Books like The Art of Seduction — picked by fans

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.

This was the book that kicked off my obsession with mind control, social psychology, and media hacking. Ryan Holiday is one of the modern era's best marketers, and he's a pretty great writer as well. When he ran the marketing at American Apparel (at twenty-something), he took hype to new heights.

A small list of some of his stunts: Hiring a porn star to pose in nothing but socks in an ad for a clothing company, secretly defacing his own clients' billboards to generate publicity, and provoking a famous Internet media startup legend to threaten to punch him in the face in order to drive up book sales.

In this book, he reveals all his tricks while delivering a scathing critique of the broken system that let him do what he did.

This book helps us understand why all the sheep around us are illogically but emotionally walking over the cliff into World War III.

We imagine ourselves as individual agents making our own free will choices, but actually, we are walking, talking bundles of feelings who desperately wish to be judged by other sheep as good members of a tribe. We move as a herd, and to war again the crowd is going. We chant, “Follow the Leader.” But we follow the followers.

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. 

This is another book that I discovered after seeing the TV show. The Netflix adaptation is fairly faithful to the text, but I still really enjoyed the novel because the writing is witty, clever, and beautifully paced in a way that makes you want to keep reading when you know you should turn out the light and go to sleep.

The little character quirks add realism and some much-needed light relief to a pretty dark story. For me, the scariest thing about this book is, even though our lead character goes to extreme lengths most of us would never even consider, the roots of his actions come from thoughts we’ve probably all had.

This book is about a young man and woman who had a chance encounter as university students and became close friends. This book follows a will-they-won’t-they trajectory and struck a deep chord with me because it shows how one serendipitous encounter can change your life forever and how relationships of all nature are dynamic, subject to ebb and flow. The differences in character between the protagonists—bookish, no-nonsense Emma and the laissez-faire playboy Dexter—also added to the dramatic and romantic tension.

This novel has a strange mix of lightness and depth that I found very satisfying. I also enjoyed the 2011 movie based on the book starring Anne Hathaway; it’s what drew my attention to the book in the first place.

If you want to read about how to make hype happen while making people happy, check out Shep Gordon’s autobiography. This book played a big part in making me realize that hype can be used as a force for good as well as evil. At the very least, it can add a whole lot of color to the world.

Shep Gordon had no connections and no money when he started out as a manager in the entertainment industry. But somehow, he managed to turn Alice Cooper into an international superstar, resurrect the career of a Vaudeville legend, and singlehandedly create the celebrity chef movement. This guy continues to inspire me. 

This one is a pure a page turner. It’s about a man named “Dr.” John R. Brinkley who became one of the richest people in the country by selling a procedure in which he transplanted goat testicles into healthy adult males. He was responsible for the deaths of nearly fifty people, came a few votes shy of becoming governor of Arkansas, and more or less invented modern marketing. What’s not to like?

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 researching Luck, I came across many books that claimed to teach the willing acolyte how to seize opportunity and how to maximise reward while minimising risk. This is the one that’s worth paying attention to. The Oracle is a collection of three hundred maxims for practical success, in condensed, often paradoxical form, written by a seventeenth-century Jesuit. Nietzsche said of it that "Europe has never produced anything finer or more complicated in matters of moral subtlety" and who’s going to argue with Nietzsche?