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10 Fascinating Books That Will Increase Your Intelligence
Matt Karamazov
March 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 33 minutes
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How can a person increase their intelligence? Is that even possible? Or is intelligence more or less fixed at birth?
And what do we even mean by the word intelligence anyway?
Naval Ravikant said that the only intelligence test is whether or not you get what you want in life, and I’d be inclined to agree!
In all my reading, I’ve learned that while genetics do (obviously) play a significant role in a person’s intelligence, it’s not fixed. We can improve over time, specifically when it comes to things like decision-making, critical thinking, and creativity.
We can also change and improve our mindset and attitude in an instant.
And if the right book comes along that helps you get EXACTLY what you want in life, isn’t that almost the same thing as doubling our intelligence?
The ten books I’ve chosen tonight may or may not double your intelligence, but they were all “Before” and “After” books for me. Meaning, that I went into them thinking one way about the world, and was completely changed by the time I finished reading them.
I hope you feel the same way…
Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, We’ve Got:
We’ve got lots to learn today, so let’s hit the books!
"When life or a plan feels ultimately unsatisfying, I find it's because I've forgotten to find the intersection of all three: what makes me happy, what's smart, and what's useful to others."
“When we’ve had our lives changed by a book, we often feel that the book ended too soon, and that we read it too fast.”
I can give you the names of a multitude of books about reading; books about books, books about libraries, etc., but this is one of the absolute best I’ve ever come across.
Jacobs basically uses this book to say everything about reading that I’ve always wanted to say about reading, and I think it might feel like as much of a relief to you as it was to me when I first read it.
First off: not everybody reads books...and that’s totally cool. I mean, books completely and totally changed my life for the better, but I don’t think any less of anyone who doesn’t read as many books as I do, or hasn’t read some particular book that snobs think everyone “should” read.
There’s always going to be someone smarter than you, or someone who’s “better-read” than you, but people read for different reasons, they’re further ahead or behind in their own personal reading journeys or what-have-you, and that’s why it was so refreshing to hear Alan Jacobs say that it’s perfectly alright to quit books that you’re not enjoying, and that reading should never feel like an obligation!
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction takes a lot of the pressure off of people to tackle these ridiculous “100 Books You MUST Read Before You Die If You Want People to Think You’re Smart and Come to Your Funeral” lists or whatever. It’s all nonsense, and Jacobs exposes it for the nonsense that it is.
As he says, the world doesn’t need fewer readers, so if books have ever even once ignited your curiosity or your passion, then you have to do whatever it takes in order to keep that fire alive. That’s what’s most important, not which books you’ve ticked off of some list.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction covers a lot of other ground too. For instance, Jacobs refutes the idea that “nobody reads anymore.” His book is part confidence-builder, and part tour of the reading life as populated by millions of eager readers, hundreds of massive bookstores and thousands of smaller, independent bookstores, numerous book clubs, etc.
He also discusses the rise of reading on electronic devices, the rise of silent reading (I just assumed that people had always read silently, but apparently not, for reasons that are obvious now that I’ve read his book), the benefits of re-reading books you’ve already read, etc. There’s a lot here.
Overall, the tone of Jacobs’ book is warm, supportive, and encouraging, and as I said, I think it’s one of the best books of its kind out there, one that can bring together readers of all genres and ability levels. Jacobs would also agree with Mortimer J. Adler (author of the admittedly somewhat stuffy tome, How to Read a Book), that the point of reading isn’t how many books you can get through, but how many of them can get through to you.
“When you’re reading a book and you're confused, that confusion is similar to the pain you get in the gym when you're working out. But you're building mental muscles instead of physical muscles. Learn how to learn and read the books."
Being rich and happy are learnable skills. And one of the greatest lessons you'll learn from reading books like this one is that where you start off doesn't have to be where you end up.
If there's a skill you lack, you can learn it; if there's a big scary problem looming over you, you can overcome it; if you want more out of life, you can have it.
But, there are traps along the way. These traps can take the form of pessimism and self-defeating behaviors; or the creeping expansion of desire; bad advice from well-meaning people; and a lot more that The Almanack of Naval Ravikant can help you avoid.
Naval is the founder of AngelList, a website that allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge, and he's had over 70 successful exits himself, after investing in companies like Uber and Twitter before almost anyone else.
