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10 Excellent Books That Most People Have Never Heard Of
Matt Karamazov
June 03, 2025 ā¢ Estimated Reading Time: 30 minutes
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It was all I could do to get this newsletter out there and into inboxes before midnight, so a few things will have to waitā¦but theyāre coming!
For one thing, my Patreon supporters will be getting a decently massive āBook Notesā update either tomorrow or the next day, with my updated summaries and notes from 20+ books. Thatās coming.
Also on the way is my monthly donation to First Book! Each month, I donate $1 per Premium Member of The Reading Life, and so Iāll do that before the next issue.
Iām actually about to sit down and re-watch one of my favorite TED Talks of all time, Sir Ken Robinsonās 24,000,000-view presentation called āDo Schools Kill Creativity?ā
I donāt think you need a spoiler alert on that one!
My latest YouTube video isnāt nearly as good as Robinsonās TED Talk, but here it is anyway!
Besides that, I also wanted to thank Anne-Laure le Cunff for featuring me in her newsletter the other day!
Iām reading her new book right now, Tiny Experiments, and itās wonderful!
Another one I just bought came highly recommended from my friend Gabe Bult, and itās called Start Thinking Rich. Iām only on Chapter One, but I can tell itās going to be really, really worth reading.
Nowā¦before our coffees get cold, letās read!
Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, Weāve Got:
Weāve got lots to learn today, so letās hit the books!
āOne key concept Iāve used successfully in coaching people in any field over the years to perform at their best is to ensure the difficulty of practice or preparation exceeds the difficulty of āperformance-timeā whenever possible.
The reasoning is simple: if practice is harder than the moment we need to perform, then it will feel easier to succeed, and results will be better when it counts.ā
āThe school should be the most beautiful building in the whole city, so children who misbehave would be forbidden to come to school that day.ā
Even though I loved this book, I noticed something interesting the first time I was reviewing my notes: everything I wrote down is something heās quoting from somewhere else! Thatās not to take away from what Dirdaās done here (heās a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic), but it is interesting.
If nothing else, Dirda has excellent taste in books, and this book is a collection of thoughts and meditations on some of the greatest books of all time.
In any event, he was able to point me in the direction of a few new favorite books. I love ābooks about books,ā and if you do as well, you might enjoy Book by Book.
One of his main contentions is that we donāt just read for pleasure, or because we enjoy it; we read to learn how to live. Naturally, thereās nothing wrong with reading for pleasure! Nothing at all! If reading isnāt pleasurable, youāre probably just reading the wrong books.
But the best books do both.
They expand our limited human vision, extend our stunted human empathy, and by standing on the shoulders of literary giants, weāre able to see further than we ever would have been able to on our own, without their books.
Life isnāt lived between the covers of a book, and you definitely donāt want to spend your whole life there. For myself, I like to blur the lines between the expansive, life-loving Zorba the Greek, and the thoughtful, pen-pushing narrator of that book. Every so often (but not too often!) I like to put the book down and dive into the great big beautiful world.
But Michael Dirda definitely understands what books can do, what theyāre good for, and where - at your local library - you might find a few of the best ones.
āThe chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next moment is waiting for you as if youād never wasted a single moment of your life.ā
This is an incredible, hidden classic from all the way back in 1908(!), and Bennetās enthusiasm just completely took me over when I discovered this book for the first time. I was already more than a little aware of the true value of time and why it was worth protecting, but I loved this hundred-year-old reminder.
Bennett was also a pretty heavy reader (one of us!), and he even mentions at one point that he was never caught traveling without his Marcus Aurelius. But the style and tone of his book is almost like he had invited you into his home, you asked him for his best time management advice, and patiently listened to his helpful, lively answers. When he says that āthe supply of time is truly a daily miracle,ā itās raised to the level of a conviction.
Speaking for myself, time is one of the most fascinating subjects - everyone gets the same amount of it, even though we donāt necessarily control the same amount of our time, but we donāt even really understand what it is or where it comes from.
Whatās more, certainly most of us live as though thereās an everlasting supply of it. We live as though weāre immortal, only briefly and occasionally looking up from our ordinary concerns to realize how astonishing it is that weāve been given an additional 24 hours to spend virtually however weād like.
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is one of the earliest time management books, yet still among the very best. And while Iāve never once made it a full 24 hours without wasting at least 1 minute of it, I waste much less of it after having read this book, and now, I know the true value of what Iām throwing away.
āIt just goes by so fast. Everyone overlooks enjoying it. They just put themselves into so many prisons.ā
Ignore the horrifyingly bad Amazon description of this book. I was profoundly changed by Shakespeare Saved My Life, and Iāll remember it for the rest of my life. Itās spectacular, incredibly moving, and it confirmed what Iāve always suspected about reading: it improves lives, it changes lives, and it can even save lives.
Shakespeare Saved My Life is the nonfiction account of the work of Dr. Laura Bates, a professor and prison volunteer who went on to start a Shakespeare discussion group of sorts within a maximum-security prison in Indiana.
The other āmain characterā is an inmate by the name of Larry Newton, serving a life sentence for a murder he committed when he was a teenager. In other words, one of the last people youād normally associate with a love of Shakespeare. And indeed, in the beginning, itās a tough slog.
