10 Books Every Young Man Should Read

Multiple times in the last few months while suggesting a book that young guys should read, I’ve had men ask me for a list of those books. As someone who has read more than a couple of thousand books in his life, it’s hard to cut it down to just 10, but here are some I think are particularly good for young men to read.

1) No More Mr. Nice Guy: Once we get beyond our families, most young men get their ideas about how to succeed in life and love from comics, movies and fairy tales. The problem is that if you follow that model, you’re going to end up being a “nice guy” who is puzzled as to why he keeps getting beaten into the pavement even though he’s “doing the right thing.” This book won’t make you mean or make you into a jerk, but it will improve your life by giving you a much clearer picture of the world you live in.

2) The Rational Male: This is Rollo Tomassi’s master work and it does a better job than any other book I’ve ever seen at explaining gender dynamics — not the phony “Wow, the patriarchy runs everything” gender dynamics you hear about on TV and in politics, but the REAL way things break down between men and women in life and relationships. This book will rip the blindfold off for men.

3) Awaken the Giant Within: This book changed my life and I am such a fan that I have given it away to at least a half dozen different people. Not all of them have read it, but it has had a big impact on the ones that have. The tagline for the book claims it will teach you “How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny.” That is not just hype, my friend.

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4) 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know: I wrote this book and at one time, it was top 50 in the self-help category. The reason I wrote it was after I cracked 40, I said something like “I wish I knew this at 20” so many times that I thought someone should write a book passing on the knowledge that a lot of us have learned the hard way. I genuinely wanted to help people just reaching adulthood skip a decade or two of the same dumb mistakes that so many of us have made. So, if you want to get 20 years ahead of everyone else your age, read this book.

5) The Way of the Superior Man: This book is a little hippy-dippy for my taste, but it’s considered a classic because David Deida does a phenomenal job of explaining men, women, sex and relationships. This book gave me a fuller understanding of life, women and energy. Like I said, it’s a little hippy dippy, but it’s definitely good stuff.

6) How to Win Friends and Influence People: If you want to know how to get people to like you, not just at a party, but all the time, this is a great book to read. I read it for the first time in high school and it changed my life. Since then, I’ve probably read it 4 or 5 times to keep my skills sharp. There are other excellent books on how to communicate with people, but none have topped this one.

7) Winning through Intimidation: Despite what you might expect from the title, this IS NOT a book that teaches you how to intimidate people. To the contrary, it’s a book about all the forms of intimidation that are used against YOU on a regular basis. When people think about intimidating, they usually think about physical intimidation, but there’s also monetary intimidation, expert intimidation, status intimidation and so many other ways that people who may not have your best interests at heart will use intimidation against you. This is a book that will change the way you see the world and you should read it.

8) The 4 Hour Work Week: As someone who ran a corporation with more than 20 employees, I can tell you that this book completely changed the way I viewed running a business. It also had a huge impact on how I organized my personal life. This is a book that has helped me make more money, helped me have more great experiences and has generally improved the quality of my life. It can do the same for you.

9) The Game: If you’ve read anything in the manosphere about how to pick up women, at least 3/4 of it probably tracks right back to this book. It’s an extremely well written, entertaining book about the glory days of the pickup artist community. Is it a LITTLE dated? Yes, but you will learn a lot about how to handle women reading this book. Perhaps more importantly, you will learn what is possible if you are really good with women. A lot of men need to have their horizons expanded in that way.

10) Why Men are the Way they Are: This book is the underpinning of probably 90% of the men’s rights stuff you’ve heard in your life. It is truly brilliant because it changes your perspective about why women and men do things, how it impacts men and the inequalities in our society that we don’t even notice because they primarily impact men, not women. This is a book that will convince you to see the world through a different lens.