kardashian. [source]

Jay McInerney portrait
Jay McInerney

Americans are always fascinated with the wealthy. It’s a bit of an illusion to imagine ours to be a classless society, as novelists like Wharton made brilliantly clear. [source]

Barrel Fever book cover6

Barrel Fever

David Sedaris

3.9
In David Sedaris’ world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris’ collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a bitter Santa abuses the elves; a
Chelsea Handler portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler.
The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised Updated book cover7

The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised Updated

David Daniels, Virginia Price

4.1
The First and Only Scientifically Determined Enneagram Personality Test and Guide

A centuries-old psychological system with roots in sacred tradition, the Enneagram can be an invaluable guide in your journey toward self-understanding and self-development. In this book, Stanford University Medical School clinical professor of psychiatry David Daniels and counseling psychologist Virginia Price offer
Chelsea Handler portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler.
8

Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written

Lennard Bickel

4.4
Mawson's Will is the dramatic story of what Sir Edmund Hillary calls "the most outstanding solo journey ever recorded in Antarctic history." For weeks in Antarctica, Douglas Mawson faced some of the most daunting conditions ever known to man: blistering wind, snow, and cold; loss of his companion, his dogs and supplies, the skin on his hands and the soles of his feet; thirst, starvation, disease,
Chelsea Handler portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler.
Men Explain Things to Me book cover9

Men Explain Things to Me

Rebecca Solnit

4.1
Preview Summary
In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.

She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate
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10

On Booze

F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.5
A collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best drinking stories makes this the most intoxicating New Directions Pearl yet! “First you take a drink,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted, “then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” Fitzgerald wrote alcohol into almost every one of his stories. On Booze gathers debutantes and dandies, rowdy jazz musicians, lost children and ragtime riff-raff int
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11

Slavery: The history and legacy of one of the world's most brutal institutions

James Walvin

4.2
Western slavery goes back 10,000 years to Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq, where a male slave was worth an orchard of date palms. Female slaves were called on for sexual services, gaining freedom only when their masters died. This book traces slavery from classical times to the present. It shows how the enforced movement of more than 12 million Africans on to the Atlantic slave ships, and the scattering
Chelsea Handler portrait Recommended by Chelsea Handler.