# Dear Hank & John book recommendations > Every book mentioned on Dear Hank & John, most mentioned first, with the strongest quote for each. Compiled by Podshelf from episode transcripts. - Show page: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/dear-hank-john - Hosted by Hank Green, John Green - 96 books, 226 mentions and 4 top picks across 95 episodes since 2024-01-10 ## Books - [The Fault in Our Stars](https://podshelf.io/books/9780147513731) by John Green: 26 mentions, the host's own book > “Hank, you may not know this, but the Fault in Our Stars originally had a tagline that they ended up scrapping. It was on the movie poster, but it was only on the first run of the movie posters, and then they took it off the movie poster because everybody hated it except for me who found it hilarious. And it totally makes sense that they didn't use it because it's a very earnest... And, like, because what I really wanted for that movie and for that book was for Hazel and Gus to be people with full, rich, complex lives that contained everything that a life can contain, you know? Including lots of humor. Like, I worked at a children's hospital, and it was one of the funniest places I've ever worked. It was also by far the saddest place I've ever worked. Those aren't mutually exclusive.” — 410: Too Weird to Fail (2025-04-09) - [Hollywood, Ending](https://podshelf.io/books/9780525426073) by John Green: 21 mentions, 1 critical, the host's own book > “I think that it's helpful to remember that because, I mean, look, Hollywood ending is in many ways a book about how uncomfortable the whole transaction is where you commodify art and you turn... And especially where you commodify your private experiences and turn them into movie tickets or book sales or Netflix subscriptions or whatever you're trying to turn them into. That's not just a problem for authors, by the way. I think most of us now participate in that economy one way or another through Instagram or TikTok or whatever. But I... Do talk about the book. I try to talk about it without spoilers, which for me means not talking about anything that happens after, like, page 20.” — 469: An Invitation for Chaos and Mayhem (w/ Sarah Urist Green!) (2026-09-30) - [Everything Is Tuberculosis](https://podshelf.io/books/9781529961430) by John Green: 20 mentions, the host's own book > “I think Grace Hahn did an amazing job with the cover design. Can I tell you my favorite part about the book, which has nothing to do with the book itself? ... At the beginning of the book, the end papers are bacteria... And then at the end of the book, the end papers are medication, the medication used to treat tuberculosis. But I love the fact that the medication is separated from the disease by the book itself. Just like in real life, we have done a poor job of getting the drugs to the places where the disease is.” — 409: The No Bummer Sleep Spectacular (2025-03-19) - [Looking for Alaska](https://podshelf.io/books/9780008384128) by John Green: 13 mentions, 1 critical, the host's own book > “So anyway, I was at the fever game and this lovely couple came up to me and they said, you know, we we owe a lot to you because we read Looking for Alaska together when we were first, you know, thinking about dating and it really brought us close together. And it was so easy for me, so incredibly easy for me to be like they're lying. They're just being polite. ... And anyway, if they did read Looking for Alaska and it did bring them closer together and they're not lying, then they could have just read some other book and had the same experience.” — 393: I Hope You Forgot to Record (2024-07-17) - [The Anthropocene Reviewed](https://podshelf.io/books/9781644734735) by John Green: 12 mentions, the host's own book > “It's from Deborah who writes, this is a collection of personal essays by John Green in which he basically just ponders humanity and rambles endlessly about arbitrary topics like scratch and sniff stickers, air conditioning, and the Nathan's hot dog eating contest. What's to give one star to, Deborah? That book sounds awesome. It's pretentious with a sparse sprinkling of insight here and there. Again, you've described my favorite book. I found myself thinking, who cares multiple times throughout the book?” — 401: Goodreads Therapy (2024-11-20) - [Turtles All the Way Down](https://podshelf.io/books/9780525555377) by John Green: 11 mentions, 1 critical, the host's own book > “…ke, will put anything in there. I have read some, you know, for research when I'm researching misinformation. I've read some books that are just misinformation. The whole book. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I have too. There's one called Turtles All the Way Down, actually. That's an anti-vaccine book that is just misinformation all the way down. I will say, Hank, I don't think that our experience is universal. And, like, I think sometimes publishers do pay for certain things. I think, in fact, my…” — 472: Through Thicket and Thin Wood (2026-10-28) - [Paper Towns](https://podshelf.io/books/9781408865682) by John Green: 9 mentions, 2 critical, the host's own book > “when Paper Towns was coming out, they did two covers of that book, right? They did a happy Margo and a sad Margo. Two hardcover editions, one blue, one yellow. And the idea was like this person contains multitudes, but she seems like she only is simple and straightforward. It was supposed to be sort of an anti-manic pixie dream girl cover for an anti-manic pixie dream girl novel that nonetheless many people have read as a manic pixie dream girl novel.” — 396: I’m About to Become an Expert (2024-08-21) - [The Great Gatsby](https://podshelf.io/books/9780743273565) by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 4 mentions > “Like, and when they're work, they're, they're, they're so rewarding that it doesn't feel like work. Right. Like whether we're talking about Tony Morrison or we're talking about Gatsby, or we're talking about the catcher in the rye, or we're, we're talking about speak by Laurie Holtz Anderson. Like, like all of these books are, are good. Like they're like, there's a, like you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [An Abundance of Katherines](https://podshelf.io/books/9781455870103) by John Green: 4 mentions, 1 critical, the host's own book > “I mean memory is weird that way, right? Like we think of memory as being reliable or as somehow at least being like our testimony about the past. But in