He's become somewhat of an entrepreneurship/start-up culture icon, and this book is a collection of his greatest wisdom distilled from a decade of podcast appearances and thousands of tweets.
After a lifetime of study and application of philosophy, economics, and wealth-creation, Naval has proven the impact of his principles, and they're all laid out here in this book.
“It comes down to the simple but no less profound truth that effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and capability.
This single fact - that our intellectual abilities are not fixed from birth but are, to a considerable degree, ours to shape - is a resounding answer to the nagging voice that too often asks us, 'Why bother?'
We make the effort because the effort itself extends the boundaries of our abilities. What we do shapes who we become and what we're capable of doing. The more we do, the more we can do."
Everything you want in life is on the other side of effort and sacrifice. In life, we appreciate what we worked hardest for, and in education, we remember what we struggled to learn.
That's one of the core messages in Make It Stick, which represents the gold standard when it comes to books about effective study strategies and efficient learning.
Basically, we remember the information that we recall to mind most frequently, and the more effortful it is to do so, the more entrenched it becomes in our minds and the less likely we are to forget it when we need to use it.
At the end of the day, the universe rewards effort, exertion, and striving. We need to go beyond what we think we can do if we want to find out how far we can really go.
This same theme - the hardest path usually being the best - shows up again and again in life, and Make It Stick will show you how applying that wisdom to your studying and your practicing will allow you to reach levels of mastery that are simply unavailable to people who aren't familiar with the science of successful learning.
“It would be a shame if brilliant technology were to end up threatening the kind of intellect that produced it.”
Humans were never meant to read. No child is ever born with a gene that directly leads to literacy; the reading circuit has to be intentionally, rigorously cultivated, especially in the early years, and nothing about that process is guaranteed. The ability to read these words is nothing short of a miracle, and you're witnessing it right now in this very moment.
The human brain - this amazingly, vastly complex thing, this technology that you carry around in your head all day - somehow finds a way to connect the functions that already exist, like vision, language, pattern recognition, and more, and combines them in such a way that you're able to follow this sentence and decode its meaning.
Because the ability to read doesn't develop unless it's actively and effectively taught, the brain of a reader has completely different wiring from that of a non-literate person, with implications that follow a person throughout their entire lifespan.
In this book, Reader, Come Home, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf traces the development - or lack thereof - of the reading circuit and extends her research into questions of what will happen to us as we shift from a literacy-based culture to a more digital one.
The demands of the digital world engage our brains differently, and it's become clear to researchers like Dr. Wolf that the medium(s) in which we read shape how we read, and encourage or discourage the expert analytical and reading skills that are desperately needed today - by everyone.
“Learning is the greatest power of the human mind. Everything we've built, everything we've created, everything we've become has been the result of our ability to learn. And this great power is inherent in all of us. We are made to learn."
The athletic, artistic, and intellectual achievements of the great masters have always seemed so...magical. So...unattainable. Beyond anything we could ever hope to replicate. Until now.
In Learn, Improve, Master, Nick Velasquez pulls back the curtain on skill acquisition and mastery and shows that high proficiency and expertise isn't something reserved for a chosen few, but something that's attainable for all of us.
Attainable, that is, if we follow the proven principles of practice and learning as laid out in this book. Attainable does not, of course, mean easy. In choosing to become more than "just okay" at something, we are choosing to commit to a level of discipline and focus uncommon in the eyes of many.
But at the end of the day, the universe rewards effort, exertion, and striving. We need to go beyond what we think we can do if we want to find out how far we can really go. And as Nick reveals in the book, mastery isn't something you'll ever "arrive" at. It's a lifelong process of learning, discovery, and progress, because as they say, behind the mountains are more mountains.
If you've ever seen someone excel at the highest level of athletics; if you've ever seen someone perfectly execute a spectacular dance move, put together a phenomenal meal, or spellbound an audience with a stirring speech and wanted to do that too, this book will work with you to make that a reality.
“The purpose of college, to put all this another way, is to turn adolescents into adults. You needn’t go to school for that, but if you’re going to be there anyway, then that’s the most important thing to get accomplished.
That is the true education: accept no substitutes.
The idea that we should take the first four years of young adulthood and devote them to career preparation alone, neglecting every other part of life, is nothing short of an obscenity.
