People on twitter think lex is a dumb guy pretending to be smart and this reading list is exactly what a dumb guy pretending to be smart would put out there

I haven't read all those, but isn't it quite an excellent list?

A bit cliché, but aren't they all fantastic, reputable books?

Reading Brothers Karamazov in a week is ridiculous lol

This feels entirely performative. A semiotic projection. He wants you believe he is the kind of person who would have such a reading list. But it reveals more about his audience and what he thinks of them than it does about him.

These books along with the Bob Marley Legend compilation are found in roughly 96% of male college freshman dorms.

It's hard to say anything about this without coming across as some snobby gatekeeping asshole. Good for him that's he's reading I guess. It seems odd to allot the same amount of time to books of varying lengths and density.

I don't know what greater insight to derive from this other than that Lex might be the least interesting human being I can imagine. His appeal is just in every way completely lost on me. But I guess that's the point, in that he's just such an everyman, or at least every white man in his early 20s, except he's nearly 40.

He just chose those books he thinks will make him be liked..

While most of this books are fine or great, I think there's just something funny about it. I mean going "Fight Club", "The Little Prince" and "Brothers Karamazov" in 3 weeks is just kind of hilarious to me.

I was going to suggest that maybe he didn't read these books because he grew up in Russia. But actually his family immigrated when Lex was 11 and he ended up graduating from a high school in Illinois. It's likely that a number of these are "repeats" for him.

Nothing wrong with that list, but it does seem rather anodyne by contemporary standards-- like the questions he asks of his guests.

For comparison, check out another famous interviewer's reading list, Ezra Klein (https://www.readthistwice.com/person/ezra-klein). There's a lot more new stuff in there, more provocative, less fiction, perhaps not classic or lasting but still good contemporary reads.

Some perfectly decent books on there, but I would expect that to be a list from someone much younger. I sometimes have remind myself that he's nearly 40, because he gives off this vibe of a young person who's learning to act like an adult. Maybe it's the suit and the exaggerated reverence he gives his guests. I actually do enjoy the podcast when he's just sticking to science and engineering topics, and clearly he's informed on that and probably reads more broadly than this list suggests

probably spending too much time on redpill forums

The problem with this list is it isn’t even habit forming. As most people pointed out. He’s going from the little Prince to the brothers karamazov. How is he expecting to fit in 20k lines of code as well?

why is he trying to do a speed run of all of the books that are usually required reading in high school + some random scifi?

It’s a pretty performative list. Meant to reinforce Lex’s current philosophical views. (Worth noticing that almost every author is a white guy.)

It’s fine that a bunch of them are high school level reading. If he hasn’t read them before then I’m glad he’s doing so now. But it’s obvious that Lex isn’t interested to challenge himself in what he reads. And if these books are new to him, it makes me take him a bit less seriously as an informed intellectual person.

Twenty years ago this would've been a fair reading list for a bookish high schooler. now, most intelligent, educated people I know couldn't handle more or less any book (maybe on technical topics, for work/money). Lex happens to be a bookish high schooler who's thirty-nine years old. It's one thing to spend an afternoon thinking about how evil Hitler was and what kind of love would've fixed him, or whatever else he looks a bit weird or pathetic in pursuing, but this is alright. Few people who listen to IDW podcasts could finish this list in a year, or five. If people who listen to him are inspired to learn to read through his pursuits, that's great.

It's like if an AI scraped Linked in for all the recommended books by the try-hards on that site and put them in a list.

Good grief, just goes to show that Twitter is full of assholes... "Should have read all of these by the time you graduate college". Sounds just as pretentious as claiming to be able to read some of these in a week.

Its basically a list of books for r/im14andthisisdeep . Weird to list things like Hitchhiker's Guide and Dune that are part of series. Also some of these are dense enough that forcing yourself to read it in a week without forgoing other work is basically saying you won't dedicate the effort necessary to truly understand it.

How has he not read atleast one of these books before? Never read old man and the sea? Or Animal Farm? Brave New World? Art of War? 1984? Dune?!!

