Sam Harris's Book Recommendations

"There’s another work of philosophy here. Sort of philosophy/science that I’ve been greatly influenced by of late.The philosopher, Nick Bostrom, wrote a book called “Superintelligence,” which has impressed many people for the thoroughness with which he has argued that we have a serious problem looming with respect to the birth of intelligent machines."

"Made me worry that machine knowledge could ruin everything."

"If you haven’t read Christopher Hitchens, you should. He was a brilliant writer and also a brilliant speaker. You can get the benefit of both his voice and his writing if you listen to his audiobooks, the ones he read himself. “God is NotGreat,” and “Hitch-22” are two of those. I don’t know if he read any of the others. But it’s great listening."

"You can get the benefit of both his voice and his writing if you listen to [this audiobook]."

"There’s a writer – William Ian Miller –who I think is unfairly neglected. He writes some fascinating books. Several have been on negative emotions. One book is entitled “Humiliation,” which was a great read. Just on the phenomenon of being humiliated and differentiating it from embarrassment and other similar emotions. He also wrote a book on disgust called “The Anatomy of Disgust,” which is also fun.These are very interdisciplinary books. He is a lawyer, I believe or a professor of law. But he goes deep into the relevant sociology and these are cool books."

"Fun."

"If you haven’t read Christopher Hitchens, you should. He was a brilliant writer and also a brilliant speaker. You can get the benefit of both his voice and his writing if you listen to his audiobooks, the ones he read himself. “God is NotGreat,” and “Hitch-22” are two of those. I don’t know if he read any of the others. But it’s great listening."

"You can get the benefit of both his voice and his writing if you listen to [this audiobook]."

"I also recommend Derek Parfit’s book, “Reasons and Persons,” which is just brilliant and written as though by an alien intelligence. It’s a deeply strange book filled with thought experiments that bend your intuitions left and right.It’s just a truly strange and unique document and incredibly insightful about morality and questions of identity and well worth reading if you are of a philosophical cast of mind."

"Brilliant and written as though by an alien intelligence."

"There’s one book called The Flight of the Garuda, which I think is especially beautiful and wise.And among the Hindus who teach Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual teachings of yogic meditation that really just talks about pure consciousness and the illusion of the self – don’t be confused about the assertion of the existence of the big Self, capital S. They’re just talking about awareness in that case."

"Especially beautiful and wise."

"Nagle is a very fine writer, a very clear. Just as a style of communication, I think he’s worth going to school on. I would recommend you read his little book, “The Last Word,” which champions rationality in a very compelling way."

"Champions rationality in a very compelling way."

"If you want to see what it’s like when things go about as wrong as they can go, read “Machete Season,” which is a short book about the Rwandan genocide that is, if I recall correctly, entirely borne of interviews with some of the main perpetrators of this genocide. So not merely the people who were swinging the machetes, but the people who were running those gangs and enforcing people’s membership therein.They invite you in there and they give you the full tour. It is uncanny that circumstances can come together culturally, neurophysiologically and otherwise so as to produce this kind of behaviour again with a clear conscience. So it is a short book and a very sobering one worth reading, if you can stomach that sort of thing."

"There’s a lot to be said for having kids and that really is not a rejoinder to the research that suggests that people are made, for a very long time, reliably less happy as parents. You can find this in Daniel Gilbert’s work on effective forecasting, which he summarised in a book “Stumbling upon happiness,” which is also a good book which I recommend."

"A good book which I recommend."

"I highly recommend. It really is the most accessible discussion of brain science you will find."

"Greatly expanded my sense of the potential power of human knowledge."

"If you just want to forget about the future and lose yourself in the book that forever changed how narrative nonfiction is written, read In Cold Blood."

"A very useful little volume."

"Good."

"There are some very good essays in there that were very influential in philosophy and should be more influential in the culture, generally."

"He said a few crazy things, as many gurus do. But if you stick to what he was claiming about the nature of experience, I think you’re on firm ground."

"Just on the phenomenon of being humiliated and differentiating it from embarrassment and other similar emotions."

"Sam Harris picked this as the first book in his Book Club."

"Beautifully written."

"Altogether thrilling and necessary."

"I suspect many of you want recommendations on books about meditation and spiritual experience. There’s no book out there that is free of the superstition and religiosity you tend to get with books aboutBuddhism or Advaita Vedanta, the Hindu teachings of non-duality. I can’t really recommend those books without caveat. I wrote the book that I think needed to exist, “Waking Up,” which was my last book. I am reluctant to include my own book in a list of books everyone should read, however. But there was a reason why I wrote that book, because there’s really no book I could point rational people, students of science, critics of religious mumbo jumbo, with a clear conscience."

"Read it in a weekend and you will be informed about the central doctrines of Islam in a way that you may not be and it’s good to be informed, given how much influence these ideas have currently in our world."