5 book recommendations from Casey Neistat

Books about philosophy, history, and lifelong learning

Jul 30, 2025

Your time is precious, so I’ll keep this short.

If you don’t know Casey Neistat, he’s a filmmaker and YouTuber who has 12.6 million subscribers and 3.2 billion views across his 1,100+ videos.

Here’s 5 books he recommends.

1) The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Icons of history — from Epictetus and Demosthenes to Amelia Earhart and Richard Wright — followed a simple formula to achieve greatness.

They were not exceptionally brilliant, lucky, or gifted. Their success in overcoming extreme obstacles was the result of a timeless set of philosophical principles that the greatest men and women have always pursued.

In The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday unpacks those lessons and reframes them for today’s world, giving us an indispensable formula for turning our toughest trials into triumphs.

“Incredible book.” – Casey Neistat

2) Think Again by Adam Grant

Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.

In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We think too much like preachers defending our sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, and politicians campaigning for approval — and too little like scientists searching for truth.

With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, Adam Grant investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners.

“I’m a big fan of Adam Grant, his new book is fantastic.” – Casey Neistat

3) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune — and control of the OASIS itself.

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on — and the only way to survive is to win.

“Incredible. Will go down as one of the greats.” – Casey Neistat

4) The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine.

He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.

For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war.

“Absolutely fantastic book. Super recommend if you’re into spycraft and espionage.” – Casey Neistat

5) It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden

A pocket ‘bible’ for the talented and timid to make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible.

Paul Arden offers up his wisdom on issues as diverse as problem solving, responding to a brief, communicating, playing your cards right, making mistakes, and creativity.

“A magnificent book.” – Casey Neistat