fact like memory is Swiss cheese. And what we do both like we don't remember much of what happened but also like what we do remember is not really what happened. Instead as I wrote it in Abundance of Catherine's what we remember kind of becomes what happened.” — 418: Fifty-Three, That’s It For Me (2025-08-06) - [An Absolutely Remarkable Thing](https://podshelf.io/books/9781473224193) by Hank Green: 4 mentions, the host's own book > “…or I can compete against Faulkner, Toni Morrison, you know, Colson Whitehead, Ernest Hemingway, whoever you want to cite, right? Like, we just, we can't. And that's okay. We're doing something else. Yeah. But what if 12,000 years from now, an absolutely remarkable thing just happens to have survived and Shakespeare's plays don't. And people are like, man, this stuff from 12,000 years ago, it was incredible. Like, they were already thinking about technology.” — 468: I Will Not Be Licking Any Doorknobs (2026-09-23) - [A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor](https://podshelf.io/books/9781524743482) by Hank Green: 4 mentions, the host's own book > “I'm currently reading a beautifully foolish endeavor in which Andy is asked to pay a membership rate based on his net worth. If he has a net worth under the national average, he's paid $50,000 a year, but if he has a net worth over the national average, he must pay a dollar for every a hundred dollars above the national average. Where'd this idea originate? Is it based off of any valid economic theories or is it just a plot device?” — 429: The Mouse Layer (2025-10-22) - [Project Hail Mary](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593355275) by Andy Weir: 3 mentions > “Well, at least you're not the poor people from Project Hail Mary who loaded up an unbalanced centrifuge. Oh, did they? They did. The poor people... The example I use is that in Project Hail Mary, they load an unbalanced centrifuge. But also in Project Hail Mary, the main character picks up a traffic cone from the surface of an aircraft carrier and pukes into it. And like, nobody knows who doesn't work on an aircraft carrier that we would never have a loose traffic cone on the surface of an aircraft carrier.” — 446: Just Chatting… With Me (2026-04-01) - [Heart the Lover](https://podshelf.io/books/9780802165176) by Lily King: 3 mentions > “Can I talk to you about a book I read that I loved? Sure. It's called Heart the Lover by Lily King. I've actually read the book before, but I read it on a plane and something about the altitude caused me this time reading it to just weep uncontrollably such that the flight attendant asked if I was doing okay. But it wasn't just a sad book. It was also a delightful book full of wonder and light and wit and repartee and all the things that I love in a story.” — 466: An Argument with a Mouse (2026-09-09) - [The Book Thief](https://podshelf.io/books/9780375842207) by Markus Zusak: 2 mentions, 1 top pick > “I think that it was a huge part of the success of both the book and the movie. And I think that the book probably would have been successful anyway. Like I look at a book like We Were Liars by E. Lockhart or The Book Thief by Marcus Suzak. Two books I absolutely love that were really successful, you know, like really bestselling books. And both had adaptations made, although We Were Liars was just made last year and were really, really successful and still are successful, by the way. The only reason The Fault in Our Stars is in a different world from those books, which are both better, in my opinion, than The Fault in Our Stars.” — 438: The 2014 Episode (2026-01-21) - [Canon](https://podshelf.io/books/9798217059362) by Paige Lewis: 2 mentions, 1 top pick > “So for those who don't know, Paige is a poet and most recently the author of a novel called Canon. That's one of my favorite books of all time. And Canon is a non-binary epic, as it says at the very beginning of the book. And it's it's this I hope you take this as a compliment, but I think it's the strangest book I've ever read and one of the most enjoyable.” — 458: Ancient vs. Hyper-Mortal (w/ Paige Lewis!) (2026-06-24) - [Twilight](https://podshelf.io/books/9780316015844) by Stephenie Meyer: 2 mentions > “This is one of my big issues is that like way more people have opinions on books like Twilight and The Fault in Our Stars than have actually read those books. We're seeing this a little bit now with, there's always like some kind of like drama in the world of publishing, but the books that generate all the drama don't necessarily sell that well. It's just like a vehicle for discourse. And then people have the discourse and the book doesn't actually get read.” — 447: Everything Is Over (2026-04-08) - [The Catcher in the Rye](https://podshelf.io/books/9780316769488) by J.D. Salinger: 2 mentions > “Like, and when they're work, they're, they're, they're so rewarding that it doesn't feel like work. Right. Like whether we're talking about Tony Morrison or we're talking about Gatsby, or we're talking about the catcher in the rye, or we're, we're talking about speak by Laurie Holtz Anderson. Like, like all of these books are, are good. Like they're like, there's a, like you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [Becoming Earth](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593133989) by Ferris Jabr: 2 mentions > “I got a pre-release version of it called Becoming Earth, which might be a really nice read to while you're close to the earth, which is about the sort of parallel paths of the geology and biology of earth because we think of those things as separate from each other... In the first chapter of this book, he just sort of plops down the fact that the sky is only blue because of life and I was like, wait, what?... It was just like super chemically stable, but that's super cool. I loved that book.