Recommendations

Recommended Books

Health and Nutrition

  • Your Personal Paleo Code (Chris Kresser) – The most scientifically accurate intro to eating Paleo. If you’re only going to buy one book on eating healthy, get this one.
  • Practical Paleo (Diane Sanfilippo) – Another great intro to Paleo, but a bit easier reading for folks who are not as interested in the scientific detail.
  • Rich Food Poor Food (Jayson and Mira Calton) – A practical “buy this, not that” guide to grocery shopping.
  • The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Michael Pollan) – Do you know where your food comes from? A revealing look behind the curtain of how food gets from farm to table.

Psychology and People Skills

Strength Training and Fitness

  • Starting Strength (Mark Rippetoe) – If you’re going to buy one book on weight training/powerlifting make it this one.
  • Power to the People! (Pavel Tsatsouline) – Strength is a skill. Advice from the famous former Soviet special ops instructor and drill sergeant.
  • Convict Conditioning (Paul Wade) – No gym? No problem. The fundamentals of bodyweight training.
  • Underground Secrets to Faster Running (Barry Ross) – Strength training advice from Allyson Felix’s former coach.

Relationships

Human Nature and Evolution

  • The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) – How evolution really works. You are an organic machine designed to perpetuate your genes that has become self aware.
  • The Mating Mind (Geoffrey Miller) – Could the human brain have evolved to be a sex organ? An evolutionary psychologist’s take on dating, mating, and the opposite sex.
  • Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (Geoffrey Miller) – Become aware of the hidden forces that shape your spending without your knowledge.
  • The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker) – Are we really born with blank slates for minds? How much of your mind is innate and how it affects your life.
  • Sex and War (Potts and Hayden) – Men, sex, and group violence. Why “we band of brothers” doesn’t translate to “we band of sisters.”
  • The Old Way: A Story of the First People (Elizabeth Thomas) – What hunter gatherer life tells us about being human. An anthropologist’s story of living with the !Kung.

Personal Finance

Philosophy and Spirituality