Mike Cernovich considers the question: which book should you read first? Gorilla Mindset or Danger & Play?
A lot of people ask me whether they should read Gorilla Mindset or Danger & Play: Mike Cernovich’s Guide to Life first. It’s a complicated question, so here’s the short answer:
- If you are over 18 and enjoy edgier content, read Danger & Play first.
- If you’re under 18 or want a more accessible, helpful version of me, then read Gorilla Mindset first.
Every man, woman, and child can benefit from Gorilla Mindset. Danger Play is for dominant adult men and the women who want to understand their mindset. Gorilla Mindset is my general interest book.
Women read Gorilla Mindset. Aggressive alpha men read Gorilla Mindset. Teenagers read it. You could bring Gorilla Mindset to church. There’s zero politics in it. You wouldn’t know which political candidate I support.
Danger & Play is my edgier, aggressive book.
Long-time blog readers prefer Danger & Play to Gorilla Mindset. That doesn’t mean one book is better than the other. As Vox Day observed in his review of Danger & Play:
It’s not a book you would necessarily want to give to a young man under the age of 18. The saltiness and worldliness of the book is not inappropriate, nor is it particularly offensive by modern standards, but it does tend to preclude giving it to teenagers or putting it in your local school library. I didn’t hesitate to have my son read Gorilla Mindset, I would probably wait until he was 18 or 19 to have him read Danger & Play: Essays on Embracing Masculinity.That’s a fair criticism, and indeed Danger & Play is a niche book.
Actually, it’s not criticism at all. It’s just aimed at a different, more specific, and older market. I would recommend starting with Gorilla Mindset because it is less personal and more practical. It’s advice for your life. Danger & Play, on the other hand, helps you better understand the author of Gorilla Mindset, how he originally derived and developed its lessons, and how he has applied them in his life. In other words, the latter provides a deeper understanding of the former, therefore the former should be read first.