The 2024 Holiday MBTI Book Gift Guide

Books to give each personality type, according to them.

Hi, it’s almost time for the holidays! Every year, I love to give gifts, including books, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out what books folks would actually like to read. Myers Briggs type theory is something I use in my own life to better match people with gifts, so I thought I’d share my thinking with you, too.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test and system developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, based partly on Carl Jung’s book, Psychological Types (1921). I was tested and trained in the method during my time in the U.S. Department of State, and it’s one of my special interests. It’s also the most widely used personality theory in the world. I love typing people and thinking about the different types, and I’m often able to type people correctly by observing them.

While I can’t offer a whole primer on MBTI, there are plenty of free places to learn about it online, and if you don’t know your type, you can take this free test, and send it to others to learn their type. It is the most accurate free test I’ve found online: Open Psychometric MBTI Jungian Test.

To make this book gift list, I spoke with people with different MBTI types about the books they’ve really enjoyed. Amazingly, I was able to dig up suggestions from all 16 types! So, I feel confident that this list contains an excellent book gift for every main character in your life. This isn’t speculation. This is straight from the different types.

Some types have more books listed than others, because those types gave me more books. This likely also reflects how certain types read far more than other types.

Enjoy!

MBTI Type Letter Key:

I = Introverted

E = Extroverted

S = Sensing

N = Intuitive

T = Thinking

F = Feeling

P = Perceiving

J = Judging

1. Guardians (Sentinels) SJs:

ISTJ

The quiet, focused, intelligent, and dutiful, ISTJs love novels with classic protagonists, strong heros, historical significance, and deep social meaning, such as Trust by Hernan Diaz or Normal People by Salley Rooney. They like family dynamics, social hierarchy tales, and sweeping sagas like Pride and Prejudice, The Hunger Games, or The Royals.

They also like poetic and historical books, such as Just Kids, by Patti Smith and The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, as well as westerns and police dramas. They are guardians of order and like a police procedural as well.

Finally, ISTJs like reading about the market, productivity systems, and history. Try, The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham or Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.

ISFJ

Surprisingly, I find this type loves reading about characters quite unlike them who enter into dramatic and chaotic situations where they’d never want to go in real life. Escapist readers because their lives are so practical and organized.

Book pics for this type:

State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

Acid Christmas, by moi, Charlotte Dune!

ESTJ

This type loves order and magic systems, or books that systematically analyze history and culture.

Lord of the Rings, by JR Tolkien

Smart People Should Build Things, by Andrew Yang

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

ESFJ

These types like funny memoirs, sad novels, or social justice-oriented fiction and non-fiction.

Try:

House of the Spirit by Isabella Allende

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.

Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson

Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt

New Year Same Trash, by Samantha Irby

Any commercial fiction novel that makes it to a celebrity book club list can probably work for this type; they are avid and enthusiastic readers.

Just know that whatever you give them, they will likely re-gift it to someone else when they finish it. They love to spread happiness and gifts. Instead of buying themselves books, they check them out from libraries.

This type also loves rules and social conventions, so they may enjoy reading religious texts or religious pop-culture figure memoirs and books about whatever religion they follow, or self-help books on pop psychology or workplace issues, teaching, or human resources and management, so long as it isn’t dry or technical, but has personal stories.

2. Artisans (Explorers) SPs:

ISTP

This type isn’t usually a big reader of novels or books with lots of type. Get them a how-to-guide with lots of pictures, like a book of cool houses to build, including the blueprints and directions. Or something about how to survive alone in the wilderness, or how to make herbal remedies/grow plants.

Try:

The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing and Using Magic Mushrooms, by Dr. K Mandrake PhD (Author), Virginia Haze (Photographer)

or

How to Stay Alive: The Ultimate Survival Guide for Any Situation, by Bear Grylls

ISFP

This type loves photography, fashion, and music. Many like Taylor Swift, just get them her book.

The Official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book

Or try:

Lucky: A Novel (inspired by 2020 Album of the Year, Taylor Swift’s folklore, and the incredible true story of Rebekah Harkness) by Kristina Parro

Also, Kim Kardashian's book Selfish, that chronicles her selfies and outfits, or The Rhianna Book, a 500+ page Phaidon coffee table book of images of the artist from her childhood to present.

Or a fancy cookbook, like a vintage copy in good condition of Martha Stewart’s first book Entertaining.

Photography books and activity books, like coloring, crafts, origami, knitting, music, or tactile skill-building books are also good for this type.

ESTP

This type loves guns, humor, fitness, war, space war, conspiracy, politics, comedy, and history.

Anything by Jack Carr

Dune, by Frank Herbert

Future Crimes, by Marc Goodman

The Obstacle Is The Way, by Ryan Holiday

Basically, anything on Joe Rogan’s reading list.

ESFP

This type doesn’t read many books. They’re too busy LIVING. Get them a magazine with lots of pictures of expensive things they can dream of buying, or of high-end fashion or costumes. Try: Rob Report, Architectural Digest, Purple Magazine Fashion Edition, or a coffee-table book of all the Burning Man Art Cars:

Burning Man: Art on Fire: Revised and Updated Edition, by Jennifer Raiser

Joke books and children’s books can also work, especially if they have personal nostalgia for the gift recipient, like The Lorax, by Dr. Suess.

3. Idealists (Diplomats) NFs:

INFJ

I love these folks, but they’re also the most likely to be cult leaders, and thus like to read about cult leaders.

Try:

Cultish by Amanda Montell

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, by Carole Hooven

Or try a book by a known INFJ author:

Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn

Suing for Silence: Sexual Violence and Defamation Law by Mandi Gray

Curse and Cure: Magic for Real Life by Sabrina Scott

True Friends: A Revolutionary Approach to Cultivating Conscious Feminine Friendships by Rochanda Ferelli

INFJs also enjoy non-fiction books related to health, spirituality, utopia, and ideal lives/self-optimization.

INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving)

Love these folks a lot too. They’re so mystical. Anything about magic, eastern medicine, tarot, art, or poetics can work. Manga and graphic novels also.

Try:

H.R. Giger Tarot by Giger and Akron

Anything by Anias Ninn

The Magus by John Fowles

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Eastern Mind Western Body by Anodea Judith

ENFJ

I can’t really describe the taste of an ENFJ other than to say it’s unique and refined. ENFJs tend to read widely and have “good” taste and strong taste in books. They are the type to lead a public book club.

Here are some books an ENFJ friend said he loved:

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins

The Sea Wolf, by Jack London

The Story of my Boyhood and Youth by John Muir

Sailing Alone Around the World by Slocum

The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

The Things We Carry by Tim O’Brien

They say Obama is also this type, and he loved The Three-Body Problem Series by Cixin Liu, and also Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Another ENFJ author friend said this book changed her life:

Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea

ENFP

This type loves a good spicey novel, smart and funny romance, and they also seem to love my Psychedelic Love Series books!

Try:

Ice Planet Barbarians, by Ruby Dixon (get the newer, art covers because the old ones are SOOOO trashy)

or

Cactus Friends, by moi, Charlotte Dune

Anything about decadent male rock stars is also good. I’d recommend Russell Brand’s books, but he’s really taken such a turn that we sadly can’t recommend him anymore! Ugh!

This type also sometimes struggles with excess/addiction more than other types, and enjoys laughing out loud, so you could try: Dry Humping by Tawny Lara.

4. Rationals (Analysts) NTs:

INTJ

Ahh the INTJs. I love them, but they also drive me crazy. Crazy with love. They are all logic. No romance novels for them.

Try:

The Conquest of Gaul, by Jane P. Gardner (Editor, Introduction), S. A. Handford (Translator)

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

Any book from The Culture Series, such as Player of Games, by Ian Banks

Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World by Robert Anton Wilson

Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows

Give them something Elon Musk would read. Sci-fi or dystopian classics for novels. Anything about power or complex systems can work for non-fiction.

INTP

INTPs sometimes don’t read much. Others read more. Many like twisting and intricate portal fiction. LitRPG. Deep snark. Edgy. Classics. Hyper-intellectual. Also, manga and graphic novels with unique plots. Photography books by very-famous-but-only-in-art-circles niche photographers. Elegant art books can work too. Anything complex. Anything with a jagged edge. Hard and soft. Dark and light. Complexity, complexity, complexity. Layers. Essays by Susan Sontag. Plato.

Novels, especially ones with brooding or depressed characters can work too. My INTP friend said he saw himself in my main character, Saman, from my novel Mushroom Honeymoon.

Another said, Dune, by Frank Herbert, was his favorite book of all time. This is on the list twice, and I think it shows how true bestsellers cross personality types. All types will find something they love in Dune, probably.

INTPs have a particular affinity for world fiction and Russian, Japanese, and Chinese books especially,

Another said—transmigration sagas like— Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Twisting non-fiction historical analysis is good as well, as long as it’s about big ideas, like Generations by William Strauss.

The Idiots by Dostoevsky. Anything long and Russian.

Psychology books. Original works by Carl Jung, like Man and His Symbols.

Anything analyzing major religions. Original religious texts.

ENTJ

ENTJs don’t read many books because they’re too busy being the BOSS and they don’t like clutter. Skip the book and get them a gift certificate to a restaurant, private club, or a cigar bar with a library aesthetic.

And if they do read a book, it will be something they “think” they should read, like 48 Laws of Power or How to Win Friends and Influence People, or Start with Why, but as they’re reading it, they’ll think it’s a waste of time to be reading it, and that they already knew the information in the book, that it was so obvious. They may not finish reading it because they have better things to do.

ENTP

Last but not least, my personality type! The sometimes hated, sometimes confusing, but also loved, ENTP.

I like complex ideas. I like drama and chaos. I like spice and trying on different identities, chewing on problems, and feeling smart. I like to think about the future and endless possibilities. Large ensemble casts. Also snarky. Also laughter.

You can give an ENTP pretty much any book and we’ll like it as we are loyal to no genre. We want to experience the best of every genre.

But here are my favorite book picks that I read this year in case you have an ENTP in your life:

The Singularity is Nearer When We Merge with AI, by Ray Kurzweil (futuristic possibilities)

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner. (High brow and trying on different identities, laughter, assholes, villains, more assholes, French assholes, toxic men, feminine rage)

Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium by Erik Davis. (This is a coffee table book of LSD Art. Fun times)

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaurd (Large ensemble/big ideas)

Scammer by Caroline Calloway (because we love Adderall, novel word combinations, grifters and shit disturbers, pop culture, unique objects, special hard to get gifts, 1 of 1s, stickers, numbered items, snark, bad words, whoring, and expensive limited editions)

Some Like it Darker, by Stephen King (Twisty and dark, large ensemble, jumping around, Florida weirdness)

That’s all!

Now You

Do you know your type? What is it? Did you feel the book picks seemed accurate for your type?

What book do you find yourself gifting people?

What was your favorite book you read this year?

Please share this list with friends and family interested in personality type theory, and thanks for reading. If you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, good luck with your holiday gift giving preparations!

And thank you so much to everyone who sent in their favorite books. If I didn’t ask you, don’t be offended, I am just very over-represented in certain types of friends—the types that bond with ENTPs, and didn’t want to make the list too long for any one type.

Part two of my The Future of Death is Scheduled series will come out in January 2025, as I will be doing holiday vibes and a 2024 MABAM book roundup before the year ends.

Ciao for now!

XXXOOO

Charlotte Dune