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Martyr!](https://podshelf.io/books/9781035026081) by Kaveh Akbar: 2 mentions > “You know what book just came out that I love so much is my friend Kava Akbar's book, Martyr. So good. It's his first novel. All right. It's incredible. This book is just as good as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, except instead of being about video games, it's about art and addiction and love and aging and mortality, it's so good.” — 382: Dental Spider-bots (2024-02-07) - [The Martian](https://podshelf.io/books/9781410469571) by Andy Weir: 2 mentions > “Mark Watney definitely would have died. Mark Watney definitely would have died. Yeah. That's your position. Oh, for sure. Because of the grossness of the soil, even though the potatoes never would have grown in the first place. The potatoes would not have grown, yeah... They didn't know that. We did not know this when he wrote the book, so I give him a pass. All right. So he's in the clear.” — 444: Hank Brown (2026-03-18) - [The Canterbury Tales](https://podshelf.io/books/9781461031840) by Geoffrey Chaucer, John E. Cunningham, Peter Ackroyd, Ted Stearn, V. A. Kolve, Glending Olson: 2 mentions > “Oh yeah, Chaucer is all about the fart joke. Absolutely. That's exactly why I brought up the Canterbury Tales. Can I please relay my favorite story from the Canterbury Tales to your audience? It's quite related actually. It's also fart related. So the Canterbury Tales is considered a very foundational piece of like English literature. There's a lot of scholarly debate on whether the work is complete, what order the work should be organized in.” — 459: Electric Meat (w/ Kal McRaven!) (2026-07-01) - [The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)](https://podshelf.io/books/9781982103552) by Katie Mack: 2 mentions > “A few years ago I came across a book by the astrophysicist Katie Mack called The End of Everything, Astrophysically Speaking. The book tells the story of our universe, how we understand its beginning, its expansion, and what we know about its future, including, well, the end of everything. We are only here for a little while, of course, and the universe will be here for much longer, but everything we've seen so far in our universe will inevitably die, and it seems the universe itself will as well. In short, there will be no season two. I was so moved by this book that I wrote Dr. Mack an email to thank her for writing it. She replied and we struck up a friendship.” — Introducing The Universe (2024-05-22) - [How to Know a Person](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593230060) by David Brooks: 1 mention, 1 top pick > “Recently, I read a book called how to know a person by David Brooks, which completely revolutionized how I make connections. I've come now to appreciate introversion so much more as an extremely powerful way to get to know people and understand people... And then my second would be how to know a person by David Brooks, because you know, the quality of our life is definitely correlated to the quality of our relationships, not necessarily the quantity of them.” — 412: This Is Going to Be a Therapy Session (w/ Shan Boodram!) (2025-05-21) - [We Were Liars](https://podshelf.io/books/9781525255571) by E. Lockhart: 1 mention, 1 top pick > “I think that it was a huge part of the success of both the book and the movie. And I think that the book probably would have been successful anyway. Like I look at a book like We Were Liars by E. Lockhart or The Book Thief by Marcus Suzak. Two books I absolutely love that were really successful, you know, like really bestselling books. And both had adaptations made, although We Were Liars was just made last year and were really, really successful and still are successful, by the way. The only reason The Fault in Our Stars is in a different world from those books, which are both better, in my opinion, than The Fault in Our Stars.” — 438: The 2014 Episode (2026-01-21) - [Mars Trilogy](https://podshelf.io/books/9780008121778) by Kim Stanley Robinson: 1 mention > “…not supposed to be the chance creator. So, yeah. It's all going to come together, Hank. It's all got to congeal. It's all going to work out. But right now, it looks a little bit terrifying. Well, in news from Mars, John, I'm rereading the Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's classic series that I loved so much as a teenager. And I have to say, I don't encourage people to reread the Mars Trilogy specifically, but I absolutely do encourage people to reread books that they loved when they…” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [Bel Canto](https://podshelf.io/books/9780060006129) by Ann Patchett, Oristelle Bonis: 1 mention > “Why don't you release a John's version of the books like Taylor Swift's Taylor's version albums or an annotated edition like Ann Patchett's Bel Canto? I love marginalia and would love to read your marginalia reflected on your own work.” — 458: Ancient vs. Hyper-Mortal (w/ Paige Lewis!) (2026-06-24) - [Warriors](https://podshelf.io/books/9780060525507) by Erin Hunter: 1 mention > “I'm reading The Warriors books which are about cats in the wild. How's cats that have become wild and with orange? It is an absolute delight and it is like, wow look at what my cats could be but are not. They want to be that that's who they are on the inside.” — 386: Play Me Some More Fiddle (2024-04-03) - [To Kill a Mockingbird](https://podshelf.io/books/9780060935467) by Harper Lee: 1 mention > “So like if you pick the genre and you like go and pick the ones that are popular, this is crazy talk right now. But like there's a reason why they're popular. Like there's a reason why To Kill a Mockingbird is like a big deal book. Because it's really good. It's a good book.” — 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!) (2026-04-29) - [Their Eyes Were Watching God](https://podshelf.io/books/9780061120060) by Zora Neale Hurston: 1 mention > “Here's what I will say, Eve, is pick like, and I never do this because it does, it feels like work. But if you pick like a classic novel, they're all very good. Like if you read Their Eyes Were Watching God, you're like, oh my God. If you read Catch-22, it's like, oh, what a beautiful thing. Like the ones that are very popular are actually good.” — 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!) (2026-04-29) - [The Odyssey](https://podshelf.io/books/9780140268867) by Homer: 1 mention > “Maybe I could become a oral tradition poet. Do you think you could do that? You could be like, here's what I remember of the Odyssey from watching the movie.” — 463: I’ve Signed More Books Than God (2026-08-19) - [Oranges](https://podshelf.io/books/9780141182032) by John McPhee: 1 mention > “I'm going to recommend that you read John McPhee. Oh, so good. Great nonfiction writer of Earth in my experience. He's got a great book on oranges called Oranges.