If that’s what people had you do, then you were robbed. And if you find yourself to be the same person at the end of college as you were at the beginning – the same beliefs, the same values, the same desires, the same goals for the same reasons – then you did it wrong. Go back and do it again.”
If you left university with just a degree and a pile of debt, you were robbed.
Somewhere along the way, colleges and universities drifted away from being centers of higher learning and loci of self-discovery, into being commercialized profit-centers, and students themselves became "customers," or, worst of all, commodities.
William Deresiewicz is a former Yale professor with a deep, infectious passion for higher education, which is self-evident throughout Excellent Sheep and which leaps from every paragraph. He cares; he cares so much, and his distress at the decline of educational standards in the United States and elsewhere is shared by myself and a multitude of other educators who know what school can really do.
Universities today often force students to choose between learning and success; the straight path to riches and prestige is prized above real education, real introspection, real meaning, and the creation of one's own real life.
Students step off the high-pressure conveyor belt of higher education with a degree and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, but they also leave with less than they came with; they're stripped of their passion for learning, their self-efficacy, their confidence, and their capacity to meaningfully engage with life.
Contrary to what seems to be happening today, higher education should be about the cultivation of our highest potentialities as individuals, and it should prepare us to meet life with optimism, intelligence, dignity, and care. In the final analysis, whether our educational system helps or hinders this process is up to us.
“Learning with intent to use filters down information, and you can snap things into use immediately. That's why I think a purpose-driven life is good. You have a purpose, and you think often about what that purpose is."
The feel of this book in my hands is like holding a revelation. It's like holding a vision of humanity's marvelously bright future, and after you're finished reading it, I suspect that the bright, techno-utopian future Balaji predicts and describes is going to seem a lot more believable - and more imminent.
Balaji Srinivasan is a serial entrepreneur, investor, futurist, and yes, like Eric Jorgenson says, sort of an eccentric genius and comic book villain. He's a big, optimistic thinker with his feet firmly on the ground, while his head can be found way up in the clouds. When he looks at humanity and at the world, he sees value and infinite potential; where other people see walls, Balaji sees windows.
All of which makes it kind of difficult to summarize such a wide-ranging book about the potentially million-plus-year future of humanity and all the progress that could occur over that timespan. Make sure you're sitting down while reading this one, is I guess what I'm trying to say.
Eric Jorgenson (who's also the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant) said that researching and writing this book made him live differently, and influenced the kinds of companies and fields he invests in. It gave him an appreciation for our place in the history unfolding today and impatience for the many ways we're punching ourselves in the face.
The Anthology of Balaji is built entirely out of transcripts, tweets, and talks Balaji has shared and that are scattered all over the internet, much like The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
In the first part (and the rest of this paragraph is from Amazon), “Technology,” you’ll see how technology shapes our world today and the ways it could shape our future. In “Truth,” you learn how to think for yourself through the constant clamor of information and media. Finally, in “Building the Future,” you’ll learn how to wield Technology and Truth to change your life, change your community, and - maybe - change the future of our species.
Even just the notes that were most relevant to me personally deal with everything from life extension and the quest to live forever, to free speech and cryptographic proof of miracles, to the potentially millions of years of technological progress and techno-utopia we have to look forward to, on this planet and out there among the stars. For such a tightly-condensed book, this one is massive.
“Democracies will not survive without alert and active citizens.”
Arts students: How much do you hate it when you tell people what you’re studying in school and they ask, “What are you going to do with that?”
As a Philosophy and Russian Studies major, I totally sympathize. Instead of telling people that I just happen to like philosophy, that I get paid to read 100+ books a year and talk about books for a living - not to mention how learning Russian came in handy when I decided to, you know, live in Russia - I usually just decide to let them go on their merry way. They just wouldn’t get it.
As for you, maybe you like studying Shakespeare or Jane Austen, or, I don’t know...medieval literature! Not everything’s about making money, you know. People forget this, or never learn this at all, and it’s tragic because it’s not them that’s going to suffer for it, it’s our democracies, which is the subject of Martha Nussbaum’s book, Not for Profit.
Just to be clear, I’m not “against” making money. On the contrary: I love money! It makes possible so much of what’s most incredible in life:- unforgettable vacations, super cool cars, personal convenience, and, well, giving! You can’t donate any money if you’re poor, and money is exactly what the humanitarian organizations who are doing the best work around the world need to fulfill their mandates of alleviating unconscionable human suffering.
