Soman Chainani Book Recommendations
Soman Chainani is an American author and filmmaker.
(Read more on Wikipedia)19 Books Recommended
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Cirque du Soleil
The Spark - Igniting the Creative Fire that Lives within Us All
by John U. Bacon
"One of my favorite books." - Soman Chainani (Source)
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
"The greatest work of fiction I’ve ever read, with the simplest theme: All of us come with baggage and wounds and pain; all of us." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu
"I remember reading it and being like okay, this makes no sense. But you just keep reading it again and again and slowly, I started to get the point of it." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
Rick Rubin, Naval Ravikant, Michael Gervais, Josh Waitzkin, Brian MacKenzie, Stewart Brand, Jack Ma, Jack Dorsey, Jason Nemer
His Dark Materials (8 books)
"[The first book is] a little bit easier but then two and three are intense." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales
by Maria Tatar
"Exposed me to the original Grimm’s stories, which are horrific and dark and insane. And half the time, the evil character wins and half the time the good character wins." - Soman Chainani (Source)
The Neverending Story
by Michael Ende
"An amazing book." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
The Velvet Rage
Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World
by Alan Downs
"Ostensibly about if you grow up a gay man, [how] to deal with it in the world. But I think it’s more about modern masculinity and about what it means to be a man in America." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
The War of Art
Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
by Steven Pressfield
"Half drill sergeant, half Zen voodoo master, [the author] shot me out of my stupor and taught me the meaning of creative discipline." - Soman Chainani (Source)
Also recommended by:
Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Aubrey Marcus, Ryan Holiday, Seth Godin, Brian Koppelman, Marie Forleo, Daniel Pink, Derek Sivers, Michael Hyatt, James Clear, Danny Miranda, Jodie Cook, Jen Sincero, Russell Moore
The Little Mermaid
by Hans Christian Andersen
"You look at The Little Mermaid [movie]. Arielle should die brutally in that movie because she’s an idiot, a complete idiot. [...] To read the original [book], where she dies at the end, suddenly made sense." - Soman Chainani (Source)
The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
Soman Chainani referenced this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast. (Source)
Also recommended by:
Garden Cities of To-Morrow
by Ebenezer Howard
Soman Chainani referenced this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast. (Source)
Peter Pan
by J. M. Barrie
"Featured a title character who was at once charming and also a complete narcissistic, pathological demon. It was that ambiguous space between good and evil that I sparked to as a kid." - Soman Chainani (Source)
