Want to know what books Daniel Kahneman recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Daniel Kahneman's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? What can we learn about human nature and world history from a glass of water?
In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.
Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will... more What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? What can we learn about human nature and world history from a glass of water?
In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.
Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.
Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how this new kind of science helps us understand the behavior of companies and the fate of empires. Loonshots distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere. less 
Daniel KahnemanThis book has everything: new ideas, bold insights, entertaining history and convincing analysis. Not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand how ideas change the world. (Source)
Timothy FerrissIt really is [a damn good book]. So I encourage people, loonshots.com, take a look at the book. And if you’re like, “I still need to be sold,” okay. Go read up on Safi and you’ll be like, “Okay, there are probably additional things that I could learn from Safi and from the historical examples that you weave together, right?” It’s really the way that I like to learn personally and I think it’s the... (Source)
Siddhartha MukherjeeA wonderful book that explores the beauty, quirkiness and complexity of ideas, Loonshots will both educate and entertain you. If you care about ideas—especially new and out-of-the-box ones—you need to read this book. (Source)
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2
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to... more From the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.
As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:
• For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
• Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general.
• Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
• You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistines” have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.
• Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
• True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.
The phrase “skin in the game” is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, “The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,” and “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.” less 
Marc AndreessenSkin in the game as conflict of interest, or as attaching one's livelihood to one's speech? Who to listen to, and why. Ideal counterpart to Philip Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment. (Source)
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3
For nearly four years, Cass R. Sunstein, bestselling author and President Obama’s “Regulatory Czar,” helped to oversee a revolution in better government. He explains how and why—and what comes next.The future of government arrived four years ago. Government became simpler, it became smarter, and Cass Sunstein was at the center of it all. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in behavioral psychology and economics, Sunstein, as administrator of the powerful White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), quietly helped save the nation billions of dollars while preventing... more For nearly four years, Cass R. Sunstein, bestselling author and President Obama’s “Regulatory Czar,” helped to oversee a revolution in better government. He explains how and why—and what comes next.The future of government arrived four years ago. Government became simpler, it became smarter, and Cass Sunstein was at the center of it all. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in behavioral psychology and economics, Sunstein, as administrator of the powerful White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), quietly helped save the nation billions of dollars while preventing thousands of deaths and countless illnesses and accidents. All this was accomplished in part through the extraordinary power of nudges—low-cost, seemingly modest policies that preserve freedom of choice. In combination with smart, disciplined cost-benefit analysis, nudges are simplifying government and making it far more effective.
Twenty-first century insights now inform simplified mortgage and student loan applications, the labeling of food and energy-efficient cars, financial reform, and health care reform. New principles—democratizing data, presenting individuals and businesses with the most salient information, ensuring that the better outcome is the automatic outcome—are transforming government. Countless regulations are being streamlined or eliminated. Transparent review of which rules are working, and which aren’t, is becoming the norm. Citing numerous examples from his years in the first term of the Obama Administration, and projecting forward into a data-driven future, Simpler provides a new understanding of how government can work. less See more recommendations for this book...
4
Audiobook: 8 hrs and 47 mins
A surprising and intriguing examination of how scarcity—and our flawed responses to it—shapes our lives, our society, and our culture
Why do successful people get things done at the last minute? Why does poverty persist? Why do organizations get stuck firefighting? Why do the lonely find it hard to make friends? These questions seem unconnected, yet Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir show that they are all are examples of a mind-set produced by scarcity.
Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioral science and... more Audiobook: 8 hrs and 47 mins
A surprising and intriguing examination of how scarcity—and our flawed responses to it—shapes our lives, our society, and our culture
Why do successful people get things done at the last minute? Why does poverty persist? Why do organizations get stuck firefighting? Why do the lonely find it hard to make friends? These questions seem unconnected, yet Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir show that they are all are examples of a mind-set produced by scarcity.
Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioral science and economics, Mullainathan and Shafir show that scarcity creates a similar psychology for everyone struggling to manage with less than they need. Busy people fail to manage their time efficiently for the same reasons the poor and those maxed out on credit cards fail to manage their money. The dynamics of scarcity reveal why dieters find it hard to resist temptation, why students and busy executives mismanage their time, and why sugarcane farmers are smarter after harvest than before. Once we start thinking in terms of scarcity and the strategies it imposes, the problems of modern life come into sharper focus.
Mullainathan and Shafir discuss how scarcity affects our daily lives, recounting anecdotes of their own foibles and making surprising connections that bring this research alive. Their book provides a new way of understanding why the poor stay poor and the busy stay busy, and it reveals not only how scarcity leads us astray but also how individuals and organizations can better manage scarcity for greater satisfaction and success.
http://us.macmillan.com/scarcity/Send... less 
Esther DysonAn explanation of scarcity for rich intellectuals, showing how poor people do stupid things for lack of money, while rich people do stupid things for lack of time. (Source)
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5
Clinical versus Statistical Prediction is Paul Meehl's famous examination of benefits and disutilities related to the different ways of combining information to make predictions. It is a clarifying analysis as relevant today as when it first appeared.
A major methodological problem for clinical psychology concerns the relation between clinical and actuarial methods of arriving at diagnoses and predicting behavior. Without prejudging the question as to whether these methods are fundamentally different, we can at least set forth the obvious distinctions between them in... more Clinical versus Statistical Prediction is Paul Meehl's famous examination of benefits and disutilities related to the different ways of combining information to make predictions. It is a clarifying analysis as relevant today as when it first appeared.
A major methodological problem for clinical psychology concerns the relation between clinical and actuarial methods of arriving at diagnoses and predicting behavior. Without prejudging the question as to whether these methods are fundamentally different, we can at least set forth the obvious distinctions between them in practical applications. The problem is to predict how a person is going to behave: What is the most accurate way to go about this task?
Clinical versus Statistical Prediction offers a penetrating and thorough look at the pros and cons of human judgment versus actuarial integration of information as applied to the prediction problem. Widely considered the leading text on the subject, Paul Meehl's landmark analysis is reprinted here in its entirety, including his updated preface written forty-two years after the first publication of the book.
This classic work is a must-have for students and practitioners interested in better understanding human behavior, for anyone wanting to make the most accurate decisions from all sorts of data, and for those interested in the ethics and intricacies of prediction. As Meehl puts it, "When one is dealing with human lives and life opportunities, it is immoral to adopt a mode of decision-making which has been demonstrated repeatedly to be either inferior in success rate or, when equal, costlier to the client or the taxpayer." less See more recommendations for this book...
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