There’s one book I’ve given the most in my life, which is a book called – well, there are several now that I think about it. There’s a book by Timothy Wilson called Strangers to Ourselves , which is one of the loveliest, most insightful books about social psychology that I ever read. And I give that a lot to people. And every time I meet, and really, I’m always meeting people who work in retail, particularly I always send them, particularly if they’re Jewish, I send them a book called The Merchant Princes . It’s a book about the great Jewish retail families of America. So in the 19th century, all of these people come over from Europe who have experience in the garment trade or retailing. And an extraordinary number of the early 20th century/late 19th century department stores pop up around America are founded by Jewish immigrants from Europe from, literally, you go to any town in America, the traditional department store is from one of those families. Well, a guy, and I’ve forgotten his name, wrote a book about those families, and it’s called The Merchant Princes , and it’s fantastic.

I usually like to give, at least younger people, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Tim Ferriss: Why is that? Navdeep Chandel: It’s a nice book about a journey of an evolution of a young man into an adult. That transition, I still struggle with, so it’s a good read all the time. Tim Ferriss: It’s a short book, too. Navdeep Chandel: That’s the real key. It could use a few more pictures, but generally it’s – Tim Ferriss: For those people listening, Siddhartha is probably in the top five or six most frequently given answers to this question. Josh Waitzkin, Naval Ravikant – there is a pretty long list. For those who haven’t read it, I think that is a – David Sabatini: So it’s not original, then. Tim Ferriss: It’s a classic. Navdeep Chandel: I’ve actually read it maybe 25 years ago and it struck – but I come from that world anyway. So maybe I was programmed a little bit. For me, the experience is more important than the end goal and I think that’s one of the messages of that book. You collect experiences rather than objects and other things. It’s about the journey and the experience rather than plowing through it and getting to the end. Tim Ferriss: The so-called objective

I named one of them already. Fooled by Randomness . Almost everyone in my office is forced to read that. I’ve definitely given that away. Boy, that’s a tricky one because just like I said, I can’t remember books very well. But certainly probably No. 1 on a business side of things. On the other side, I tend to give away what I would call vintage art books. So, it’s not a book people can buy, I’m sorry to say, but occasionally I’ll be at a used book store and I’ll find some of these great old art books. I buy a few of them and then when I want to thank someone for something, I send them that.

I love that you asked that question that way because it really puts it in a different perspective. It’s like not what your favorite book is, it’s what you’ve given as a gift, which I thought about a little bit this morning. And it’s so clear. I have an immediate answer, and then, I had to think why did I do that. But I think, when I was younger, and still to this day, I sometimes gift a book of poetry by Adriane Rich called A Dream of Common Language , which was a book she wrote in the late ‘70s. And she’s a poet that – I was trying to think why was that book so important to me. And it’s really funny. When I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild that was one of the books that was most important to her that she had as she hiked the Pacific Rim. Tim Ferriss: That’s right. I totally forgot about that. Liz Lambert: Yeah. I gift a lot Slouching Towards Bethlehem , a book by Joan Didion, which is a collection of essays that I love that book so much. It is a lot about the kind of writing Joan Didion is doing. And those essays are both of the time. There’s one that’s about John Wayne, about California. But there’s also this collection of personal essays she does. One is called On Keeping a Notebook that I go back to again and again, and I share a lot. Tim Ferriss: On Keeping a Notebook