3-Bullet Summary
You’ll benefit more from reading the article the whole way through. But, if you’re pressed for time, here’s a condensed version of The 7 Essential Books for Students Who Want Top Grades:
- A simple Google search for the best books for students produces so many conflicting results, most of which aren’t even helpful.
- See, books are hit or miss. Some are lifechanging, others aren’t useful for students at all.
- As a result, this resource was put together to reveal the books that have worked for me as a student, as well as the students I tutor and coach. Click the links below to be taken straight to…
- The Best Book for Effective Studying
- The Best Book for Better Focus
- The Best Book for Getting Work Done
- The Best Book for Levelling Up your Health
- The Best Book for Finally Fixing Your Sleep
- The Best Book for Making Friends and Building a Social Circle
- The Best Book for Building a Bulletproof Mindset and Succeeding after Education
- *Bonus* The Best Book for Students Overall
So Much Choice...
You’ve had enough.
No more doom scrolling through Instagram and TikTok; it’s time to read a book. Everyone tells you that reading’s good for you, so you’re finally taking action.
However, you quickly realise something.
You don’t have a clue what to read.
I mean there’s just so much choice. One simple Google search reveals books on studying, productivity, exercise, relationships, cooking, 50 Shades of Grey.
But which ones are actually worth your time and money?
Which books are going to move the needle, keep you hooked and stop you from doing unproductive things in your free time?
Introduction
Reading is one of those things.
You know it’s going to improve your life, but you really can’t be asked to do it.
I used to feel this way. When I was younger, I used to consume books like the average Westerner consumes KFC and Pepsi. However, when I got into my later years of secondary school, I basically stopped.
I didn’t want to seem like a ‘nerd’, so I just followed the crowd. Trendy video games, social media memes and phone apps became my reality for years, allowing me to fit in with my classmates and ‘friends’.
That was until I picked up a book that actually changed my life forever…
To cut a long story short, the author basically instilled me with a core value, no better summarised than by one of my favourite quotes of all time:
"[M]ajority thinking yields mediocrity, and for that majority, time is an asset that is undervalued and mindlessly squandered."
Stings, doesn’t it?
From that point on, I stopped wanting to be normal. I ditched the video games and social media and replaced my time spent on them with reading.
Sure, I lost a few friends who I only connected with through technology, but in my final year of sixth form, I came out with three A*’s. I literally couldn’t have done any better.
Reading will level up your life. However, some books are better than others.
That’s why we’re going to cover the 7 most important books for students.
I’m going to walk you through my favourite books for the key areas of student life — the ones that have blown my mind and provided life-changing lessons that boosted my grades when I implemented them.
As a quick disclaimer, the images I show, as well as the titles of the books, are affiliate links. This basically means that if you take action (which I hope you do, as action breeds results), click on one of these links and buy any of these books, you’ll be supporting Strong Students at no extra cost.
Right, let’s get into it. Here are The 7 Essential Books for Students Who Want Top Grades!
If you take action and buy one book on the list, choose Make It Stick.
The book is essentially a guide to studying and revising properly. Mastering the principles the authors set out in the book had the biggest bearing on my grades, and those of the students I tutor, by far. In addition, because the principles are so effective, you’ll actually be able to study less whilst getting better grades.
“What are these principles?” you may ask.
Although there are several, the two most important ones are active recall and spaced repetition.
If you’ve read my ultimate guides to studying and revision, you’ll be familiar with these terms. In short, though…
- Active recall = retrieving information from your brain effortfully. E.g., covering up answers to questions and recalling them from memory.
- Spaced repetition = progressively studying information less as you get better at actively recalling it.
The authors tell you about how to integrate these principles into your study routine, basically giving you the cheat code to effective learning forever.
In essence, this book will literally revolutionise the way you approach your education. I strongly recommend it to any student wanting better grades.
I’d argue that one of the biggest problems students face is the ability to focus. In today’s society, we’re bombarded with flashy apps and notifications. They make doing the hard work very difficult, and quite literally foster addictions1.
Fortunately, there’s a skill that can be trained to combat this problem: Deep Work.
Cal Newport, the author, basically walks you through the specific steps you must take to win back your mind and start making progress. This includes things like environment design and dedicating specific blocks of your days to working in isolation with no distractions.
To illustrate the power of deep work, he also gives examples of successful people who’ve used it to great success.