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Frankenstein](https://podshelf.io/books/9780141439471) by Mary Shelley: 1 mention > “Oh, I thought you were going to say like build the puzzle by like recreating life from constituent elements, Frankenstein style, which I'm not interested in. ... Okay, well, I'm not interested in it at all because I read Frankenstein. ... Yeah. I'm in no hurry for that one. I don't, I trust us as a species about as far as I can throw us.” — 397: A Top Podcast for Teens (2024-09-04) - [Of Mice and Men](https://podshelf.io/books/9780142000670) by John Steinbeck: 1 mention > “Like, like all of these books are, are good. Like they're like, there's a, like you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good. It's fun to read of mice and men is interesting to read. Yeah. Yeah. All these books.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [The Art of Seduction](https://podshelf.io/books/9780142001196) by Robert Greene: 1 mention > “So I then had to, in my late twenties, go and read all of the, how to win friends and influence people, the art of seduction. Recently, I read a book called how to know a person by David Brooks, which completely revolutionized how I make connections.” — 412: This Is Going to Be a Therapy Session (w/ Shan Boodram!) (2025-05-21) - [The Outsiders](https://podshelf.io/books/9780143039853) by S. E. Hinton, Jim Fyfe, Jodi Picoult: 1 mention > “However, as I get ready to head out to college, everyone keeps telling me that I need to get Instagram and other social media apps so I will be able to meet and connect with people. I want to make friends, but I don't want to end up doom scrolling my life away and unhealthily attached to my phone. I will do exactly what you suggest to remedy this situation. Awaiting further instruction, Ollie. Stay gold, pony boy.” — 463: I’ve Signed More Books Than God (2026-08-19) - [All the King's Men](https://podshelf.io/books/9780156012959) by Robert Penn Warren: 1 mention > “It used to be that there were never acknowledgements in books back when, or very rarely, back when the author really wasn't a character. Like you go back and you read All the King's Men. There's no acknowledgements. You go back and you read Shakespeare, there's not like a page where he's thanking all the actors who played Romeo and Juliet the first time it was staged or anything.” — 460: Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (2026-07-15) - [The Body in Pain](https://podshelf.io/books/9780195036015) by Elaine Scarry: 1 mention > “But I do think in general, Lank, there's a measure of judgment about people who experience lots of pain. There's this great quote that you've heard me say a million times, Lank, but it's from The Body and Pain by Elaine Skari, where she writes that to have great pain is to have certainty and to hear of another's pain is to have doubt.” — 414: Tell Me What Your Pain Sounds Like (2025-06-25) - [You Are an Artist](https://podshelf.io/books/9780241442890) by Sarah Urist Green: 1 mention > “Well, I don't want to make this about me, but do you remember when I was going to have a book out and I was terrified about having to go on tour and talk about the book and have public events? … And then the pandemic did. And then Reyna, I couldn't go on the book tour at all and I didn't have the opportunity to face my fear. … Yeah. Anyway, the book is called You Are an Artist and it's still available.” — 449: It Will Go Well And It Will End (w/ Sarah Urist Green!) (2026-04-22) - [Blue Mars](https://podshelf.io/books/9780246138835) by Kim Stanley Robinson: 1 mention > “Well, in news from Mars, John, I'm rereading the Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's classic series that I loved so much as a teenager. And I have to say, I don't encourage people to reread the Mars Trilogy specifically, but I absolutely do encourage people to reread books that they loved when they were younger.” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [Gone Girl](https://podshelf.io/books/9780297859390) by Gillian Flynn: 1 mention > “I love Lily King. I can't believe that I get to be on stage with her in Portland, Maine. It is silly, silly to think about sharing a stage with her. Also, some of the people I'm sharing a stage with are just ludicrous. Like obviously there's Hank Green, Sarah Urist Green in Birmingham, Alabama. That's a little, those are, those are ones I can handle. But like Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl, Brandon Sanderson.” — 466: An Argument with a Mouse (2026-09-09) - [Speak](https://podshelf.io/books/9780312674397) by Laurie Halse Anderson: 1 mention > “Like, and when they're work, they're, they're, they're so rewarding that it doesn't feel like work. Right. Like whether we're talking about Tony Morrison or we're talking about Gatsby, or we're talking about the catcher in the rye, or we're, we're talking about speak by Laurie Holtz Anderson. Like, like all of these books are, are good. Like they're like, there's a, like you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [Einstein's Dreams](https://podshelf.io/books/9780340589250) by Alan P. Lightman: 1 mention > “Einstein's Dreams is a really great kind of philosophical. It's like taking Einstein's theories on like time and relativity and stuff and expanding them out to if a world worked in this way. So, for example, there's one about that people have learned, you know, that the farther you are away from the surface of the planet, the slower time moves for you… It's really great. I love learning about like different perceptions of time and ways to express time and like what time travel would look like in different forms and formats and everything. Einstein's Dreams. It's a great book. I enjoy it.” — 422: We Got Another Brother (w/ Travis McElroy!) (2025-09-03) - [Little Orphan Annie](https://podshelf.io/books/9780343311117) by James Whitcomb Riley: 1 mention > “I'd like to be buried at the very top of Crown Hill Cemetery directly above James Whitcomb Riley, the other famous Indiana author. This is the guy who wrote Little Orphan Annie. He wrote Little Orphan Annie, which was first titled The Elf Child... the main character of Little Orphan Annie is named Little Orphan Allie. And the only reason the poem is called Little Orphan Annie is because of a typesetter mistake.” — 400: For Those Who Are Still Listening (2024-10-30) - [Jurassic Park](https://podshelf.io/books/9780345538987) by Michael Crichton: 1 mention > “I remember so much of this series because it was, I think it was probably like the third, fourth, and fifth novel I ever read. So, it was very impactful. You know, those first novels you read. And the other ones were Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, which were not super complex stories.” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [The Lost World](https://podshelf.io/books/9780345538994) by Michael Crichton, Arthur Conan Doyle: 1 mention > “I remember so much of this series because it was, I think it was probably like the third, fourth, and fifth novel I ever read. So, it was very impactful. You know, those first novels you read. And the other ones were Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, which were not super complex stories.” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [The Survival of the Bark Canoe](https://podshelf.io/books/9780374516932) by John McPhee: 1 mention > “He's got a great book on oranges called Oranges. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is a banger and the one that you might really enjoy since you'll be living outside of the normal expectations of society is Coming into the Country, which is a book from the 70s about people who chose to move to the bush in Alaska.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Coming Into the Country](https://podshelf.io/books/9780374703622) by John McPhee: 1 mention > “The Survival of the Bark Canoe is a banger and the one that you might really enjoy since you'll be living outside of the normal expectations of society is Coming into the Country, which is a book from the 70s about people who chose to move to the bush in Alaska. That's awesome.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Life in Letters](https://podshelf.io/books/9780385476225) by Isaac Asimov: 1 mention > “I have a book of the letters of Isaac Asimov. Yeah. And there's these two letters and they're like organized by topic. Yeah. Not by time. Yeah. So there's these two letters that are just like in the section about like having fans. And one letter is from early in his career where he taught, he just gushes about how lovely it is to sign an autograph or to sign a book. And then 20 years later, he's like, if one more person asks me to sign a book, I may very well move to the moon.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [Beowulf](https://podshelf.io/books/9780393975802) by Seamus Heaney: 1 mention > “I mean, first off, clearly you've never read Beowulf. I have read Beowulf in college. And secondly, I just don't agree that language didn't get good until 500 years ago... I don't know. Maybe I need to give Beowulf a second chance. I mean, in Old English, it's almost unreadable. But that doesn't mean that language didn't exist or wasn't rich or wasn't complex.” — 444: Hank Brown (2026-03-18) - [Tuck Everlasting](https://podshelf.io/books/9780395732670) by Natalie Babbitt: 1 mention > “You have to really think about that, like find all of the ways it could go wrong and get ahead of that before you make your wish. Oh yeah. No, I read Talk Everlasting. You do not want to live forever. I forgot about that book.” — 458: Ancient vs. Hyper-Mortal (w/ Paige Lewis!) (2026-06-24) - [The Art of the Deal](https://podshelf.io/books/9780399594496) by Donald Trump, Tony Schwartz: 1 mention, 1 critical > “It's like the way that I feel when somebody's reading a book I don't love on the bus. Yeah. Gosh, I wish that you hadn't brought that onto the bus. The Art of the Deal was published in 1987. I don't think it has that much to tell you about the present moment, but whatever. That's your business.” — 395: Your One Wild and Precious Corpse (2024-08-14) - [The Fountainhead](https://podshelf.io/books/9780451175120) by Ayn Rand: 1 mention, 1 critical > “I have one more piece of advice, which is don't read The Fountainhead... It wasn't The Fountainhead, just for clarity. It's not the book that we're talking about with me... Well, I mean, you know, The Fountainhead is a very influential book in a lot of smart people's lives. And so I shouldn't be the way I am with it. But I am that way because I have a different worldview.” — 443: A Top Podcast for the Elderly (2026-03-04) - [The Long Walk](https://podshelf.io/books/9780451196712) by Stephen King: 1 mention > “Like, uh, that, that Stephen King story. The walk? I think it's called the long walk. Oh, wow. I did good. Um, I was. You've never read it. You gotta walk at four miles an hour consistently or you, uh, get shot. Oh, that's bad. It's a, it's a reality TV show, uh, featuring youths.” — 467: An Octopolis of Octopui (2026-09-16) - [On the Origin of Species](https://podshelf.io/books/9780451529060) by Charles Darwin: 1 mention > “And I also got to hold and page through a first edition of On The Origin of Species which I understand is kind of a classic. ... They had a library somewhere in England that put on a big old sticker over Charles Darwin's name, over on the title page is the big old sticker that was property of this library.” — 385: Duology (2024-03-20) - [Island of the Blue Dolphins](https://podshelf.io/books/9780520402317) by Scott O'Dell: 1 mention > “It's like there's this famous – did you ever read that book, The Island of the Blue Dolphins? No, I did not. Children's book about a person surviving alone on an island of blue dolphins. Anyway, the writer of that award endowed an award for historical fiction in children's literature called the Scott O'Dell Award.” — 453: Nobody Is as Good as Me (2026-05-20) - [The Last Tycoon](https://podshelf.io/books/9780521402316) by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 1 mention > “I almost compared myself just now to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but then I stopped myself. I want to be clear that in saying this, I'm not comparing myself to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but he wrote The Last Tycoon and it was published on Finish and everything was fine.” — 470: Which Way is Up? (2026-10-07) - [This Star Won't Go Out](https://podshelf.io/books/9780525426363) by Esther Earl: 1 mention > “It's because of that book that Esther's actual memoir, This Star Won't Go Out, was able to be published. It's because of that book that, you know, I was able to write Turtles All the Way Down eventually. It's because of that book that so many people have written me to tell me that the story made them feel less alone or it made them feel seen or consoled or encouraged them.” — 438: The 2014 Episode (2026-01-21) - [God, Human, Animal, Machine](https://podshelf.io/books/9780525562719) by Meghan O'Gieblyn: 1 mention > “Another interesting one might be God, Human, Animal, Machine, which is about what are we in the age of AI and with machines and might be an interesting one to experience while being human in a more human way than we often are being human. Yeah, I like that. There's a lot of good books out there, John.