Derek Thompson Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.

Derek Thompson on X

Derek Thompson is a journalist. Writer @TheAtlantic. "Plain English" podcast host @Ringer. Mondays on NPR's @hereandnow. Co-writing a book about abundance.

12 books

Sabbath's Theater: National Book Award Winner

Philip Roth

Derek Thompson

If Philip Roth's estate goes through Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater and takes out all the references to onanism to increase sales in high school, I am not going to say "woke much?" I'm going to say "that's fucking stupid and have fun getting haunted by Roth's dybbuk"

Paperback, 1996

$19.00$9.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Derek Thompson

5) Flow, via the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is probably the most true concept in the field of work psychology. We feel happiest when our “body or mind is stretched to its limits in a VOLUNTARY effort to accomplish something DIFFICULT and WORTHWHILE.” https://t.co/gKWVMwTtPq

Paperback, 2008

$18.99$9.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth

Derek Thompson

Paperback, 1994

$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

Tony Fadell

Derek Thompson

Not to be captured by the latest book I opened, but BUILD by Tony Fadell shows how many pocket computer devices failed in the 1990s and 2000s before the iPod & iPhone sold by the zillions. Experimentation in the absence of easy monetization created discipline and market fit.

Hardcover, 2022

$35.00$17.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Hercule Poirot: The Murder on the Links

Agatha Christie

Derek Thompson

@bykevinclark somebody better be busy photoshopping a hercule poirot mustache on Brian rn because this is some grade-a agatha christie shit

Paperback, 2021

$5.90$2.95 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

David Graeber

Derek Thompson

@RogueWPA possibly related to the latter: david graeber (rip) wrote a very fun book about bullshit jobs that was marketed and held up as an anti-capitalist tract but all the best examples were about esoteric public university administrative positions, which ... like, uh?

Paperback, 2019

$19.99$9.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, Volume 1: From Antiquity to 1881

Jason Thompson

Derek Thompson

@eric_young_1 @Jason google "Plain English with Derek Thompson" and listen wherever ya like!

Paperback, 2020

$29.95$14.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book

The Passenger Box Set: The Passenger, Stella Maris

Cormac McCarthy

Derek Thompson

I have a very hot-cold relationship with finishing novels. I basically either quit after ~50 pages or fall deeply in love. The new Cormac McCarthy books did a number on me, got into my skin unlike anything I've read in years. I don't think I've ever enjoyed stranger novels.

Mixed Media Product, 2022

$56.00$31.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book(max discount $25)

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Ethan Kross

Derek Thompson

New pod: Why the voice inside your head can be such a jerk https://t.co/tsFZdWnTXv I talked to Ethan Kross, author of the international bestseller CHATTER, about the science of anxiety, the scientific origins of our inner monologue, and how to befriend the voice in your head

Paperback, 2022

$19.00$9.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Wyomings

Justin Armstrong

Derek Thompson

Last year, the metros of - NYC - LA - Chicago - Miami - Boston - Seattle - SF - San Diego - MSP - Philly - D.C. all shrank, by a combined 900k ppl—or approx 1.5 Wyomings. https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/metro-areas-shrinking-population-loss/629665/ https://t.co/aAuuaPKUF4

Paperback, 2018

$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book