I bet you didn’t know, for example, that J.K. Rowling booked herself into a 5-star luxury hotel in her hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, just to do deep work that she struggled to do at home.
I also bet you didn’t know that Bill Gates used to lock himself away in a cabin in the woods for ‘think weeks’, just so he could work undistracted.
If deep work is used by the likes of J.K. Rowling and Bill Gates to make millions, it’s good enough for you to get better grades.
Buy this book if you want next-level productivity.
There’s no better book for students wanting to get their sh*t together than The 4-Hour Work Week.
Tim Ferris essentially gives you a whistlestop tour of lifestyle design. This basically refers to the idea that your life isn’t fixed and you can pretty much live how you like with the right systems in place to support you.
My favourite part of this book, however, is the part on time management. Ferris walks you through two concepts that will give you the power to destroy deadlines in record time:
- Pareto’s law — in every realm of life, 20% of the actions yield 80% of the results.
- Parkinson’s law — the longer we have to do something, the longer we’ll take to do it.
Think about how powerful these two laws are for a second.
If you leverage Pareto’s law, you’ll identify the 20% of things getting you 80% of the results. This means you’ll cut out all the fluff from your life that isn’t doing anything for you.
If you leverage Parkinson’s law, then you’ll have less time to do things. Therefore, you’ll stop wasting so much time and procrastinating the 20% of things getting you 80% of the results.
Simply put, this book is freedom. It gives you the tools and mindsets you need to finally find the time in your life to do the things that matter.
Chances are, if you’re a student, you’re probably quite young. As a result, you also feel very self-conscious, particularly about the way you look.
By far the best way to combat this insecurity is to improve your physical appearance.
Fortunately, in Bigger Leaner Stronger (Thinner leaner Stronger, if you’re a female), Mike Matthews not only lays out the blueprint to an attractive physique, but also the exercise and nutrition habits that’ll allow you to sustain it for life.
In this book, you’ll learn the ins and outs of the fundamental principles that matter for sculpting a body. You won’t be living in a gym and eating bland foods. No. Instead, you’ll learn how to leverage resistance training and clean eating to build muscle and lose bodyfat.
The reason I’m so big on this book for students is because I believe, through years of research and personal experience, that a healthy body fuels performance in pretty much all areas of life, including your studies.
For example, research has literally shown that higher levels of physical fitness are significantly associated with higher grades2. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. To be fit and healthy, you need discipline — a trait that is also required to be an effective student.
So, if you want to finally look at yourself in the mirror with pride and build habits that’ll provide you with good health for a lifetime, Mike Matthews’ books are an excellent resource.
Once I read this book, I was so grateful for my parents sending me to bed at 9pm for my whole childhood.
Why We Sleep is the perfect combination between terrifying and actionable.
On the one hand, Matthew Walker tells you about all the dreadful things that happen when you don’t pay attention to your sleep. To list a few…
- You do worse in school
- You become less attractive
- Cancer and cardiovascular disease risk increases
- Your memory gets worse
- You’ll be more likely to crave unhealthy foods
On the other, he also provides a handful of science-based strategies to improve your sleep. If you want to learn more about them, follow this link.
The reason I think this book is so critical for students is for the simple reason that we don’t value sleep enough. Studies have shown that almost 60% of students suffer from poor sleep quality, and 7.7% meet all criteria of a genuine insomnia disorder3.
Considering all the downsides to not getting enough sleep, it’s wise to treat sleep with respect.
Buy this book if you want to stand out and thrive amongst the sleep-deprived crowd.
In video games, there’s a term called ‘overpowered’. It basically means that something is too effective.
When it comes to influencing people and getting them on your side, How to Win Friends and Influence People is overpowered.
The book goes over a set of timeless tactics that have been used for generations to persuade people to join and listen to you.
These tactics are basic, but they work super effectively. My favourite one is praise. Simply telling people that they’re doing something well has proven to be a powerful tool for getting people to want to talk to me. And, coming from someone who’s always been more introverted, this has been a gamechanger.
For students, however, the purpose of this book goes deeper. See, school, college, sixth form and university are all social jungles. You’re trying frantically to fit in and climb the social hierarchy. Yet, doing so can be really challenging, especially if you’re shy.
If you read this book, however, you’ll have no problems. Simply executing one or two of the principles laid out in this book every day will snowball into a tonne of positive relationships.
Carnegie even offers advice for getting your partner on your side, which most students are very concerned about.
