100 books like The Art of Seduction

This is an excellent book about relationships and attachment theory, which describes our attachment styles in relationships. I loved reading this book because it taught me about my own attachment style and how I am in relationships.

This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about themselves in relationships. I enjoyed the concepts in the book and how relatable it was. I recommend this to every human being who would like a relationship. It is a great way to learn about yourself.

I couldn’t help but love this book for the marvelously dishy stories from inside the belly of the beast. You might think Ryan Holiday is dangerous, because he used all kinds of devious PR strategies to get journalists to promote his clients by giving them attention in their publications. He did it by arousing strong emotions, simplifying information, attacking opponents, and appealing to people’s deepest hopes fears, and dreams. But this entertaining read gets profound as Holiday reveals the dangers that can result from placing propaganda in the public sphere. Through rich storytelling, he unpacks the personal, social, and reputational damage caused by the many new media manipulators seeking to profit from controlling your attention.  

Some academics dismiss this book because it lacks statistical support. They have a point, but it’s still a great book. It’s also over a hundred years old, so what do you expect?

Gustave Le Bon was a medical doctor who became Professor of Psychology and Allied Sciences at the University of Paris. Le Bon’s key proposal is that crowd thinking is not the sum of individuals’ minds but an interdependent psychological entity. The Crowd is a short book and perennially in print.

Penetrating? Secret Society? Pick Up Artists? Okay you’re going to have to trust me, that despite its nebulous reputation Strauss’ voyage into the underworld of the “pua” community has some merits. Firstly, it’s a fantastically funny, twisted story. Secondly, whilst every “technique” the book advocates to hone your seduction skills is squarely on the side of skeezy, just the idea that you can learn skills for dating is cool. It gripped me 15 years ago, and started me on my quest in the dating industry. 

Okay, so this novel is technically about a deviant, sociopathic stalker. However, written from the first person perspective, you’ll find yourself oscillating between shock and admiration at Kepnes’ antihero Joe Goldburg, who’s on a Machiavellian quest to make Beck fall in love with him. Whilst, Joe is a sexual perpetrator, Kepnes also gifts him with fantastic wit, borrowable chat-up lines, and the ability to hold a glib mirror to the world of modern dating. 

Is One Day a modern classic? After the hype had died down, I bought a battered copy second-hand from a charity shop. Over a decade since reading it, I still mentally return to Dex and Em: what was and what could’ve been.

There’s also something in the beautiful narrative structure – where we see both sides of their story over time – that makes me ponder the way we can never fully know another person. Even when they are familiar to us. Perhaps especially then.

This is another absolutely delirious book. One part detailed study of Freud’s most divisive concept, the death drive, and one part messianic call-to-love in the style of Nietzsche, I was very skeptical to begin with. But as I persisted, I began to see the charm and power of Brown’s project. He is someone who really wants to make history by talking about it in such grand terms. He wasn’t the first to try this, but there is perhaps a case to be made that he was the last.

What I love about this book is the fact that it indicates that an apparently apolitical metaphilosophical assumption agrees with an upfront right-wing policy.

The assumption is that when tackling disputes in metaphysics, philosophers should aim to achieve consensus. The policy is that of pressing one to respect the allegedly rationally undeniable standards of a “herd,” as Nietzsche puts it. While problematizing this view, Nietzsche argues that libertarian tendencies of expressing one’s uniqueness are more valuable than more egalitarian tendencies of following herds; to provoke dissensus would then be more valuable than to reach consensus.

This stance has influenced me, even though while problematizing Nietzsche’s works through Carnap’s (and vice-versa), I claim that libertarian and egalitarian tendencies are equally valuable so that one should aim for a balance between them.

When I was a struggling young graduate student, I was fortunate enough to have Volker Gerhardt host me as a Fulbright Scholar at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. A former vice-president of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Gerhardt is one of those remarkably industrious luminaries, who, with even a word of encouragement, can launch an entire area of inquiry. Working within what one might call a Kantian-Humanistic orientation, he has written widely on the most varied aspects of intellectual culture. This introductory book on Nietzsche, which is now in its fourth edition, is masterly in balancing the needs of new readers with the sort of nuances from which seasoned scholars continue to draw. Gerhardt’s Nietzsche is somewhat the cultural pragmatist, concerned above all with living an authentic life in the context of a continually-forming Europe. 

Nietzsche studies are a cottage industry unto themselves. There are thousands of monographs, anthologies, and papers, which are conveniently searchable at the Weimarer Nietzsche-Bibliographie. My “five best books” are not necessarily the interpretations I personally consider by some measure the ‘best’, in the sense of being the most ‘correct’. They are instead the ones I find most helpful for a reader to interpret Nietzsche in a responsible, well-informed way for themselves. 

R. J. Hollingdale is a great starting point for a novice. He was that rare combination of translator, biographer, and philosopher—and as such, his work is approachable for any intellectually curious reader. It was first published in 1965, at a time when one really did have to argue for Nietzsche’s place as a canonical philosopher rather than just a brilliant writer, bombastic iconoclast, or politically-dangerous driver of the pre-war German Zeitgeist. Even if somewhat dated, his book… show more.