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [The Hobbit](https://podshelf.io/books/9780547928227) by J.R.R. Tolkien: 1 mention > “Yeah. I mean, yeah, I can recognize that the books. Also, I had to read The Hobbit and I loved that. Like that was awesome. I was like this is actually incredible and so fun. What a world. But it always still was a task. So I still always thought about like, well, when's this chapter end? How many pages is left? It was always a like I have to finish this, not enjoy it.” — 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!) (2026-04-29) - [Conscious Uncoupling](https://podshelf.io/books/9780553446999) by Katherine Woodward Thomas: 1 mention > “Catherine Woodward has a book that's called conscious uncoupling, which was like the trendy thing, you know, when that couple broke up... Yes, but it's a genius, um, formula and it takes you through like five different distinct stages. And the first stage is the negative bond.” — 412: This Is Going to Be a Therapy Session (w/ Shan Boodram!) (2025-05-21) - [An Immense World](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593133231) by Ed Yong: 1 mention > “Yeah, it's great work, John. I love that idea. And I love how much we don't know about animals. Ed Yong has a great book about this. And the fact that like we're sharing a planet with an astonishing amount of life.” — 382: Dental Spider-bots (2024-02-07) - [Angels in America](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593153949) by Tony Kushner, Shemuʼel Hasifri: 1 mention > “Whereas if you're educated the way I was educated in high school, where we were reading Tony Kushner's Angels in America and we were reading Vonnegut and we were reading Tony Morrison, who, you know, was just winning the Nobel Prize, like when, when I was in high school, you know, we were reading Alice Walker, like that, that stuff was really invigorating and felt really alive and present in ways that have been very helpful to me as a reader in person.” — 453: Nobody Is as Good as Me (2026-05-20) - [Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593466490) by Gabrielle Zevin: 1 mention > “It's the last book I recommended to you was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. This book is just as good as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, except instead of being about video games, it's about art and addiction and love and aging and mortality, it's so good.” — 382: Dental Spider-bots (2024-02-07) - [There Is No Antimemetics Division](https://podshelf.io/books/9780593983751) by qntm: 1 mention > “You do know nothing about literature. That's true. She kept being shocked by this. Yeah. You are not, um, well, I was going to say you're not well read, but in fact, you're just differently read, right? Like it's not that you don't read. It's that you, uh, read different stuff than Helen Hunt and I read. And yeah, I don't think Helen Hunt's read. There is no anti-memetics division. Like that's just not right.” — 456: Talking About a Book No One Can Read (2026-06-10) - [Green Mars](https://podshelf.io/books/9780606076012) by Kim Stanley Robinson: 1 mention > “Well, in news from Mars, John, I'm rereading the Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's classic series that I loved so much as a teenager. And I have to say, I don't encourage people to reread the Mars Trilogy specifically, but I absolutely do encourage people to reread books that they loved when they were younger.” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [Red Mars](https://podshelf.io/books/9780606080668) by Kim Stanley Robinson: 1 mention > “Well, in news from Mars, John, I'm rereading the Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's classic series that I loved so much as a teenager. And I have to say, I don't encourage people to reread the Mars Trilogy specifically, but I absolutely do encourage people to reread books that they loved when they were younger.” — 465: Weird Trajectory (2026-09-02) - [How to Win Friends and Influence People](https://podshelf.io/books/9780671027032) by Dale Carnegie: 1 mention > “So I then had to, in my late twenties, go and read all of the, how to win friends and influence people, the art of seduction. Recently, I read a book called how to know a person by David Brooks, which completely revolutionized how I make connections... So my recommendation for her is how to win friends and influence people, which is like, you know, classic book.” — 412: This Is Going to Be a Therapy Session (w/ Shan Boodram!) (2025-05-21) - [Measurement: A Mathematician's Life in and out of the Classroom](https://podshelf.io/books/9780674067349) by Paul Lockhart: 1 mention > “I think that there's a lot of stuff missing there. But I, you know, you probably read Paul Lockhart's Measurement. I think that is a great place to start, and if we sort of started from measurement and built a curriculum around that, I'd be really interested to see how American 10th graders would react to it.” — 394: I Think Very Highly of Me (Live at VidCon!) (2024-07-31) - [Ulysses](https://podshelf.io/books/9780679722762) by James Joyce: 1 mention > “The estate of James Joyce has made it very difficult to do James Joyce studies. And that's probably in line with what James Joyce wanted. But who the hell cares what James Joyce wanted? Like that's not useful anymore. Like we need to be able to do – we need to be able to like read all of James Joyce's letters and we need to be able to do all that stuff because it's cool and interesting and it helps us understand Ulysses better.” — 400: For Those Who Are Still Listening (2024-10-30) - [Agent to the Stars](https://podshelf.io/books/9780765357007) by John Scalzi: 1 mention > “So here's what, here's an interesting question. If you were an alien, how would you do this? There's a great John Scalzi book where the alien hires a Hollywood agent and is like, I need you to, I need you to like, let's do this. Let's, let's figure out how to, how to do the first contact thing.” — 448: Doogie Howser, Boy Chaplin (2026-04-15) - [A Tale of Two Cities](https://podshelf.io/books/9780785411192) by Charles Dickens: 1 mention > “Hey, it's John retroactively inserting a spoiler alert. I'm about to spoil the