11 min read
8 chapters
Being Mortal
Atul Gawande · 2014
A surgeon confronts the one problem medicine keeps failing at, not death itself, but how we live all the way to the end.
Health books
Food, sleep, movement, and longevity — what the research says and what to do on a Tuesday.
The shelf
Every title below carries a note on why it earns its place. Read or listen to any of them in the Clif app.
8 min read
8 chapters
Born to Run
Christopher McDougall · 2009
Famous narrative on natural running and human endurance that inspires practical movement habits.
9 min read
9 chapters
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
James Nestor · 2020
Bestselling, vivid exploration of how nasal and slow breathing improve health, with actionable techniques.
11 min read
9 chapters
Burn
Herman Pontzer · 2021
The book that proves you can't outrun your fork, and explains exactly why you should still lace up your shoes anyway.
11 min read
10 chapters
Eat, Move, Sleep
Tom Rath · 2013
Bite-sized, evidence-based health micro-habits across diet, activity, and sleep, ideal for summarizing.
11 min read
8 chapters
Exercised
Daniel E. Lieberman · 2020
A Harvard evolutionary biologist dismantles gym guilt by proving your urge to skip the workout is ancient wisdom, and why you should override it anyway.
11 min read
8 chapters
Fiber Fueled
Will Bulsiewicz · 2020
A gastroenterologist makes the radical case that the single most powerful health lever isn't protein, fat, or calories, it's how many different plants you eat.
11 min read
9 chapters
Glucose Revolution
Jessie Inchauspé · 2022
The rare wellness book that lets you keep the pasta and the dessert, then shows you, with squiggly before-and-after graphs, exactly how to eat them.
9 min read
10 chapters
Good Calories, Bad Calories
Gary Taubes · 2007
Influential, widely cited deep dive into carbs, fat, and metabolism that reshaped diet debates.
8 min read
9 chapters
Grain Brain
David Perlmutter · 2013
Bestselling, debate-sparking book on carbs, gluten, and brain health with a clear dietary program.
8 min read
8 chapters
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ
Giulia Enders · 2014
Bestselling, accessible tour of the gut and microbiome with practical digestive-health takeaways.
8 min read
9 chapters
How Not to Die
Michael Greger · 2015
Widely read evidence-based guide on foods that prevent the leading causes of death, highly actionable.
9 min read
10 chapters
How Not to Diet
Michael Greger · 2019
Evidence-packed, highly practical guide to sustainable weight loss from a well-known author.
11 min read
9 chapters
Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive
Philipp Dettmer · 2021
The clearest map ever drawn of the invisible system that decides whether you live or die every single day.
9 min read
8 chapters
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Michael Pollan · 2008
A modern classic distilling eating into simple, memorable rules that summarize perfectly.
9 min read
8 chapters
Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To
David Sinclair · 2019
Popular, well-known longevity book presenting the science of aging with diet, fasting, and exercise levers.
11 min read
9 chapters
Move: The New Science of Body Over Mind
Caroline Williams · 2021
Modern, well-reviewed look at how movement shapes mood and health, with clear behavioral takeaways.
9 min read
9 chapters
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
Peter Attia · 2023
Major modern bestseller laying out a practical framework for extending healthspan, not just lifespan.
11 min read
9 chapters
Roar
Stacy T. Sims (with Selene Yeager) · 2016
The book that refuses to let women train and eat like scaled-down men, and hands them their own physiological operating manual instead.
11 min read
8 chapters
Salt Sugar Fat
Michael Moss · 2013
The investigation that shows your cravings aren't a willpower failure, they're a product spec, optimized by scientists and locked in by Wall Street.
11 min read
9 chapters
Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success
Shawn Stevenson · 2016
The most practical sleep manual out there, it turns "get more rest" into 21 specific things you can change tonight.
10 min read
9 chapters
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
John Ratey · 2008
The well-known case for exercise as a tool for mental and cognitive health, motivating and actionable.
12 min read
9 chapters
The 4-Hour Body
Timothy Ferriss · 2010
A relentless self-experimenter proves that reshaping your body is less about willpower and more about finding the one small input that changes everything.
9 min read
8 chapters
The Blue Zones
Dan Buettner · 2008
Iconic study of the world's longest-lived people, offering nine concrete lifestyle lessons to copy.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Body
Bill Bryson · 2019
A head-to-toe tour of the astonishing machine you live inside, and a reminder of how much of it still runs, and fails, beyond our understanding.
10 min read
9 chapters
The China Study
T. Colin Campbell · 2005
Hugely influential, well-known argument for whole-food plant-based eating backed by large-scale data.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Circadian Code
Satchin Panda · 2018
A leading circadian scientist proves that when you eat, sleep, and see light can matter as much as what you eat, and that a simple daily eating window may be the most powerful health lever you have.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Complete Guide to Fasting
Jason Fung with Jimmy Moore · 2016
A Toronto kidney specialist rehabilitates humanity's oldest healing tradition, arguing that when you eat matters as much as what you eat, and that lowering insulin, not counting calories, is the real key to fat loss.
9 min read
9 chapters
The Diabetes Code
Jason Fung · 2018
Popular, clear guide to preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes through diet and fasting.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Emperor of All Maladies
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2010
The rare science epic that reads like a novel, with cancer itself cast as the doomed, brilliant, endlessly adaptive protagonist.
9 min read
9 chapters
The Obesity Code
Jason Fung · 2016
Popular reframing of weight gain around insulin and fasting, with a clear practical protocol.
10 min read
10 chapters
The Plant Paradox
Steven Gundry · 2017
Widely known bestseller on lectins and diet with a concrete, much-debated eating plan to summarize.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time
Arianna Huffington · 2016
Huffington turns her own collapse-from-exhaustion into a full-scale case that sleep deprivation is not a badge of ambition but the quiet tax on your health, judgment, and joy.
9 min read
9 chapters
The Sleep Solution
W. Chris Winter · 2017
Practical, popular sleep doctor's guide full of actionable fixes for insomnia and better rest.
9 min read
10 chapters
The Telomere Effect
Elizabeth Blackburn · 2017
Nobel laureate's accessible book on telomeres and the daily habits that slow cellular aging.
11 min read
8 chapters
This Is Your Brain on Food
Uma Naidoo · 2020
A Harvard nutritional psychiatrist proves your gut and brain are one conversation, and shows exactly which foods calm anxiety, lift depression, and sharpen focus.
12 min read
8 chapters
Ultra-Processed People
Chris van Tulleken · 2023
A doctor eats 80% ultra-processed food for a month, watches his own brain and body change, and proves the problem isn't your willpower, it's a category of food engineered to be overeaten.
10 min read
9 chapters
Why We Sleep
Matthew Walker · 2017
The definitive popular science case for sleep as the foundation of health, with concrete habits readers can apply.
9 min read
8 chapters
Younger You
Kara Fitzgerald · 2022
Accessible program on reversing biological age through diet and lifestyle, concrete and summarizable.
Start with one idea worth keeping.
Take the 2-minute quiz and we’ll hand you a real insight from one of these books — yours to keep, no card required.