Bookworms are the easiest to shop for. All it takes is a quick peek at the books they already own or their Goodreads account and then start recommending from there. Of course, sometimes it can be harder than you expect to find the right book for the right person. To make things easier, check out our list of the best books for men, which includes hand-picked titles from all variety of genres ranging from fantasy to classical, to nonfiction, to self-help.
The Hobbit needs no introduction. It is the catalyst for one of the most popular works of fiction of all time, the Lord of the Rings series. Tolkien’s greatest triumph was writing a story that has both the lighthearted charm to draw in young readers and the intricate worldbuilding to entrance older readers. To this day, it remains one of the greatest pieces of fantasy writing to date, and it is essential in any reader’s library.
Any twenty-first-century reader who wishes to truly understand the importance of the printed text should make Fahrenheit 451 mandatory reading. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian vision captures the all too visceral threat of a media landscape overrun with brainwashing television programs, where books are made totally illegal. If reading this book doesn’t immediately make you want to go to the library afterward, then you clearly weren’t paying attention.
Neuromancer is the book that established all things cyberpunk and its author William Gibson is no less than a genius. This early look at mankind’s digital future makes a surprisingly accurate prediction as to the role of AI and cyberspace in everyday life while telling a captivating story. This is a must-read for any science fiction fan.
Dune is one of the most acclaimed science fiction series of all times and a must-read for any fan of the genre. Frank Herbert’s masterpiece details the colonialization and development of Arrakis, a desert planet whose worm-ridden surface hides the spice, a mythical life-extending drug that is coveted across the universe. This novel tackles deep themes like mysticism and environmentalism while chronicling Paul Atreides’ transformation into Muad’Dib, a ruler fit for Arrakis.
With the iconic Game of Thrones series coming to an imminent close, fantasy novel hie-hards are looking to the horizon for the next great series. And that is almost guaranteed to be the Kingkiller Chronicle. Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind is the introduction to the series, which details the upbringing of Kvothe, a talented young orphan who aspires to be the greatest wizard in the world. The series is already three books in and it doesn’t seem likely to slow down.
The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan is an absolutely massive fantasy novel universe whose novel series extends beyond the life of the original author, Robert Jordan. Jordan passed away in 2007 but fans were so enthralled with the series, that a trusted colleague of Jordan’s has carried the series into its twelfth volume. This novel introduces you to the six main characters as they try to survive a massive invasion of Trollocs which forces them out of the town they grew up in and onto the battlefield.
Game of Thrones has been in the public zeitgeist since the debut of the wildly popular HBO series, however, it all began with the original novel by George R. R. Martin. Even avid fans of the show will find new details in the richly woven tapestry that is Westeros. Martin’s intricate writing style brings his world to life and his unfinished series holds added twists and turns for the longtime fan of the series.
American Gods is considered the definitive roadtrip novel but it is also so much more. The story of Shadow’s life after prison becomes much more complicated when he is hired by Mr. Wednesday, who claims to be Odin the All-Father. Their adventures together introduce them to a whole cast of gods old and new, and entangles Shadow in a war for the very soul of America. It is a brilliant commentary on modern mythology and a fantastic slice of the Americana aesthetic all at once.
House of Leaves is one of the most ambitious novels of the modern period. This book is as much an artifact as it is a text, featuring mind-bending page layouts with inverted text, footnotes upon footnotes, and labyrinthine meta-narratives. All of these visual elements mimic the ethereal quirks of Will Navidson’s house, which hides a terrible secret behind its anomalous dimensions. This modern horror story really makes you think about what it means to turn the page.
The Road is more of a narrative and less of a story. This bleak look into a post-apocalyptic world focuses more on the details of the scene than the how, what, and why. Those don’t matter to The Man, the mysterious protagonist. All that matters to him is that he safely escorts his child to the coast, even if he isn’t sure if anything still awaits them there. It is a touching story of how powerful love can be in a broken world.
For many men who grew up in the early ’00s, Fight Club is a movie first and foremost. And don’t get me wrong, the film adaptation is absolutely brilliant. However, the source material dives so much deeper into the fractured psyche of its unnamed narrator. Readers who can keep up with the rapidly changing reality of Jack’s Wasted Life will be rewarded with an even more substantial assessment of what haunted mechanisms truly drive a society to collapse.