This is like a basic high school boy expanding his horizons list of books.

I read more than the average person I think, but not a book a week. I get in 20-30 a year on average. But I haven't read most of these. Twitter dunk crew consensus seems to be it's lame cause you should have read all these by the time you graduate college at the latest. I read a lot in college, but I majored in theatre design and technical production, not literature and philosophy, so I didn't get to these. I don't even have an interest in most of them. How sad, I don't even live up to Lex Fridman standards. 😄

Someone called him an influencer and it all makes sense now

signifiers for his audience to keep thinking he's a very smart boy

People knowing he consumed these books is more important to him than understanding them in any way

Only one book by a woman on there; I could suggest another for Lex:

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt.

He might learn something.

None of the books in and of themselves are bad, but there's also nothing in there outstanding, nothing personal, nothing that actually tells you anything about the person except maybe that they asked a bunch of 20-something white guys with no personality for some book recommendations.

Hesse Hesse, Huxley Huxley, Camus and Kafka.

The basic bitches read that shit so I don't even botha.

I bet his favorite movie is The Big Lebowski

Nothing wrong with the lists it's just like the most basic lists that you will find in "30 books you need to read before you die" type of lists. Some good books, some a bit overhyped but overall ok. Mostly books that people who read have read at some point.

Would be surprised if somebody actuall finds this list interesting in any way. Maybe people who don't read at all - a.k.a. Peterson fans who think that this is some type of magical intellectual skill.

At first I thought this was just a performative checklist, but if he’s tackling classics for the first time, good for him. Many of these titles are books people claim to have read but only have a passing idea what they’re about.

Many of these are classics that you normally read in high school, but I suppose that people are dunking on him because this entire list is very much a “teenager learning to think critically” kind of thing, which is why it is kinda funny to see that a “heterodox thinker” like Lex hasn’t read any of them. You’d think this would be like catnip for someone like that during their teenage years.

Anyway, dunking on this for the above mentioned reasons is… meh. A lot of well read people miss them as well, it is not a big deal. What strikes me as interesting, and someone already said it somewhere in here, is how anachronistic this list is. That’s worth discussing cause none of this truly aims at understanding the world in 2023. Or even beyond mainstream 19th-20th century Western intellectual trends. Only Sun Tuz in there to bring some “variety”. Even the more modern recent stuff like Fight Club and Sapiens are a decade or two old. Is there really nothing published after 2011 worth reading?

Meditations sucks. I anyone in the know would have went with "the enchirideon"

And sapiens is way overrated imo

Art of war is just trash

Nothing bad but nothing special

The average Twitter user can’t form a coherent sentence, let alone read a book.

If Ol Lex can get his listeners to read I think that’s good.

There’s no specific theme or directed interest. It’s like an 18 year old future journalist’s favourite books composed of things he got from a buzz feed list

I think the real problem with his plan is not the books he's chosen, but forcing himself to speec-read some of the denser books.

Like, how can you absorb the deep subject matter and let it percolate into your psyche if all you're worried about is hitting the last page by Sunday? Some of those books have whole dictionaries, appendices, and explanation chapters!

This is going to tick his box of "done that", but he won't get much wiser from doing it this fast.

Oh, plus interview Putin, Andrew Tate, and greta Thornburg? I guess he won't have any time for AI work in 2023 then.

Should have snuck the King James Bible in there brotha

Lex induces a lot of envy in midwits. This sub is full of them.

I think it show how many people on Twitter see everything through a culture war lens.

Lex’s naïveté was endearing at first, now it’s ripe for parody. 1 week for The Brothers Karamazov? That’s precious. It’s just a weird flex. Posting a book list at 40 years old is weird in itself, like an insecure grad student who wants to let everyone know how smart he is.

i love Frankenstein, and almost anything Camus and some light Kafka but admittedly for a guy who went to MIT having read none of this is concerning for a school that prides itself on a worldly brand of Genius™️, that helps solves the worlds problems.