All in all, if you want to beat loneliness and start forging relationships with people who you care about, this book is a no-brainer. It’s an essential book for students.
I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t include The Millionaire Fastlane on this list.
It is, by far, the book that has had the most impact on my life.
M.J. DeMarco essentially takes the blinkers off — the ones that have been distorting your picture of reality and encouraging you to be mediocre.
He argues that instead of taking the ‘Slowlane’ to wealth and saving up your whole life to retire when you’re old, you should take the ‘Fastlane’. By this, he means pursuing entrepreneurship and building a business that will give you freedom from a young age.
I appreciate that not everyone wants to do this. Some people are more than content with living a relatively normal life: getting a job, starting a family, etc.
However, what everyone can learn from this book is that time is precious. Stop wasting it on ‘hyperreality’ — meaningless distractions like social media, TV and the news are only there to keep you passive and weak. Channel your anger and energy towards things that matter to you; use the skills you’ve developed to better your life!
I also believe that everyone can learn from his advice on spending money. He insists that the majority of what you earn should be dedicated to building your skills and/or business. Only invest in stocks, index funds, cryptocurrency, etc. when you’re earning a lot of money, and don’t fall prey to splurging on materialistic goods and status symbols (designer clothes, financed cars, expensive technology, etc.).
In all honesty, it’s just a no-nonsense book. You’ll learn how to give value to society and increase how much you earn. You’ll understand that wealth doesn’t have to come from a brutal 9–5 job that you hate. Most importantly, you’ll realise that you’re wasting your life doing things that literally provide no benefit to you.
If you want to ditch the script and start living life rather than just drifting by, then I couldn’t offer you a better recommendation. As far as books for students go, this is one of the most important.
You came here for 7 books for students, but I’m giving you 8. (You can’t say I don’t love you.)
Every book on this list taught me something that I’ve used to great success. However, more than anything, these books showed me the impact of books for students.
As a result, I decided to write my own. It’s called The 10 Secrets of Strong Students. In it, I essentially boil down top grades to a set of just 10 core strategies. Each strategy is based off hours of brutal scientific research, as well as the hundreds of learning lessons I’ve taken from books on my student journey (especially the ones on this list 😉).
Moreover, every strategy…
- Is used in my daily life
- Got me and continues to get me really good results
- Is what I recommend to the students I coach and tutor
- Has gotten the students I coach and tutor really good results
This is the book that I needed most when I was a student not achieving their true potential. It’s literally the blueprint to getting the best grades possible, and setting yourself up for an amazing future.
And, to put a bow-tie on it, the book is totally *free*.
That’s right. For nothing more than an email address (so you can actually receive the ebook), you get access to thousands of hours of trial and error in the realm of student success.
So, if you’re a student who wants to genuinely to well and start levelling up your grades through proven strategies (for *free*), this is a top-tier resource.
Final Thoughts: The 7 Essential Books for Students Who Want Top Grades
As a young person, I believe one of the best habits you can get into is reading.
At this stage of life, you’re in a season of growth. You don’t know where you fit into society yet, nor which direction you want to steer your life in. You’re playing around with ideas and discovering what does and doesn’t work for you.
As a result, consuming information from those who are way more experienced than you is invaluable. You not only get to build your knowledgebase and learn skills, but you also equip yourself with the tools to take meaningful action that will produce real results.
That’s why I created this resource for you.
It’s a compilation of the books that have given me the highest return on investment in all the important areas of student life.
Make It Stick, for instance, taught me the value of active recall and spaced repetition, which have literally enabled me to cut my revision time in half whilst getting better grades.
Bigger Leaner Stronger, by contrast, taught me the core principles behind building a healthy body, as well as the habits I need to focus on to keep it for good.
I know it’s cliché, but you just don’t get taught this stuff in school. Books are like the bridge between where you are now and where you want to be. They’re a priceless source of knowledge, which, when coupled with action, will change your life forever.
Speaking of changing lives forever, maybe you could do that for someone you know by sharing this article with them? By simply hitting one of the icons below, you could be the engine that kickstarts someone’s journey towards becoming a happier, healthier and more successful person. (Think about how great you’d feel!)
Regardless, I hope you’ve gotten value from this resource. I’ve designed it in hopes that you become part of the 1% that take action and never look back.
Life can change fast, and a book could be all that it takes to ignite the flame.
Stay strong,
Sam.
Founder, Strong Students.