To boil down One Hundred Years of solitude in just a few sentences should be a sin. There is no way to condense, abridge, or summarize the complete history of the Buendia family as told by Gabriel García Márquez. The scope of this work covers the rise and fall of patriarchs, the creation and dissolution of magic, and the true meaning of what it means to share blood with another.
Norwegian Wood is one of the original works by Haruki Murakami to really propel this prominent Japanese author into the global spotlight. Norwegian Wood is a coming of age story that intimately weaves the period of social liberation in the 1960s with the protagonist’s own development in a sexually free individual. This novel will bring you back to your own awkward teenage years, with all of the heartbreak, emotion, and confusion included.
Stephen King has published more best-selling novels than any other horror novelist ever. His classics are likely to already be on the shelves of most avid readers but fewer will have read his latest series, The Bill Hodges Trilogy. Detective Hodges might be officially retired but he can’t help but get involved when he receives a letter from a mysterious individual who claims to be responsible for plowing a stolen Mercedes into a job fair killing eight people. This twisted story only becomes more complex with each installment and it is sure to become a modern classic.
Linear texts are highly over-rated. Let’s be honest, we all loved choose your own adventure books as a kid, so why did we stop reading them? The answer probably lies in the fact that they are written for kids. Most of them, that is. Life’s Lottery by Kim Newman is a choose your own adventure novel where the reader plays through the protagonist’s entire lifetime from birth to death. Every decision carries massive weight and really makes the reader think twice before they act.
Nobody makes learning as fun as Scott McCloud does in Understand Comics, his treatise on comics as a form of sequential art. This text is an academic deep-dive into what happens within and between the panels of our favorite comic books. This book uses the format of comics to help promote a better understanding of literature’s most misunderstood field, helping improve your appreciation of comics.
Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli lays down the groundwork for political philosophy in this treasured sixteenth-century treatise. His examinations on human behavior reveal how individuals can manipulate and be manipulated alike in pursuit of political power. Within this classic treatise you will find lessons on diplomacy, demagoguery, and all manners of social engineering to get the reader exactly what they want.
Though television funnyman Aziz Ansari isn’t the most decorated author on this list, his first foray into the written word represents a hilarious approach to a serious subject: dating. Modern Romance is actually a collaboration between Ansari and sociologist Eric Klinenberg. Together, the two conducted a study that consisted of interviewing hundreds of people around the world about how the Internet affects modern relationships. The results are astounding and will certainly change the way you think about services like Tinder and Facebook.
Of Mice and Men is the kind of book that puts hair on your chest, so to speak. It is a soul-crushing tale of two migrant workers who bring on their own demise in pursuit of the American Dream. Its two characters, Lenny and George, struggle to find their place in Great Depression-era California but continue to find their place in the hearts of readers almost 100 years later.
While I consider all of John Steinbeck’s work to be essential reading, East of Eden is possibly one of the best books for men who seek to understand their own identity. This ambitious story follows the interwoven fates of the Trask family and the Hamilton family, who helplessly reenact biblical tragedies in a culmination of each character’s own humanity. East of Eden is a great book for those who love artful writing and beautiful storytelling alike.
Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf is a novel that at its core is about duality. The protagonist Harry Haller was born an intellectual and a member of the bourgeois but his terrible depression has led him to seek meaning outside of aristocratic social position. When he meets an intriguing young girl named Hermine, she shows him how to act as a “wolf of the Steppes” and indulge in a more primal and hedonistic lifestyle. However, his journey takes him inward as he is forced to examine all of his personalities in the mind-bending Magical Theater. This is a coming of age story that captures the essence of existence like none other.
Naked Lunch is just a peek into the downright obscenity of William S. Burroughs’ mind. This fever dream of a novel is far from linear and downright vulgar, making it a serious challenge to read. However, those who do are rewarded with a brilliant commentary on obscenity, censorship, and American culture.
Tom Wolfe’s biting commentary on the indulgent upper crust of late-twentieth-century New York lays bare all of the selfishness and ugliness that comes with the lifestyle. This book will leave you of a dejected look at a greedy society who has no heroes, which should make your real life morals all that much stronger.
Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Pablo Neruda is responsible for some of the most important poetry of the twentieth century and is an endless source of inspiration on the beauty of all things ordinary. His poems tackle mundane subjects like feet or rain to bring out their most elemental allure. This volume contains about 600 of the best poems in Neruda’s legendary oeuvre and serves as a great companion for a ruminant soul.