entire plot of a tale of two cities. So hit that 15 second forward button that you use to skip the ads. The tale of two cities, Charles Dickens, you swap them out. Yeah. Is that how the tale of two cities worked? Yeah. They swapped one city for another city? No, no, no. They swapped one prisoner for, for another guy. And then the guy sacrifices himself and the other guy gets to live happily ever after with his lady.” — 420: The Plant Episode (2025-08-20) - [Politics](https://podshelf.io/books/9780786553648) by Hendrik Hertzberg: 1 mention > “So, I invited the New Yorker writer, Hendrick Hertzberg to my wedding because it was in a copy of his book, Politics, that I asked Sarah to marry me. He signed the book, Dear Sarah, Will You Marry John, Hendrick Hertzberg? And so, I thought it would be nice to invite him. And then he wrote back, which was nice.” — 418: Fifty-Three, That’s It For Me (2025-08-06) - [A Christmas Carol](https://podshelf.io/books/9780794529864) by Charles Dickens, Groth, Nancy Baker: 1 mention > “I think ghost stories were a thing around Christmas, which is why Charles Dickens used them. I think ghost stories predate the ghost story that is A Christmas Carol. What is it called? I don't know. The Christmas Carol? Dickens Christmas. How have I forgotten the name of that book? It's called A Christmas Carol. It's not claiming to be THE Christmas Carol.” — 404: Die on Tuesday (2025-01-08) - [Diary of a Wimpy Kid](https://podshelf.io/books/9780810993136) by Jeff Kinney: 1 mention > “William Carlos Williams was a doctor and he was a poet. He would write poems on the back of his prescription pads. Wallace Stevens sold insurance and he wrote poetry. These things do not have to be mutually exclusive. You know, the guy who writes Diary of a Wimpy Kid? He's sold like 100 million books and he never stopped working his day job.” — 449: It Will Go Well And It Will End (w/ Sarah Urist Green!) (2026-04-22) - [Writers and Lovers](https://podshelf.io/books/9781035090785) by Lily King: 1 mention > “Should I read Heart the Lover ahead of time? It's on my list. Feeling peachy keen. You should read Heart the Lover. Ahead of time. And Writers and Lovers ahead of time. That's my advice.” — 469: An Invitation for Chaos and Mayhem (w/ Sarah Urist Green!) (2026-09-30) - [Sula](https://podshelf.io/books/9781400033430) by Toni Morrison: 1 mention > “No, I have, like, I have a first edition. This is a true story. I have a very valuable first edition, first printing of Toni Morrison's novel, Sula. Okay? It's a beautiful book. And you open it up, and there on the first page, it says, to get home, in my handwriting. And then, 17 lines of handwritten instructions from my grandma on how to get from her house to my home. And that's how I did it. Because that was the only way to do it. And so I ruined this book. Beautiful book.” — 394: I Think Very Highly of Me (Live at VidCon!) (2024-07-31) - [The Let Them Theory](https://podshelf.io/books/9781401971366) by Mel Robbins: 1 mention > “I have no idea who Mel Robbins is, I have to confess. I, yeah, I do. I'm too, I'm too online. I haven't read the Let Them Theory, but I love the idea of letting other people make their own mistakes.” — 416: The Free Will Episode (2025-07-23) - [Puff, the Magic Dragon](https://podshelf.io/books/9781402747823) by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton: 1 mention > “I remember that it was maybe that year or the year before when I read like the Puff the Magic Dragon sing-along book. And I'd, of course, heard the Puff the Magic Dragon song a thousand times before. But I'm singing Puff the Magic Dragon in the book. And then at the end of the book, Jackie grows up and Puff stops existing. And like boys become men. And eventually your little baby is a guy. And I just freaking started crying. Like singing this song I've heard a thousand times before.” — 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!) (2026-04-29) - [Up to Speed](https://podshelf.io/books/9781422188613) by Michael D. Watkins: 1 mention > “Well, so that reminds me, we did an episode of Tiny Matters about this. And it's from this great book. We interviewed the author, Up to Speed, who was talking about female bikers. I mean, the book overall is about female athletes and the lack of science around them. But she was talking about, like, how badly designed bike seats and bike clothing is for female bikers. And it was, like, there was this known kind of, like, open secret that a lot of bikers were having to get labiaplasty.” — 406: Science Spectacular (w/ Deboki Chakravarti!) (2025-01-29) - [Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (novelization)](https://podshelf.io/books/9781448151790) by Terry Brooks: 1 mention, 1 critical > “I remember very specifically in the break room at Walmart reading the novelization of The Phantom Menace. And thinking, I could have done this. Come on now. Those novelizations are not easy work. There's some difficulty. Maybe I wasn't seeing all the craft in there. I don't think you were seeing all the craft. But I'll tell you what, they were really squeezing out the page number for that book to make it look book length. Like there was like a hundred words a page.” — 445: Bring Me My Favorites (2026-03-25) - [Catch-22](https://podshelf.io/books/9781451626650) by Joseph Heller: 1 mention > “Here's what I will say, Eve, is pick like, and I never do this because it does, it feels like work. But if you pick like a classic novel, they're all very good. Like if you read Their Eyes Were Watching God, you're like, oh my God. If you read Catch-22, it's like, oh, what a beautiful thing. Like the ones that are very popular are actually good.” — 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!) (2026-04-29) - [The Scarlet Letter](https://podshelf.io/books/9781457660429) by Nathaniel Hawthorne: 1 mention, 1 critical > “You become a classic because it's good. It's fun to read of mice and men is interesting to read. Yeah. Yeah. All these books. The Scarlet Letter. I'm not sure. Yeah. Nathaniel Hawthorne never did it for me.