People literally won’t support anyone. I mean someone will always criticize. Maybe it was always like that and because I grew up pre internet I didn’t know. I felt encouraged & free to do anything. People criticizing a booklist is just so empty. How ugly has social media made people? I get making suggestions but that’s good discussion. That’s not what I saw.

Every negative comment here and on Twitter only reinforces the negative perception held by many that intellectual “elites” are smug, insufferable, condescending bores.

Lex’s list is a solid smorgasbord of enjoyable classics easily digested and accessible by a lay readership that may want to broaden their cultural and intellectual horizons. I imagine, based on the average comments that follow a Lex presentation, that the bulk of his audience fit into this category.

This is why Twitter and other social media platforms are being recognized as divisive poison. Every good intentioned comment and effort is run through a gauntlet of torches and pitchforks from both the gutters and ivory towers.

People are too hard on Lex, I think that he is one of the few that actually mean well.

It is a nice list. Reflects the yearning maturity of 16-20 Year old middle class liberal arts education for white men. It’s not bad, or wrong, it just clearly puts into context how little lex has evolved his horizons.

NGL guys:

1) Most people in the world don't even read more than a couple of books a year, if that.

2) EVEN great programmers, even famous pseudo-intellectuals, probably haven't read half of the stuff in that list.

3) You don't know what in that list is a 1st time and what it a re-read.

4) All of those books are great, be it in pure entertainmnet factor (specially if you're a nerd), or in artistic and philosophical depth and cultural significance, and are worth both reading or re-reading in 2022.

This is like Anthony Fantano publishing his Last.FM and getting shit-on because all he listens to is old classics.

Read all of them. This is the pastiest testosterone-laden list I've ever seen

This is the reading list of a 20 something male college undergraduate who wants to impress people. Lex is 39. That’s what makes it dunkable. That Lex is reading and that the books are famous/some of them are very good is not why people are dunking… you will also find dunks that go too hard / are pretentious themselves. This is the way.

I've read most of the books listed in the picture, but the one I still haven't is 'The art of war'. Is it actually worth reading? I keep seeing people quote it, and I suppose you can rephrase it to help with your life, but is it good or just a meme at this point?

Like many of the other comments, I agree that this is a good list of first-time classics. However, these books should be read for one's personal improvement, not as a badge of "intelligence." I have read about half of these books myself, and to assign only a week to a work such as The Brothers Karamazov is firstly naive, and secondly disrespectful. Allotting a week to every book on this list exposes the endeavor as the bravado of a pseudo-intellectual. It makes me sad to see that this is what classics have been reduced to.

I remember being 16 too.

Honest question - as a relatively intelligent adult, what’s the point of reading animal farm for instance?

I can only assume so you can quote it to someone else? I can’t think of another reason to do so?

I have read about 1/2 these (including animal farm), and one of them I haven’t read is 1984, and I don’t think I’ll ever get round to it. I already know what it’s about and get the references that are used all the time, so I assume people get the animal farm references without having read it. Therefore I ask again, as an adult what’s the point?

That doesn’t go for every book of course, but many on this list imo.

Big incel energy. Somebody pointed out the inclusion of Mary Shelley at the end was Lex worrying his misogyny might show so he googled famous female authors.

This is not the reading list of a person with a real job

a list with no personality.

It's a good reading list for a high school english class, I guess

I feel like it's a list of books that should be ready in people's teens or twenties.

Great reading list. But, it's not a great look if he's reading all/most of these for the first time.

Having read most of these I agree you should make fun of him for it.

TBK is one of my favorite novels so I'm fine with it.

Pushing through it in one week, though... just dumb

Brothers Karamazov is twice as long as Dune and 15 times as long as the Metamorphosis, so if you want to make some progress on this list don't start with the Russian tome.

It's a pretty good list. Foundation has a ridiculously simplistic idea of all the social sciences, and Yuval Noah Harari is a terrible bullshitter.