Mark Twain is one of the greatest American storytellers of all time and an absolute must-read author. This leather-bound collection of his classic tales center around uniquely offbeat characters like Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and the Pudd’nhead Wilson. Each story is as entertaining as it is insightful and is a rewarding choice for readers of all ages.
To some, the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson may seem too intimate and self-defining to gleam worth from. To others, his work represents a modern manual on how man should interact with nature. This collection of works from Emerson includes Walden, which documents his historical fascination with the eponymous pond, and other classic detailings of the land of New England.
Considered one of the most labyrinthine texts to have ever been published, James Joyce’s Ulysses is a rite of passage for readers who wish to test the scope of the written word. This novel seeks to provide so many rich layers of detail that readers will be stumped about which pages seek to progress the plot and which simply describe a character picking at their pimples. Whether you find it to be the most important novel of its time or complete drivel, you will have an active community of readers to agree and debate with, as this remains one of the most talked about books in history.
Reading As I Lay Dying is like floating down the collective stream of consciousness of the Bundren family, whose wide age difference gives them vastly different perspectives of the death of matriarch Addie Bundren. The story tells of their journey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie while the text rapidly shifts between narrations from different members of the family, including the deceased Addie herself. This novel is a fascinating read that is filled with dark comedy and insight into the grieving mind.
George Orwell’s classic story of dystopia is so paradigmatic that it practically reads like a manual on how to not trust your government. Core concepts from this book have been brought to life so vividly over the years that it is almost surreal to see this story about Big Brother performing surveillance on the mollified citizens of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state. The scariest part about 1984 is that is so disturbingly close to our own reality.
Despite its distinct removal from the worlds of passion, metaphor, and spirituality, there is much to be explored at the bottom of the dark well called existentialism. Albert Camus’ classic work The Stranger is a gruesome but thought-provoking look into the mind of a man who lives without attachment. When his aimless behavior eventually leads him to incidentally kill a man, this intriguing figure is put to trial for what suddenly turns out to be a persecution of his life’s philosophy. After all is said and done the question still remains: can one be guilty of murder if life is meaningless?
Hemingway may be best known for his titanic novels but this collection of his short stories show that the Papa of literature can capture your imagination with even a fragment of a plot. This collection includes fourteen different stories, which touch on some masculine themes like war, sports, and the tenuous relationship between men and women.
Good luck finding someone who hasn’t already read this masterpiece of personal introspection from J.D. Salinger. There is a reason this novel is on every high school reading list ever and that’s because it perfectly captures the anxiety we all get about growing up. There isn’t a person on Earth who can’t relate on some level to Holden Caulfield, who is so upset with the phoniness of adult life that he ends up caught in it himself.
If anyone thinks that chivalry is dead, they clearly have not read Don Quixote. This sixteenth-century story follows the eponymous character, a starry-eyed man who lives in a delusion that the middle ages never came to an end. Don Quixote posits that we can bend reality to be anything we want if we believe hard enough, which is exactly why chivalry is still alive and well. As long as Don Quixote lives on in our hearts, there will be modern knights who joust with windmills for their own sense of glory.
Not everyone will agree with Ayn Rand’s tenets of objectivism but few can devalue the cultural significance of The Fountainhead, her novel that started it all. This novel tells the classic story of Howard Roark, an architect who is shunned from society for focusing on his own creative pursuits. Whether or not you agree with her politics, it is hard to disagree with the importance of integrity and individualism in today’s society.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is an iconic work by Friedrich Nietzsche, the infamous philosopher who first asserted to modern humanity that God is dead. This book tells the story of the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra who ushers in this same news, with the news as well that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Bleak though it sounds, this novel gives the human race a new meaning of existence, which is to live as rulers of our own individual fates.
Lord of the Flies is an all-time classic that uses the backdrop of an island of marooned British schoolboys to conduct a detailed thought experiment on the formation and downfall of government. When an airplane carrying the boys crashes on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the cast is left to fend for themselves, which causes an unforeseen clash of egos between those who wish to restore order and those who wish to live in anarchy. This beautifully written piece is a perfect microcosm for society and an entertaining think piece all in one.
Against Empathy is a curious study wherein Yale researcher Paul Bloom actually argues against putting yourself in others’ shoes when making decisions. Though this book sounds like it aims to instigate moral collapse, its arguments run far deeper than the title, as Bloom masterfully lays out the evidence that empathy creates a bias that creates personal prejudices like racism, sexism, and classism to rear their ugly heads. With the best of intentions, this book will convince you to ignore the feelings of others before you decide to help them.
