Books like Confessions

01

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl · Psychology

Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the psychological theory he developed from that experience.

A kindred philosophy read.

02

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius · Philosophy

Meditations is not a book Marcus Aurelius wrote for anyone to read.

A kindred philosophy read.

03

The Perennial Philosophy

Aldous Huxley · Religion & Spirituality

The Perennial Philosophy is Aldous Huxley's anthology and commentary on the mystical traditions of the world, arguing that behind the diversity of religious forms lies a single metaphysical core: the divine ground or ultimate reality is one; the human soul contains a spark of this reality; the purpose of human existence is to realize this identity; and the path to that realization requires ego-transcendence through contemplation, virtue, and love.

A kindred philosophy read.

04

Being and Nothingness

Jean-Paul Sartre · Philosophy

Being and Nothingness is Sartre's major philosophical treatise and the founding text of French existentialism.

A kindred philosophy read.

05

The Consolations of Philosophy

Alain de Botton · Philosophy

The Consolations of Philosophy takes six Western philosophers — Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche — and applies each to a particular kind of human suffering.

Both dig into self-examination.

06

The Masnavi, Book One

Jalal al-Din Rumi · Philosophy

The Masnavi is Jalal al-Din Rumi's masterwork, a six-book poem composed in Persian in the thirteenth century.

Both dig into divine love.

07

A Mind for Numbers

Barbara Oakley · Self-help

A Mind for Numbers is Barbara Oakley's guide to learning hard subjects effectively, written primarily for students struggling with mathematics and science but drawing on cognitive science principles that apply to any demanding field.

Both dig into memory.

08

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway · Memoir

A Moveable Feast is Hemingway's posthumously published account of his years in Paris during the 1920s, when he and his first wife Hadley lived cheaply in Montparnasse while he apprenticed himself to the work of becoming a writer.

Both dig into memory.

09

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Timothy Snyder · History

Bloodlands is Timothy Snyder's account of the territories between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union — principally Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states — where the two regimes' violence overlapped between 1933 and 1945.

Both dig into memory.

10

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Susannah Cahalan · Memoir

Brain on Fire is Susannah Cahalan's account of the month she spent in a New York hospital in 2009, during which she experienced psychosis, paranoia, violent behavior, catatonia, and seizures — and was nearly committed to a psychiatric facility before a doctor correctly diagnosed her with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a newly described autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the brain.

Both dig into memory.

11

Educated: A Memoir

Tara Westover · Memoir

Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.

Both dig into memory.

12

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

Gabriel Wyner · Language

Fluent Forever is Gabriel Wyner's system for teaching yourself a foreign language and, crucially, retaining it.

Both dig into memory.