“The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics”

is the ultimate cheat sheet for aspiring autocrats and a brutally honest exposé for everyone else. Forget grand ideologies or lofty speeches—this book lays bare the cynical, transactional mechanics of power: rule is about rewarding cronies, punishing the disloyal, and milking the system before anyone flips the table. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith don’t just describe dictatorship—they reverse-engineer it with the flair of political engineers dismantling a corrupt machine. With sharp wit and a tone that’s equal parts academic and villain’s manual, The Dictator’s Handbook shows that tyranny isn’t a bug in the system—it is the system, just optimized for a smaller audience. For Tyrants and Saints, it’s essential reading: a darkly funny mirror held up to history’s worst (and unfortunately, most effective) leadership hacks.

“How Democracies Die” 

is the political horror story you didn’t know you were already living in. Part history lesson, part warning siren, Levitsky and Ziblatt dissect how democracies crumble—not with tanks in the streets, but with slow, legal rot from within. With unnerving precision, they show how elected leaders chip away at democratic norms using charm, laws, and just enough plausible deniability to keep the masses distracted and the constitution bleeding quietly in the corner. This book doesn’t preach—it autopsies, tracking the decay of institutions across time and borders with the grim curiosity of political coroners. For Tyrants and Saints, it’s a perfect counterpart to The Dictator’s Handbook: where that one teaches you how to seize power, this one shows you how to lose your freedom one democratic vote at a time.

“1984”

1984 by George Orwell isn’t just a novel—it’s a user manual for tyrants with a flair for branding. With chilling foresight and razor-sharp satire, Orwell paints a world where truth is whatever the Party says it is, language is weaponized into Newspeak, and your own thoughts can betray you (better smile while reading this). It’s not just fiction—it’s a grim prophecy that dictators keep plagiarizing with terrifying enthusiasm. Surveillance, censorship, revisionist history, and the systematic erosion of reality itself—1984 distills the emotional and psychological toolkit of totalitarianism into a bleak, unforgettable masterpiece. For Tyrants and Saints, Orwell’s dystopia is essential reading: a haunting reminder that the scariest part of dictatorship isn’t just the brutality—it’s how normal it can start to feel.

“The Origins of Totalitarianism“

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt is the intellectual equivalent of pulling back the curtain and finding not just one wizard, but an entire machinery of madness behind modern tyranny. With devastating clarity, Arendt traces how totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia didn’t just rise—they were built, brick by ideological brick, on racism, bureaucracy, propaganda, and the systematic destruction of truth and individuality. It’s dense, yes—but so is a neutron star, and just as powerful. Arendt doesn’t offer easy answers; she offers the uncomfortable realization that totalitarianism isn’t a freak historical accident—it’s what happens when the right cocktail of fear, isolation, and political apathy ferments long enough. For Tyrants and Saints, it’s the philosophical backbone: the slow-burn origin story of how ordinary societies become complicit in their own undoing.

“Save the Cat!“

Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder is like auto-tune for screenwriting—especially for musicians who’ve never written a script but know how to hit a beat. With swagger, simplicity, and zero patience for pretension, Snyder breaks story structure down into catchy, repeatable hooks: the “Save the Cat” moment, the 15-beat blueprint, and just enough Hollywood lingo to make you sound like you know what you’re doing at brunch. For musicians, it’s a fast track from verse-chorus-bridge to setup-conflict-resolution. Think of it as the songwriting manual of screenwriting—structure, pacing, rhythm, and emotional payoff, but for the screen instead of the stage. For Tyrants and Saints, it’s the backstage pass that helps turn ideas into scenes, solos into story arcs, and chaotic brilliance into something a director might actually greenlight.

“Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting“

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field is the classical sheet music of the screenwriting world—less rockstar, more conservatory, but essential if you want to play in key. For musicians stepping into storytelling, this is where you learn the disciplined structure behind the drama: acts, plot points, character arcs, and why your brilliant third-act twist only works if you earned it in act one. Field doesn’t care about your vibes—he cares about your setup, confrontation, and resolution. This book teaches you how to compose a screenplay the way you’d compose a symphony: with intention, tempo, and thematic development. For Tyrants and Saints, it’s the formal training that transforms raw creative energy into a script that sings (and actually makes sense on screen).

“The Brain: The Story of You“

The Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman is a dazzling backstage tour of the three-pound survival machine in your skull—and it doesn’t always have truth at the top of its to-do list. Eagleman unpacks how evolution didn’t optimize us for reason or objectivity, but for staying alive in small tribal groups where being liked often mattered more than being right. Our brains are wired to mirror, conform, and please—because for most of human history, exile meant death. The result? We instinctively seek belonging over truth, safety over facts, applause over accuracy. In Tyrants and Saints, this insight hits hard: it’s not just that dictators lie—it’s that our brains are built to go along with them if it keeps us inside the circle. Eagleman shows us that the real puppeteer might not be the tyrant—but the ancient group-survival code still running silently in our heads.