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Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, the author of Think Again and Give and Take, and — relevant here — one of the most prolific book-recommenders in all of nonfiction. He hosts the ReThinking podcast, writes the GRANTED newsletter, and co-founded the Next Big Idea Club with Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Pink. That makes him an unusually active reader, but it also makes him a careful case: authors send him books by the crate, and the many titles he blurbs are not the same as the ones he genuinely recommends. His real signal is his own curated lists — the seasonal round-ups where he says he screens out "what’s inaccurate, impractical, and uninteresting."
The reading underneath is squarely that of a behavioural scientist. His foundational influences are the psychologists who taught the field to argue from evidence — above all Daniel Kahneman, whom Grant treats as an intellectual hero, along with Carol Dweck and the storytellers who carried that science to a wide audience, Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis. He reads for the same thing he writes about: how people think, work, change their minds, and build cultures worth belonging to. The books below are the ones he has either named formative or personally chosen for his own recommendation lists — not the ones that merely arrived with his name on the cover.
Adam Grant’s recommendations trace a single intellectual lineage: the behavioural-science tradition that insists our intuitions are often wrong and that evidence, not confidence, should win. At its head is Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. Grant reveres Kahneman — the story of Kahneman happily abandoning a belief the moment the data turned against him is one of Grant’s favourite parables — and Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project, on Kahneman and Tversky’s partnership, is the human story behind that science. Carol Dweck’s Mindset supplies the other pillar: the idea that abilities can grow, which becomes, in Grant’s own work, the case for rethinking.
From that root his list branches in two directions. One is work, culture and belonging — Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code, which Grant told readers to "read it immediately," and Marissa King’s Social Chemistry on networks. The other is rethinking and range — David Epstein’s Range, which Grant strongly champions for its argument that breadth beats early specialisation, and Nine Lies About Work, which attacks comfortable management myths. Threaded through both is his admiration for writers who make social science gripping: Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers and Outliers, and beyond the reading list, his repeated praise for Michael Lewis as a storyteller.
What Grant’s reading reveals that an aggregator list cannot is discipline about his own influence. He recommends so much that the meaningful act is not praise but selection — the curated list where he deliberately screens books out. Read that way, his shelf is remarkably coherent: it is the syllabus of someone who believes the most important skill is the willingness to be wrong, and who reads, and recommends, in order to keep practising it. Even his outlier pick — Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction — fits, a reminder that the evidence, once you follow it honestly, does not always flatter us.
Michael Lewis tells the human story behind Kahneman — his partnership with Amos Tversky, the friendship that remade psychology.
From how we judge to whether we believe we can change — Dweck’s growth mindset, the seed of Grant’s own case for rethinking.
Epstein extends it — why breadth, sampling and rethinking beat early specialisation in a complex world.
Rethinking applied to groups — Coyle on how the best teams build the safety and belonging that let people take risks.
And the humility that ties it together — Gladwell on how badly we misread the people outside our own circle.
The book by the psychologist Grant treats as a hero — the foundation of behavioural science, and the source of his favourite parable about happily being proven wrong.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past DecadeDweck’s fixed-vs-growth mindset — a formative influence and the psychological seed of Grant’s own argument for rethinking.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past DecadeCain’s case for introverts — a formative influence and, in Cain, a close friend and Next Big Idea Club co-founder.
“This charming, gracefully written, thoroughly researched book is simply masterful.”BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past Decade
The Heath brothers on how change actually happens — Grant’s named all-time favourite on the subject.
“My all-time favorite book on change.”BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past Decade
Gladwell on the hidden advantages behind success — one of the storytellers who taught Grant how to carry research to a wide audience.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past DecadePink on why right-brained aptitudes matter more in a knowledge economy — a formative pick, and Pink a Next Big Idea Club co-founder.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The Most Influential Books of the Past Decade
Coyle on how the best teams build safety and belonging — one of Grant’s strongest personal endorsements.
“It blows all other books on culture right out of the water. Read it immediately.”WebsiteSource: Adam Grant — Wharton Magazine “Must-Read Books” (2017)
Kolbert on human-driven extinction — the outlier on his list, and proof he follows evidence even when it does not flatter us.
“I will never look at a golden frog the same way again.”WebsiteSource: Adam Grant — Wharton Magazine “Must-Read Books” (2017)
Epstein’s case that breadth beats early specialisation — a book Grant strongly champions and returns to often.
“A captivating read that will leave you questioning the next steps in your career—and the way you raise your children.”BlogSource: Adam Grant — The 19 New Leadership Books to Read in 2019
Michael Lewis on the Kahneman–Tversky partnership — the human story behind the behavioural science at the centre of Grant’s reading.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The 8 New Books to Read This Fall (2018)
Gladwell on how badly we misjudge people we do not know — a pick on his fall list and a Next Big Idea Club selection.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — New Fall Books on Behavioral Science, Leadership, and Life (2019)
A data-driven attack on comfortable management myths — the kind of assumption-checking Grant’s own work is built on.
BlogSource: Adam Grant — The 19 New Leadership Books to Read in 2019
Sonenshein on doing more with less — resourcefulness over resource-acquisition, a recommendation Grant has made repeatedly.
“A gifted thinker whose insights have sharpened my work for over a decade.”BookSource: Adam Grant — endorsement
King on the science of social networks — how the shape of your connections shapes your life and work.
“One of the most interesting and useful books ever written on networking.”BookSource: Adam Grant — endorsement
His genuine recommendations come from his own curated lists — his seasonal LinkedIn and GRANTED newsletter round-ups, his 2017 Wharton Magazine must-reads, and his 2014 list of the decade’s most influential books. Standouts include Thinking, Fast and Slow, Mindset, Range, The Culture Code and Talking to Strangers.
Daniel Kahneman. Grant treats him as an intellectual hero and cites Thinking, Fast and Slow constantly; one of his favourite stories is Kahneman cheerfully abandoning a belief the instant the evidence turned against it — the essence of Grant’s own idea of rethinking.
He avoids a single answer, but he has named Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch his all-time favourite book on change, and told readers to "read it immediately" about Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code. His deepest influence is Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.
No — and the distinction matters. Grant blurbs a huge number of books, and many "Adam Grant recommends" lists online simply collect those blurbs. His real signal is his curated seasonal and most-influential lists, where he deliberately screens books out. This page prioritises those.
The behavioural-science tradition it grows from: Kahneman on how we misjudge, Carol Dweck’s Mindset on the belief that we can change, and Philip Tetlock’s work on forecasting and updating — all part of the case that the key skill is the willingness to be wrong.