Naval Ravikant's Recommended Books to Read
Explore Naval Ravikant's top book recommendations. Uncover reads that inspire wisdom, wealth, a growth mindset, and transformative thinking.
BEST PICKS
Naval Ravikant is a distinguished entrepreneur and investor, best known as the co-founder of AngelList. He's celebrated for his insightful perspectives on startups, business, wealth, and personal growth.
Renowned for his philosophical approach, Ravikant shares his wisdom through podcasts and social media, influencing both the tech and personal development spheres.
Naval is very active on Twitter, where you can follow him.
As an affiliate partner, we earn money from purchases made through links on this page.
The Beginning of Infinity
Explanations That Transform the World
by David Deutsch
Naval:“Not the easiest read, but it made me smarter.”
Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
Naval: “Sapiens is the best book of the last decade I have read. He had decades to write Sapiens. There are lots of great ideas in there and it’s just full of them, chock-full per page.”
The Rational Optimist
How Prosperity Evolves
by Matt Ridley
Naval: “The most brilliant and enlightening book I’ve read in years. He has written four of my top twenty books. Everything else written by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. One of my favorite authors.”
Genome
The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
by Matt Ridley
Naval: “The most brilliant and enlightening book I’ve read in years. He has written four of my top twenty books. Everything else written by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. One of my favorite authors.”
The Origins of Virtue
Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
by Matt Ridley
Naval: “The most brilliant and enlightening book I’ve read in years. He has written four of my top twenty books. Everything else written by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. One of my favorite authors.”
The Evolution of Everything
How New Ideas Emerge
by Matt Ridley
Naval: “The most brilliant and enlightening book I’ve read in years. He has written four of my top twenty books. Everything else written by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. One of my favorite authors.”
Skin in the Game
Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
by Nassim Taleb
Naval: “The best book I read in 2018, I highly recommend it. Lots of great ideas in there. Lots of good mental models and constructs. He has a bit of an attitude, but he has that because he’s brilliant, and it’s okay. So just look past the attitude and read the book, learn the concepts. It’s one of the best business books I’ve ever read. And luckily, it doesn’t masquerade as a business book.”
The Black Swan
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Taleb
Naval: “Another book from Nassim Taleb which is worth reading.”
The Bed of Procrustes
Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
by Nassim Taleb
Naval: “This is his collection of ancient wisdom.”
Antifragile
Things That Gain from Disorder
by Nassim Taleb
Naval: “Another book from Nassim Taleb which is worth reading.”
Six Easy Pieces
Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher
Naval: “I would give my kids a copy of Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces...Richard Feynman is a famous physicist. I love both his demeanor as well as his understanding of physics.”
Poor Charlie’s Almanack
The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
Naval: “This masquerades as a business book, but it’s really just Charlie Munger (of Berkshire Hathaway)’s advice on overcoming oneself to live a successfuland virtuous life.”
Reality Is Not What It Seems
The Journey to Quantum Gravity
by Carlo Rovelli
Naval: “This is the best book I’ve read in the last year. Physics, poetry, philosophy, and history packaged in a very accessible form.”
The Evolution of Cooperation
by Robert Axelrod
Naval: “For game theory, in addition to playing strategy games, you may want to try this one.”
The Compleat Strategyst
Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy
by J.D. Williams
Naval: “For game theory, in addition to playing strategy games, you may want to try this one.”
Jed McKenna's Theory of Everything
The Enlightened Perspective
by Jed McKenna
Naval: “Everything by Jed McKenna. Jed spits raw truth. His style may be off-putting, but the dedication to truth is unparalleled.”
Spiritual Warfare
by Jed McKenna
Naval: “Everything by Jed McKenna. Jed spits raw truth. His style may be off-putting, but the dedication to truth is unparalleled.”
Jed Talks #1
Essays, Teachings, Rants & Frivolous Frivolity
by Jed McKenna
Naval: “Everything by Jed McKenna. Jed spits raw truth. His style may be off-putting, but the dedication to truth is unparalleled.”
Jed Talks #2
Away from the Things of Man
by Jed McKenna
Naval: “Everything by Jed McKenna. Jed spits raw truth. His style may be off-putting, but the dedication to truth is unparalleled.”
A Master’s Secret Whisper
For those who abhor noise and seek The Truth about life and living
by Kapil Gupta
Naval: “Everything by Kapil Gupta. Kapil recently became a personal advisor and coach to me, and this comes from a person who doesn’t believe in coaches.”
Atmamun
The path to achieving the bliss of the Himalayan Swamis. And the freedom of a living God.
by Kapil Gupta
Naval: “Everything by Kapil Gupta. Kapil recently became a personal advisor and coach to me, and this comes from a person who doesn’t believe in coaches.”
The Book of Life
Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti
Naval: “Krishnamurti is a lesser-known guy, an Indian philosopher who lived at the turn of the last century and is extremely influential to me. He’s an uncompromising, very direct person who basically tells you to look at your own mind at all times. I’ll give my kids a copy of The Book of Life. I’ll tell them to save it until they’re older because it won’t make much sense while they’re younger.”
