Books Recommended by Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan is a popular American actor, comedian, and podcast host. He hosted a show entitled The Man Show with his friend Jimmy Kimmel. Also, they host a show together called 'Joe Rogan Experience' where he interviews famous personalities from around the world. In 2005, he became the host of Fear Factor-a reality TV show about the contestants who will perform stunts to avoid getting eliminated from the competition.

The Joe Rogan podcast is one of the hottest podcasts on iTunes, with hundreds of thousands of downloads every single day. While many people heard his name or know about him because he’s one of the funniest stand-up comedians ever, some might not know much about Joe Rogan.

Here are 4 books Joe Rogan recommends, with reviews from avid readers like me and you.

If you want to purchase any of the books listed below, click on the titles. They are affiliated links that will take you directly to the store.

The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes

Two books taken together offer adequate evidence that sugar addiction stands out above all other factors among multiple causes of chronic diseases that became epidemic in recent times.

Robert Lustig -- THE HACKING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

Gary Taubes -- THE CASE AGAINST SUGAR

Gary Taubes, as a journalist, demonstrates the best of objective science. Often a journalist makes the facts clearer than a scientist ever does. In his previous books, one stands out for public health relevance. That is WHY WE GET FAT.

Taubes makes a case for sugar as the main factor that, far above all else, is the reason we have epidemics of gout, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose, insulin resistance, diabetes, arterial disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and more. All of these are hormonally related to metabolic syndrome, the topic that put Lustig in the forefront of nutritional science. Taubes gives a historical background of opposing views fairly, with little condemnation, though much activity of sugar industry representatives could have been judged criminal.

Opposing views: "Chronic diseases are caused by overeating and under-activity. (more calories in than out.)" "Eat less and exercise more" has a history of failure, but heavily promoted by the industry with massive publicity efforts over many years. Some observers were not fooled, but they were few, and did not have the media presence of Frederick Stare and Ansel Keys.

My crude accusation: The industry-government-medical-media complex that tried to make sugar into a health food and denied its role in disease may have caused over 100,000,000 to die short of their normal life span, living their last years in misery. The death count and misery is rapidly growing even now.

Taubes quotes a reason for this opposition, other than self (selfish) interest: "As soon as we think we are right about something," as New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz noted in the 2010 book BEING WRONG, we narrow our focus, attending only to details that support our belief, or ceasing to listen altogether."

Fortunately, Gary Taubes understands this.

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell

Some may say “The Tipping Point” belabors the obvious, which is that things change, sometimes overnight. True, too true, but so what? Malcolm Gladwell, the master of popularized social research, makes us care about the mechanisms of seemingly abrupt shifts in the course of human events—such as why William Dawes’ midnight ride to warn that the British were coming didn’t start the American Revolution, but Paul Revere’s did. Turns out Revere’s personality helped his news galvanize patriots to pick up their rifles, while Dawes’ identical cry made people turn over and go back to sleep. Revere had two of the three traits Gladwell identifies as necessary to the spread of social trends: he was a Connector and a Maven. Revere had a vast rolodex of acquaintances in colonial Massachusetts and he knew everything there was to know about the nascent independence movement. He set the scene for resistance to the onmarching British, and a few local men of Gladwell’s third type, the Persuaders, finished the job of rallying the militias of Concord and Lexington.

Gladwell is adept at explaining the academic research that led to such popular ideas as “six degrees of separation” and relating such social science experimentation to his overall theme of how change happens. He goes deeply into the discoveries about learning that led to the success of “Sesame Street” and “Blue’s Clues”—these shows’ producers used the idea of “stickiness” to instill basic principles and values in pre-schoolers. The “broken windows” theory of policing gets a thorough explainer, including a side trip into how do-gooding seminarians can allow themselves to avoid being good Samaritans. Advertising is one of the great accelerators of trends, and Gladwell marshals a few Madison Ave. case studies to show how commercials tip us into parting with our hard-earned cash.

Absolutely painless learning is what Gladwell offers, with a side benefit of greater self-awareness.

The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle

This brilliantly written book is one of the most impactful I have read this year. Author Daniel Coyle has done an outstanding job of taking research into myelin, a substance that insulates nerve cells, and turning that scientific breakthrough knowledge into a prescription for achieving greatness in a variety of fields, from music to athletics to business.

Using powerful case studies, Coyle has identified three distinct key elements that determine how individuals achieve greatness: Deep Practice, Ignition, and Master Coaching.

Deep Practice involves short burst of energy - perfecting, identifying errors, repeating. Each time an individual - violinist, tennis player, soccer player - engages in this kind of Deep Practice, the nervous system generates new layers of myelin to further insulate and streamline the flow of electrical energy within neural synapses.

In order for an individual to have the motivation, persistence, and determination to engage in this level of Deep Practice, there needs to have been an Ignition event. In the case of Korean women who now dominate the LPGA, the igniting event was Se Ri Pak winning the McDonald's LPGA Championship in 1998, and becoming a visible symbol and role model for young Korean girls. Five years later - enough time for Deep Practice to have made a significant difference - Korean women began to dominate women's golf.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

This is not just a good book. This is an important book. One of the first things I realized in reading this book by Malcolm Gladwell is that his position is diametrically opposite from that of Dr. Ben Carson, who through his campaign for the presidency stated that "poverty is a state of mind." Carson emphasized that despite all odds he was able to pull himself out of poverty and become a neurosurgeon and accomplish the things he did.

Gladwell's book states early that success doesn't happen in a vacuum. It isn't based on intelligence, but on a variety of factors, and he uses multiple examples to demonstrate that we as a nation could have many more successful people in our country if we were to accept that it takes a village to make successes out of our children. In fact, he shows that hard work and opportunity in almost all cases are more important than intelligence.

One story tells of the Canadian hockey league and the fascinating statistic that the vast majority of all successful hockey players are born in January, February or March. Why? Because the cutoff date for signing children is January 1, and those born in the first three months have a distinct advantage in age, experience and size in relation to those they play against. That same cutoff date is used by other countries, such as the Czech Republic, for not only hockey but soccer as well, which means that children born in the later part of the year consistently are overlooked when it comes to team sports. It's a built-in bias.