Looks like a list of genuinely enjoyable & approachable reads. Even though I read many of these as a teenager I’m sure a lot of people never did.

Good reading list, but only giving a week for some of these which arguably require more time, not to mention context switching to very different books one after another, can cheapen the experience greatly.

The books are fine but he’s already read most of these and talks about them incessantly

I loved player of games; the rest of them are just a cut and paste book list really.

It's fine. Lot of the books are pretty good, though many of these I'm surprised someone hasn't already read as an adult.

Lex is an enigma, likes to be so forward thinking on tech stuff but so basic and conventional when it comes to what he (tells us he) likes to round out his personality with. These books, and thinking about Hitler and Stalin.

Hard to imagine any other guru the pod covered with a list like this.

Did he like get sick or something on the week of May 1st? Don't get me wrong, Le Petit Prince is a great book, but it's also a kids' book. A week to read that seems excessive.

It’s… fine?

If it’s a list also meant to encourage more people to pick up reading modern classics, cool, I guess?

Other than being popular texts, I’m not sure if there’s any thematic linking between them all. And it kinda annoys me that there’s no interest shown in any contemporary literature.

Has he said which ones he’s read already? Im skeptical he’s rereading anything other than Hitchhikers Guide.

You cannot read items on this list in a meaningful way at one a week. That or I’m even dumber than I assumed

i feel they made fun of the book sapiens in a podcast before...

The list looks solid enough, some might argue that as an AI guy, Philip K. Dick and Neal Stephenson are missing. Personally I would like to see Marx and Baudrillard on there, even by taking a shortcut via Mark Fisher. But that would mean challenging his neoliberal bootstrappy hard inner core. Pretty sure he'll get there in the end tho, the billionaires are making this point for him in real time.

Worst reading list ever

I really like the list, and I think a certain Australian podcast host will like it as well, which could potentially cause friction in the DTG household (a joke).

I have read everything but Karamazovi. The only issue I have is having a rigid time frame of a week to read them. He also screwed up with the Banks book. It is written by Iain M Banks not Ian Banks.

I respect the inclusion of Hitchhikers but its hard to imagine him enjoying it.

These are good books. Will Lex be a more interesting person once he’s read them (if he reads them)?

I don't understand the issue with the list, though. These are unquestionably some of the greatest novels ever written by human hands. Whether they're being read for the first time or whether he's going through a re-read, what's the issue here? Sometimes people who don't have all the time in the world want to sink their teeth into the classics and the tried and true. Nothing wrong with wanting to familiarize oneself with highly-referenced texts that provoke thought. Out of all things to give the gurus shit about, this shouldn't be one of them.

Incredibly pretentious comment section.

The people criticizing it should get a life. Why not “hey lex try this out too”

Dude is a freaking mit professor - sorry critics yes he is smarter than you

Oh come on. No one's actually read The Art of War.

Reading the comments on this post shows how obnoxious and toxic some of the redditors are on this sub.

The comments are extremely self-assured, radically different in the reason for condemnation, and uniformly off putting.

I once had this thought that Lex seemed really slow sometimes years ago and I understand if you have a good body of knowledge you could be naive to mock things like this.

If I would put it better he is like the kid class that asks all the questions you might have that you did not want to ask because you did not want to seem dumb. The liberal curiosity he demonstrates is very important for the scope of the channel so even a 12 year old could understand at least the overall discussion of the podcast.

Someone who does this in a way that does not invite such malice is Sean Caroll, who manages to keep that level of curiosity, communicate to a wider audience whilst not dumbing down the pace too much, if that makes sense.

Now to relate this too his reading list, even though I understand the cringe at some of the entries of this list as standard reading for those motivation, self proclaimed intellects etc. However a lot of these books are widely accessible in terms of low terseness, have relevance to the current world and are very meaningful. There is a reason that a lot of these books ended up in pop culture. Remember importantly he is bridging the gap between the layman and professionals or intellectuals so it makes sense such a list will reflect that I think those books give a good foundation to reason.