Bottom line: money is fun to make, fun to spend, and fun to give away. Money’s awesome. But is the sole purpose of education just to get the most money that you can so you can buy the most shit? Obviously not.
Yet, in the humanities, we’re experiencing a loss of interest, declines in attendance, and the derision of members of the more “useful” fields of study, like finance or engineering. Well, I say that a good job can keep us alive, sure, but the arts are what we live for.
Not only that, but thoughtful and engaged citizens are what make democracy viable in the first place. Knowledgeable and empathic citizens keep democracies strong, and Nussbaum points out that ceaseless attention to profitability weakens our ability to question authority, sympathize with the situations of others, and deal with complex global problems.
I feel so strongly that education is a major part of the answer to nearly everything that human beings struggle with; I just refuse to believe that neglecting to reinforce a major pillar of our most important institutions can lead to anything but a devastating crash.
“The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world's attention burns."
This important book demands the kind of attention and deep, nuanced thought that we as individuals and as a society are becoming less able to devote to anything.
In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari investigates 12 distinct causes of our dwindling attention spans - several of them systematic causes - and offers a degree of hope, even though none of us are able to win the battle for our attention alone.
Perhaps one of the most important takeaways from the entire book is that your increasing inability to focus is not completely your fault, and believing that it is a personal failing of yours is simply unhelpful in the very worst way.
The fact is that you and I are living within a society that is systematically siphoning off our attention, and as valuable as self-discipline is, it's not going to be enough to solve what Hari calls "the attention crisis."
And it really is a crisis. I mean, you've got the average American worker being distracted roughly once every three minutes, and even the average CEO of a Fortune 500 company gets just twenty-eight uninterrupted minutes a day. A day!
The reality is that today, around one in five car accidents is due to a distracted driver, and untold millions of people struggle every day with the simple act of putting down their phones. But it's not their fault, says Hari, because every time they (and you) try to put down their phones, there are a thousand software engineers on the other side of the screen working against them.
What kind of personal will or self-discipline can stand alone against all that?
So, it's obvious that our ability to pay attention is collapsing, but Johann Hari was determined to find out why this is happening.
In the process of attempting to reclaim his own mind and his own ability to focus, he ended up interviewing a multitude of experts - computer scientists, social scientists, educators, psychologists, neuroscientists, technologists, etc. - and the result is this impeccably researched and insightful book.
My unsolicited advice is that you put down your phone for long enough to read it.
“Reading never just happens. Not a word, a concept, or a social routine is wasted in the 2,000 days that prepare the very young brain to use all the developing parts that go into reading acquisition."
There is a "before" and "after" point of learning to read that is often the defining moment in a person's life - and especially a child's life. Every book is a door to an alternate future, and tragically, for anyone who never learns to read, those doors remain forever closed.
Books are so many different things to so many different people, but how does the miracle of reading actually occur? What happens inside the brain of people just learning to read?
This exact process is the focus of Proust and the Squid, world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf's investigation into the development and functioning of the reading brain.
Stunningly, human beings were never meant to read. There are no genes that code for the development of reading skills, and so each human brain has to rearrange itself in the process of learning how to read, moving beyond its original state to learn how to make sense of these strange, squiggly markings on the page.
Ironically for a book about reading, parts of it are fairly difficult to read, but the extra effort is worth it as Dr. Wolf deep dives into the fascinating and fragile history of reading, which exact neural pathways and connections are involved in the reading process and why, as well as the challenges, difficulties, and even opportunities presented by dyslexia, where the normal development of reading skills is derailed.
Sometimes I think that the most amazing thing about the whole process of reading is that we can learn to do it at all. Many people all over the world - even adults - still can't, and this is always and everywhere a tragedy; a failure of education, support, and love.
Another source of endless astonishment to me is that even though it took humans around 2,000 years to develop the kind of written language we have now, we expect children to learn it in about 2,000 days.
Considering the length of time the human species has existed, it's only in the most recent portion of our history that reading and writing actually came to be, and yet so much of our civilization depends on its continued flourishing.
Proust and the Squid does a wonderful job of taking you through a tour of that history, analyzing what we're doing right - and wrong - right now, and even daring to express optimism for the (hopefully long) future of reading.
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 150,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside The Competitive Advantage and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d 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 time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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