Stepwise Reading List 1.0
Reading list for a healthier life
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin
I often get asked which books I would recommend for learning more about health. In fact, I get this question almost as often as I offer unsolicited book recommendations.
There’s an almost unconsumable amount of information in the world providing strategies and tactics for improving health—and some of it is useful. While I would never position myself as the foremost authority on the credibility or quality of books, I can say which ones I found most helpful. But before I offer that list, I’d be remiss not to share my thoughts on the value that I find in reading itself as a tactic for improving health.
Reading helps me sleep. A study by the American Society of Sleep Medicine found that nearly 90% of Americans sleep with their phones in the bedroom1. This is concerning given the well-documented negative impacts of phone use and blue light on sleep. For example, a large study by the American Cancer Society found that, compared with no screen use, screen use prior to bed was associated with a 33% higher prevalence of poor sleep quality and fewer minutes of sleep on workdays2. Reading each night before bed replaces the phone-before-bed habit, helping me fall asleep faster and sleep better.
Reading improves my mental health. There’s a simple heuristic I use when evaluating how I spend my time: Do I feel better, worse, or indifferent after an activity? Following most leisure activities like social media use, television, or scrolling through news articles, I find myself feeling worse or indifferent—especially after social media use. Anger, animosity, and apprehension drive clicks. Timeless wisdom, insight, and moving stories sell books.
Reading makes me a better employee. As Sahil Bloom notes in his book Five Types of Wealth, our activities at work can be divided into cultivation, ideation, creation, management. Often at work, I am starved of time for cultivation (learning new things) and ideation (coming up with new solutions). I find that both are positively impacted by reading—no matter the topic of the book.
Reading—not what you read—is what matters. When I began reading more often, I was set on finding the “right books” so I could learn everything I needed to know. I quickly realized the futility of that task. If you continue to read, no matter the book, you’ll read the right lesson when you need it. Hopefully these books give you a place to start, but they are by no means the “right books” for a better life.
What these books have in common is that each has changed the way I think about performing well at work while improving my health.
For healthy daily habits
A practical guide to maintaining mobility and physical function over time.
My favorite book of 2025
A reflection on time, limitation, and modern productivity culture. The book encourages imperfectionism rather than constant optimization.
For finding life in the process of death
A posthumously published memoir by neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, chronicling his journey from a promising doctor to a patient with terminal lung cancer.
For shaping a career
A framework for understanding wealth beyond money, including time, health, relationships, and purpose.
My favorite book of 2023
An examination of modern comfort and its unintended consequences.
For a short morning read
An exploration of happiness using research, philosophy, and personal stories from Arthur Brooks’ column “How to Build a Life” in the Atlantic.
For attention and what’s impacting it
An investigation into structural and environmental causes of distraction in the modern world.
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
For approachable anatomy and physiology
A comprehensive tour of human anatomy, physiology, and medicine for a general audience, blending science, history, and storytelling to answer many of the “why does my body do…?” questions that we face every day.
For finance and human behavior
An examination of how emotions and behavior shape our everyday decisions about money, with consistent parallels to health.
To start or end the day with
A daily meditation book based on Stoic philosophy with practical everyday implications.
For confronting time and our limitations as humans
A perspective-altering read, for anyone, at any point in their life, that encourages reflection on time, productivity, and human limitation as a way to embrace finitude and reframe how people relate to their cosmically insignificant lives.
For mitochondria and metabolic health
A discussion of metabolic health and its relationship to chronic disease with tactical ways to measure and manage our energy at the cellular level.
For the healthcare system
An examination of common medical errors and institutional overconfidence.
For slowing down in a world of chaos
A philosophical look at calm, restraint, and reflection across history, drawing on Stoicism, Buddhism, and modern psychology.
For sleep
A seminal text on sleep and its effects on health and cognition. If you think sleep is something you’ll do when you’re dead, this is a good one for you.
For scientifically understanding health
An approachable scientific and theoretical explanation of health as adaptive regulation rather than constant balance.
For tools to improve quality of life
A medical and lifestyle approach to extending healthspan. The book emphasizes prevention, risk reduction, and long-term planning as improving quality of life.
Note: The author was recently included in the “Epstein files” and is facing severe scrutiny. While the ideas in this book are immensely valuable for living a longer and healthier life, the actions of its author are indefensible.
For daily working habits
An argument for sustained, distraction-free concentration in an increasingly fragmented world.
For understanding happiness and how to be happier
An examination of how success and fulfillment evolve across life stages—based on the transition from fluid to crystallized intelligence, where author Arthur Brooks coins the three “macronutrients” of happiness.
For a unique path to happiness
A perfectly curmudgeonly exploration of happiness through the lens of negativity and uncertainty by Oliver Burkeman.
For finding fulfillment
A perspective on using money as a tool to maximize fulfillment by using health, wealth, and time across life stages to get the most out of life.
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Reflections
Robards, K. (2025, September 22). Screen time and sleep: What new studies reveal. Sleep Education. American Academy of Sleep Medicine. https://sleepeducation.org/screen-time-and-sleep-what-new-studies-reveal/
Zhong C, Masters M, Donzella SM, Diver WR, Patel AV. Electronic Screen Use and Sleep Duration and Timing in Adults. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(3):e252493. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2493
Great suggestions! Loved Good Energy-looking forward to reading some of the others on the list.