Total Freedom
The Essential Krishnamurti
by Jiddu Krishnamurti
Naval: “Krishnamurti is a lesser-known guy, an Indian philosopher who lived at the turn of the last century and is extremely influential to me. He’s an uncompromising, very direct person who basically tells you to look at your own mind at all times.”
Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse
Naval: “I love this as a classic book on philosophy, a good introduction for someone starting out. I’ve given out more copies of this book than any other.
The Book of Secrets
112 Meditations to Discover the Mystery Within
by Osho
Naval: “Most meditation techniques are concentration methods, and there are many,many meditation techniques. If you want to run through a bunch of them, you can pick up a book called The Book of Secrets by Osho. I know he’s gotten a bad rap recently, but he was a pretty smart guy. It’s actually a translation of an old Sanskrit book with 112 different meditations. You can try each one and see which one works for you.”
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
Naval: “Marcus Aurelius was absolutely life-changing for me. It’s the personal diary of the emperor of Rome. Here’s a guy who was probably the most powerful human being on Earth at the time he lived. He’s writing a diary to himself, never expecting it to be published. When you open this book, you realize he had all the same issues and all the same mental struggles; he was trying to be a better person. Right there, you figure out success and power don’t improve your internal state—you still have to work on it.”
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It
The Positive Self-Help Phenomenom
by Kamal Ravikant
Naval: “I’ve actually been reading my brother’s book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. I thought it was very succinctly written. (Obviously a plug for my bro.) He’s the philosopher in the family—I’m just the amateur.”
Ficciones
by Jorge Luis Borges
Naval: “I love Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine author. His short story collection Ficciones, or Labyrinths, is amazing. Borges is probably still the most powerful author I have read who wasn’t just outright writing philosophy. There was philosophy in there with the sci-fi.”
The Prophet
The Original 1923 Edition with Complete Illustrations
by Kahlil Gibran
Naval: “This book reads like a modern-day poetic religious tome. It’s up there with the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, and the Qur’an. It is written in the style where it has a feel of religiosity and truth, but it was very approachable, beautiful, nondenominational, and nonsectarian. I loved this book.”
Striking Thoughts
Bruce Lee’s Wisdom for Daily Living
by Bruce Lee
Naval: “Oddly enough, Bruce Lee wrote some great philosophy, and Striking Thoughts is a good summary of some of his philosophy.”
How to Change Your Mind
What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
by Michael Pollan
Naval: “There’s a good book Michael Pollan wrote recently called How to Change Your Mind, and I think it is a brilliant book everybody should read. The book discusses psychedelics. Psychedelics are a bit of a cheat code in self-observation. I don’t recommend drugs for anybody—you can do it all through pure meditation. If you want to accelerate ahead, you know, psychedelics are good for that.
The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu
Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang
Naval: “My current favorite sci-fi short story: probably “Understand” by Ted Chiang. It’s in a collection called Stories of Your Life and Others. “Story of Your Life” was made into a movie called Arrival.”
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
Naval: “Snow Crash is an amazing, amazing book. There’s nothing quite similar to Snow Crash. Snow Crash is in a league of its own. Stephenson also wrote The Diamond Age.”
The Complete Stories of Isaac Asimov
by Isaac Asimov
Naval: “I quote “The Last Question” all the time. I loved it as a kid.”
Tools of Titans
The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers
by Tim Ferriss
Naval: “I’m reading Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss’s book of what he learned from a lot of great performers.”
Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl
Exhalation
Stories
by Ted Chiang
Naval: “This contemplates the marvel of thermodynamics from the best sci-fi short story writer of our age.”
Pre-Suasion
A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
by Robert Cialdini
Naval: “ I just finished reading Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, or I should say I just finished skimming Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini. I don’t think I needed to read the entire book to get the point, but it was still good to read what I did.”
The Story of Philosophy
The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers
by Will Durant
Naval: “ I just finished reading Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, or I should say I just finished skimming Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini. I don’t think I needed to read the entire book to get the point, but it was still good to read what I did.”
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu
Become What You Are
by Alan Watts
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
by Dale Carnegie
FAQ
How long should one read each day, as suggested by Naval Ravikant?
While the book doesn’t prescribe a specific duration for daily reading, it highlights the importance of lifelong learning and curiosity, suggesting that consistent and focused reading is more beneficial than the length of reading sessions.
What are some key habits or mindsets for achieving happiness, according to Naval Ravikant?
Ravikant advocates for self-awareness, continuous learning, and detachment from societal status games, emphasizing the importance of internal rather than external validation for true happiness.
How does Naval Ravikant suggest one should approach the creation of wealth?
The book outlines Ravikant's belief in creating wealth through leveraging specific knowledge, ethical entrepreneurship, and long-term investment in oneself and one's ventures.
How has Naval's background influenced his philosophy and career?
Naval's unique blend of Eastern and Western philosophies, combined with his experience in Silicon Valley, shapes his perspectives on life, happiness, and entrepreneurship.
What is Naval's approach to decision-making and risk in business?
He advocates for high-risk, high-reward opportunities, emphasizing the importance of long-term thinking and decision-making based on deep personal understanding.