MC
Marco Canora

American chef

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Yeah. At work every year, I kind of give my line cooks and my management team books as gifts around the holidays. So This is Water by David Foster Wallace is one I commonly give because it’s so short and the message is so perfect in my opinion. So I’ve given that a lot. And then for cookbooks, I got to say, the Marcella Hazan Essentials is just, I adore that woman. I adore her simple approach. It is like, she’s the OG of Italian grandma cooking. And so those are the two books.

Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 10 November 2021 source ↗

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Graham Duncan Investor; co-founder of East Rock Capital
Yeah. So in financial markets, I really like this somewhat obscure book called The Aspirational Investor by this guy, Ashvin Chhabra, who runs Jim Simons’ family office. Jim Simons started Renaissance Technologies, which is the dominant quant fund.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 1 March 2019 source ↗
Jacqueline Novogratz Founder and chief executive of Acumen
I have reasons for each of those books and certainly The Invisible Man in this moment of the Black Lives Matter protests and the continuing racial reckoning. Invisible Man really taught me to not see through anybody ever. But the book I give right now in this time of so much despair is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning , where he really looks at people in the Holocaust and asks himself, why did some just sort of crumple up and die and others stayed resilient and strong? And that at the end of the day, no one can take our dignity away from us. And so I think that we have to be reminded right now that, between stimulus and response, there is a choice. And we’re in that moment. And I have seen myself personally so often that in the darkest times we can find our best selves and that’s our opportunity right now. And so I think for this moment, Tim, Man’s Search for Meaning should be required reading for all of us.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 6 May 2021 source ↗
Terry Real Family therapist and author
I’m a big fan of Jim Gilligan’s book Violence . It’s not an easy read.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 10 May 2025 source ↗
Mark Bittman American journalist, food writer
I buy a one-off; I see a book someone will like and I buy that. I have bought Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott for a number of people who’ve told me they were struggling with writing, because I think it’s a really great writing book and it’s a good read anyway.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 19 June 2018 source ↗

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