The prisoners (naturally) donāt completely trust Lauraās intentions, they doubt their own ability to grasp the meaning of Shakespeareās plays, and theyāre in prison, so many of them have a lot more on their minds than Mercutio or MacBeth.
But then they start to get it.
Not all of the prisoners love the Shakespeare group, sure, but more of them stay on than one might expect. And several of them prove themselves to be more than capable of contributing to an intelligent discussion about his work.
They shatter everyoneās expectations - including their own - and to read about their progress, and their growing love of books and literature was justā¦awesome.
I honestly canāt recommend this book highly enough, and not nearly enough people have heard of it. I read it back in 2015 and havenāt been able to stop thinking about it since. Iām not sure where Larry is now, or what Dr. Bates is doing now, for that matter. But I hope her work continues. Itās necessary, right, and good.
Because the purpose of imprisonment is not vengeance; itās redemption, recovery, and rehabilitation. We put people in there because of what theyāve done, but in a functioning, compassionate society, we should help them make positive changes before they come out.
āThe best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.ā
This is a tragically underrated book by an award-winning journalist who volunteers with 12 different charities, one a month, for an entire year. I realize that not everybody loves books that follow that structure, but Iād make an exception for this one!
The charities that Lawrence volunteers for during his Year of Living Generously include organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Canadian Crossroads, the soup kitchen at St. Vincent de Paul, and several others.
Everywhere he goes, he meets the desperately needy, and the human-shaped angels meeting those needs, testing and verifying various ideas and theories about volunteering, philanthropy, service, and compassion. Everywhere he goes, he inspired me to help more, to give more, and to understand more.
I would never have even heard of this book had a bartender I used to work with given it to me after she had finished reading it, which makes me wonder how many other phenomenal books are out there, somewhere, just waiting for the right person to hand it to another.
āThe purpose of life is simply to be alive. It is so plain, and so simple, and so obvious. Yet everyone rushes around in a great panic, as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.ā
Alan Watts introduced millions of Western readers to Eastern religion and philosophy, and personally, Iām well on my way to reading every single book heās ever written. All of them have made my life demonstrably better in some way, and Iāve just kept coming back to him over and over.
This book is a compilation of a few of his more controversial lectures, delivered at various American universities throughout the 1960s. Western culture wasnāt āthe enemy,ā except perhaps to the good life. Americans were āmissing the pointā of being alive, and their way of life alienated them from reality by making them feel rushed and harried, inadequate and insecure.
In his own way, he showed audiences why and how they became sick - why they never felt they were āenoughā - and what to do about it. Or, not do about it, as the case may be. Because maybe weāre not actually sick at all?
Maybe thereās nothing wrong with us at all? Maybe itās our society thatās sick, and to be well-adjusted to it is no measure of good health in the first place.
āThe way to live is to throw ourselves, not into faith, but into our own lives, conducting them in affirmation of every moment, exactly as it is, without wishing that anything was different, and without harboring resentment against others or against our fate.ā
Existentialism was one of my absolute favorite courses in university, where my professor, Samantha Copeland (I still remember!) had us read all these fantastic books by my new favorite philosophers. People like Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, earlier proto-existentialists like Nietzsche, and so many others.
It was a life-changing reading list, and Sarah Bakewellās book is a brilliant survey of the philosophersā life, work, history, circumstances, and lasting impact.
Some people āgrow out ofā their youthful existentialist enthusiasms, but I never did, and I swear to you that I never will. Because Iāll never āgrow out ofā my love of life, my expansive personal ambitions, my explosive energy, or my commitment to squeezing every last bit of life out of my life.
I got carried away there and went two full paragraphs without summarizing what existentialism actually is. Well! Iāll dispense with boring dictionary definitions and just tell you that itās a deeply-felt attitude toward life; a strong, unshakeable inner conviction that life is worth living, itās yours, and that you bear ultimate responsibility for living it.
Characterized by radical freedom, authentic being, and personal responsibility, itās the definition of high-agency. There may be certain āfacticitiesā of your existence, limits that shape the possibilities of your life, but you have unlimited freedom within those limits to make your life exactly what you want it to be. Thatās existentialism.
Naturally thereās more to it than that, and Bakewell covers a lot of ground in her book. And despite the life-changing university experience I had, never underestimate professorsā ability to turn a thrilling personal philosophy into dreadfully boring drudgery, citations, and footnotes. But this book is not that. Itās exciting, itās alive, itās epic.
"I still struggle now when I confront memories of that time, memories that are no longer unspeakable, but still unbearable."
This is a memoir by a former president of Doctors Without Borders, and itās yet another book that changed me on a deep, almost cellular level when I first read it.
Memories and ideas from the book just keep coming back to me again and again, and it refuses to leave me alone. I say this a lot (and I mean it!), but it is life-changing.
Doctors Without Borders (also referred to by its French initials, MSF) is an international humanitarian relief organization - an apolitical one - that goes deep into the worst, most dangerous, most devastated regions in the world and offers relief.