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [Why Fish Don't Exist](https://podshelf.io/books/9781501160271) by Lulu Miller: 1 mention > “So like I imagine the category of fish is fuzzy. But there's different amounts of fuzzy. Well, fish is extremely fuzzy. Yeah. Fish don't exist. I read a book about it called White Fish Don't Exist. Fish only exists in the sense of like you look at it and like that looks like a fish, which is also like a fine categorization system.” — 410: Too Weird to Fail (2025-04-09) - [The Glass Hotel](https://podshelf.io/books/9781509882809) by Emily St. John Mandel: 1 mention > “This next question comes from Hallie who writes, dear John and Hank, I just finished listening to the audio book of the glass house, the glass hotel. Sorry. Sorry, Emily St. John Mandel, uh, which is very good. And I realized that I have not heard the acknowledgements read as part of an audio book. Why are the acknowledgements always cut out of audio books?” — 456: Talking About a Book No One Can Read (2026-06-10) - [The 5th Wave](https://podshelf.io/books/9781594139819) by Richard Yancey: 1 mention > “So like the fifth wave? Hank, kind of, but let's remove all the violent parts. It's nothing like the fifth wave! It could not be more different from the fifth wave. I mean, that is the most ludicrous. Like that's a person who's only ever read two books. I'm sorry, but they've only ever read your book in the fifth wave and they compared those two books. I've read the fifth wave. I reviewed the fifth wave. You, Hank, did not write the fifth wave.” — 401: Goodreads Therapy (2024-11-20) - [Parable of the Sower](https://podshelf.io/books/9781609807191) by Octavia Butler: 1 mention > “It can't be about the deficit because the new budget plan makes the deficit worse. And all the projections say that, including the government's own projections. I keep going back to this line from Octavia Butler's brilliant prophetic novel, Parable of the Sower. They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it. And you know, that's how I feel right now.” — 408: The Green Brothers Often Are Wrong (2025-03-05) - [The Book of (More) Delights](https://podshelf.io/books/9781643755472) by Ross Gay: 1 mention > “I was reading one of – this is from Jen who asks DearHank and John. I was reading one of Ross Gay's essays from the Book of More Delights on dandelions and had a sudden vivid memory of being in elementary school science class and learning about weeds and how they were mean plants who stole all the nutrients for themselves and choked out other good plants.” — 420: The Plant Episode (2025-08-20) - [The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven](https://podshelf.io/books/9781668601198) by Nathaniel Ian Miller: 1 mention > “Oh, the memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Miller. I feel like no one knows about this book. I only know about it because Catherine gave it to me. It's so good. So good.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc](https://podshelf.io/books/9781679938245) by Mark Twain: 1 mention, 1 critical > “I have an author friend who just told me, like, I'm really excited for you to read my new book. It's my best one yet. And I was like, oh no, that's a terrible sign. And like Mark Twain thought his best book was his biography of Joan of Arc. Did he do a biography of Joan of Arc? Yeah. And there's a reason you don't remember it, Hank. Was it like well-researched? Like he was just trying to do the work or? No, it's like a fictional retelling of her life.” — 446: Just Chatting… With Me (2026-04-01) - [Gods of Andromeda](https://podshelf.io/books/9781738093793) by Ian Kent: 1 mention > “And as she tries to set up her next thing and figure out what her next thing is going to be, she reads this novel called Gods of Andromeda that's, like, a big epic fantasy novel that's very matriarchal where women are the rulers and men are mostly— sort of male handmaids. And she's interested in the book.” — 468: I Will Not Be Licking Any Doorknobs (2026-09-23) - [My Year of Rest and Relaxation](https://podshelf.io/books/9781784707422) by Ottessa Moshfegh: 1 mention > “Like whatever you think of the year, my year of rest and relaxation, uh, you can't argue that that book isn't, isn't interesting, but like, it's also, you know, like it also holds up to critical reading and stuff. Yeah. And I always am surprised by this. Oftentimes I'll like hit it. I'll, I'll be like, fine. I'll read it.” — 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run (2025-07-30) - [Not the End of the World](https://podshelf.io/books/9781784745011) by Hannah Ritchie: 1 mention > “There's a book. What's the Hannah Richie book called that we both just read? Oh, I can't remember what it's called. I'll look it up... The Hannah Ritchie book is called Not the End of the World.” — 387: Hard Pivot to Beef (2024-04-22) - [Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica](https://podshelf.io/books/9781888009002) by Sir Isaac Newton: 1 mention > “That reminds me that for reasons I can't really get into, I got to hold the original manuscript for Isaac Newton's print Kippia. And it was pretty cool. And I also got to hold and page through a first edition of On The Origin of Species which I understand is kind of a classic.” — 385: Duology (2024-03-20) - [Dracula](https://podshelf.io/books/9781981021123) by Bram Stoker: 1 mention > “Hank, did you know that the whole vampire thing, and this is not going to surprise you, is kind of about tuberculosis? Like the first time anyone ever stabbed a corpse in the heart with a wooden stake, that person had died of consumption and they were like terrified of it. I did read Bram Stoker's Dracula and it did have like notes of- Undertones. Undertones of sexual transmission, but not sexy. It's a blood-borne disease. It wasn't like in a sexy way.” — 408: The Green Brothers Often Are Wrong (2025-03-05) - [Leaves of Grass](https://podshelf.io/books/9788467041576) by Walt Whitman: 1 mention > “Walt Whitman wrote a poem about this actually called Leaves of Grass. And I think the answer, I mean, I'm curious to know what Hank's scientific answer, but I think the answer is yes. Like you are both seeing multiple lives and one life depending on how you construct life. And a field of grass is both a superorganism and a bunch of different organisms.” — 463: I’ve Signed More Books Than God (2026-08-19) - [Turtles All the Way Down](https://podshelf.io/books/9789655981469) by Anonymous: 1 mention, 1 critical > “I have read some, you know, for research when I'm researching misinformation. I've read some books that are just misinformation. The whole book. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I have too. There's one called Turtles All the Way Down, actually. That's an anti-vaccine book that is just misinformation all the way down.” — 472: Through Thicket and Thin Wood (2026-10-28)