The magic of these two classic stories from Jack London is that one does not carry the same weight without the context of the other. One book tells the story of a domesticated dog forced to get in touch with its roots in the savage side of nature. The other tells a story of a wolf transitioning to a domestic companion and letting go of its natural instinct. Either is a must-read for any dog lovers.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is an accessible entry point into the radical beat poet movement of the ’60s and a must-read for any young man with a growing interest in counterculture. On the surface, this is a collection of stories from Kerouac’s real life travels across America with other members of the beat movement like William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady (each with their own literary persona). Beneath this, it is a story about the formation of a post-war philosophy of that rejects materialism and beckons spiritual liberation and free thinking.
Isolated, existential, and anxious, Franz Kafka is an icon for those who struggle to find their place in society. His short stories are among the most important work of the early modern period for the sheer fact that they so perfectly capture the feeling of not fitting in. Each of his stories is a masterpiece in its own right but my personal favorite is The Metamorphosis, whose protagonist undergoes a monstrous transformation metaphorical for the author’s own development into a deadbeat writer.
Gonzo journalism represents a strange blend of reality and fiction that is fueled by substance abuse and other thrill-seeking habits. Hunter S. Thompson is the inventor of the genre and the chaos that emmantes from his very being culminates into the madness that is The Rum Diary. This story follow’s Thompson’s time spent developing a newspaper in 1950’s San Juan, Puerto Rico in a rum-fueled tirade with a cast of characters. Thompson’s writing style isn’t for the faint of heart but is a must-read for those who enjoy the alternative lifestyle.
War may not be pretty but it is an inescapable element of human nature. Whether or not he plans to partake in it, every man should know its principles for they can be applied to all aspects of his life. Sun Tzu’s words may be aged but their wisdom endures the test of time. This book has as much to teach about battlefield strategies as it does about self-discipline and creativity.
The way of the samurai is all about adhering to a strict code of conduct, which is helpful both in battle and elsewhere in life. This time-tested philosophy is insightfully outlined by Miyamoto Musashi, the archetypal wandering samurai, in his The Book of Five Rings. Each of its chapters details a different element of battle, which can also be applied to other practical situations. Though this is a relatively short read, it rewards multiple read-throughs with its surprising amount of depth.
Personal change can be hard to instigate. There are numerous pitfalls along the way like trying to take shortcuts and losing track of your goals. But according to Stephen R. Covey, these can all be avoided by changing the way you think about yourself and the world around you. This book is filled with indispensable advice that helps you focus on your character more than your personality and develop interdependent relationships with the people in your life.
A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking’s attempt to lay bare the greatest mysteries of our universe in a plain language that anyone can understand. This is the ideal gift for those curious about anomalies like black holes, quarks, the big bang, and antimatter. It also serves a great gateway onto more dense astrophysics texts.
As much as I love the classics, there isn’t a book that I’ve read through more times than the Pocket Ref. Any man worth his salt should know the prose of Kafka, Hesse, London, and Twain, but they should also know how to tie a proper knot and convert units on the fly. That information plus so much more can be found in the compact pages of the Pocket Ref 4th Edition by Thomas Glover. This all-purpose book is full of useful information that you may need at one point or another. Consider it an essential in any man’s library.
How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the most iconic self-help books for men to come out of the modern era. It is a simple book filled with time-tested ways to increase your influence and to otherwise get people on your side. The traditional text included simple advice like maintaining eye contact or using people’s names in conversation, while this updated version has been expanded to include etiquette for the newest innovation in human communication: the Internet. What we are left with an updated treatise on how to successfully interact with others both online and offline to get what you want.
We all want to be the best versions of ourselves. But just what does it take to be truly successful? Malcolm Gladwell identifies exactly that in his book Outliers, wherein he outlines several factors that every successful public figure shares. This fascinating study is a great way to gain perspective on just how much hard work (and luck) it takes to be the best.
Math is typically the most hated subject of bookworms for the simple notion that mathematics rarely makes any practical impact on our lives. However, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg strongly disagrees. Instead, he posits that math can be used to answer nearly any question we have in life and that the ability to harness this type of thinking should be accessible at any level of math training. His plain English writing details his techniques for answering challenging questions like “How early should you get to the airport?” and “how likely are you to develop cancer?” that will leave the reader better informed in all key decisions.
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What better gift to give an avid reader than some new home library material? Here are our picks for the best books for men across all genres.