They perform life-saving surgeries, they deliver food, they build shelters, they provide clothing, comfort, support, and more to the afflicted. Theyāve been doing this for decades, and for four of those decades, Dr. James Orbinski was on the front lines, doing what needed to be done.
Before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Doctors Without Borders, Orbinski spent time in Rwanda, Somalia, Peru, Afghanistan - basically anywhere and everywhere people needed help that wasnāt coming unless MSF provided it. He is, literally, indisputably, unequivocally, whatever, a hero, in every sense of that term, and An Imperfect Offering is just spectacular.
Easily one of my favorite books of all time, and againā¦life-changing.
Thereās a similar book, A Bed for the Night, by David Rieff, that also deals with the politics of humanitarian aid (re: the corruption, both economic and moral), but there is no other book like An Imperfect Offering.
In a sense, thereās also no one like Dr. James Orbinski, but thatās not completely true. In fact, there are hundreds of millions of people like him, and none of us will tolerate inhumanity, cruelty, or silence.
Weāre willing to give up at least some of our own comfort and safety to help those less fortunate. There are hundreds of millions of us - perhaps billions - and we all care.
āMan not only lives in this moment, but expands his inner self to yesterday, his curiosity to centuries ago, his fears to five billion years from now when the sun will cool, his hopes to an eternity from now.ā
This book about the subconscious fear of death and how it motivates much of human behavior won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974, but the man behind the book was just as interesting as its subject matter. I never met the guy, but he might just be one of my favorite university professors.
Becker taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was so beloved by his students that they once got together and offered to pay his salary after learning that the university wasnāt going to renew his contract!
Many times - while teaching, for example, King Lear, anthropology, and whatever else - heād come to class in full costume, full of life and energy and enthusiasm for learning.
When he died at the age of 49 from colon cancer, the academic world lost someone very special, and Iād personally recommend several of his other books too, including The Birth and Death of Meaning, and Escape from Evil.
The Denial of Death is one of my favorite books, and its main thrust is that being alive - as fragile beings with no satisfying explanation for why weāre here - is so terrifying that in response to this realization, the majority of people retreat into a socially constructed self that basically forms a psychological defense against the reality of death.
Becker also believed that these psychological defenses prevent us from discovering who we really are, and not only that, are also responsible for much of the evil thatās present in the world.
Itās not an āeasyā read, by any means, and one of its strengths is that it gives a person very little room to hide, or rationalize away his conclusions.
With brilliantly reasoned arguments, he shows how this subconscious fear of death limits our lives, prevents accurate self-knowledge, and, if not surmounted through the pursuit of āgenuine heroism,ā casts a dark shadow across our full human potential.
āThose who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.
There is little room in this crowding, competing age for the timid, vacillating youth. He who would succeed today must not only be brave, but must also dare to take chances. He who waits for certainty never wins."
Weakness of will is the only thing stopping you from achieving everything you've ever wanted to achieve in this life.
The opportunities for great achievement and relentless goal attainment are abundant today, but it's the will to achieve that's scarce, the will to keep going that's lacking, and the will to drive forward no matter what that's going to be the difference-maker between your outstanding success and dismal failure.
Too bold? I don't think so. All the leading researchers in the field of psychology and personal success know that willpower is the single greatest predictor of all eventual achievement. It is the thing to focus on if you want to make damn sure that you live your one and only life with no regrets, and capture everything you came here for.
Luck exists, but volume and perseverance negate luck. We create a substantial portion of our own luck by being tenacious, relentless, and irrepressible. This book, An Iron Will, is a classic from all the way back in 1901(!) that will help you become exactly that: irrepressible.
āāI think Iād like to learn to fly,ā I told the family casually that evening, knowing full well Iād die if I didnāt. āNot a bad idea,ā said my father just as casually. āWhen do you start?āā
This autobiography was an unplanned bookstore find ā I didnāt even know she wrote one ā but when I saw that Amelia Earhart the famous pilot had an autobiography I bought it immediately. It did not disappoint!
She was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean, and she inspired a generation of men and women to follow their dreams before she mysteriously disappeared in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe.
Sheās also really, really funny, which I didnāt expect, and she had a deep personal history of reading, which didnāt surprise me one bit. Combine her natural ability and curiosity, her supportive parents and her well-stocked library, and there werenāt many obstacles that could have blocked this ladyās way.
Her optimism for the future was inspiring as well, not to mention her leadership ability in the field of education. She didnāt buy for a second the idea that only men could fly or that girls shouldnāt have the same supportive and aspirational upbringing either. She wasnāt like, militant or anything about it ā she was just a positive force for progress and growth and her life is absolutely a testament to that.
Thereās also quite a bit of history in here about the first flights, first airports and first discoveries, etc. - some of which are hilarious, and all of which make you glad that history is populated with brilliant stars like Amelia Earhart.
I love my parents ā indeed, theyāve given me exactly the same kind of support that Ameliaās did ā but I can confidently state that with a mother like Amelia Earhart, a child could overcome anything.
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OK, thatās it for nowā¦
Iāve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
Thereās also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how Iāve built an audience of 160,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how Iām rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and thatās exactly what Iāll teach you ā weād love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next timeā¦happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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