Author Guide · Philosophy and Neuroscience
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The End of Faith, Sam Harris’s first book, spent 33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Harris, born in Los Angeles in 1967, had left Stanford in his second year, spent about eleven years largely abroad, studying meditation with Buddhist and Hindu teachers in India and Nepal, and only then finished a philosophy degree in 2000 and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at UCLA in 2009. His books move between those two worlds: arguments against religious faith, a science-based ethics, a short case that free will is an illusion, and a guide to meditation without religion. This guide covers his nine key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 key books · 2004–2020 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Sam Harris has published nine books, two of them co-written. The best known are The End of Faith (2004), The Moral Landscape (2010), Free Will (2012) and Waking Up (2014). Start with The End of Faith, the book that made his name; if you want something short first, Free Will runs to under 100 pages.
Where to Start with Sam Harris
If you want the book that made his name
→ The End of Faith (2004) — his case against religious faith.
If you want meditation without religion
→ Waking Up (2014) — his account of non-dual practice.
If you want a short book to try first
→ Free Will (2012) — 96 pages on why free will is an illusion.
If you want his ethics
→ The Moral Landscape (2010) — morality as a question about well-being.
9 Sam Harris Books, in Order
The End of Faith
Harris argues that religious faith, belief held without sufficient evidence, is dangerous in a world of modern weapons, and that religious moderates give cover to extremists by treating faith as beyond criticism. The book spent 33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
Letter to a Christian Nation
A short book addressed directly to Christians in the United States, taking on the claims that the Bible is the source of morality and that faith deserves respect in public life. It is the briefest and most direct statement of the argument of The End of Faith.
The Moral Landscape
Grown out of his 2009 UCLA doctoral dissertation, the book argues that questions of right and wrong are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures, and so have better and worse answers that science can in principle inform. He presented the idea in a TED talk the same year, “Science can answer moral questions”.
Lying
A short essay arguing that we should not lie, including the white lies most people consider harmless, because honesty makes relationships and institutions work better than the small comforts that lies buy.
Free Will
A 96-page argument that free will is an illusion: our thoughts and intentions arise from causes we did not choose and cannot see, so we are not the authors of our own will. Harris frames the question with the 2007 home invasion in Cheshire, Connecticut, and asks what the argument means for blame and punishment.
Waking Up
Drawing on his meditation practice and on neuroscience, Harris argues that the feeling of being a self inside the head is both an illusion and the main cause of human suffering, and that meditation can show this directly, without religious belief. He describes his own training in Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist practice, and also covers split-brain research, spiritual teachers and psychedelics. It reached No. 5 on the New York Times nonfiction list.
Islam and the Future of Tolerance
A conversation in book form between Harris and Maajid Nawaz, a British former Islamist who became a campaigner against extremism, on whether Islam can be reformed and how liberals should talk about Islamism and jihadism.
The Four Horsemen
The transcript of a filmed conversation between the four writers most associated with the so-called New Atheism, on faith, science and their critics.
Making Sense
A selection of conversations from his podcast, which began in 2013 as Waking Up and was later renamed Making Sense, with scientists and philosophers on consciousness, ethics, artificial intelligence and the future of humanity.
In What Order to Read Sam Harris
None of the books depends on another, so you can read by subject. Publication order does show a path: the first two books make the case against faith, The Moral Landscape offers what he would put in its place, Lying and Free Will test that ethics on two narrow questions, and Waking Up turns to the experience of the mind itself.
If religion is your interest, read The End of Faith, then Letter to a Christian Nation and Islam and the Future of Tolerance. If meditation is, Free Will and Waking Up belong together: the first argues that there is no author of your thoughts, the second claims you can notice this directly.
A reading path
1. Free Will (2012)
2. The End of Faith (2004)
3. The Moral Landscape (2010)
4. Waking Up (2014)
5. Making Sense (2020)
The years · 1967–2018
Quick facts about Sam Harris
- Known for
- Sam Harris is known for arguing that religious faith should be open to the same criticism as any other belief, for his case that free will is an illusion, and for teaching meditation without religion.
- 1967
- Born in Los Angeles
- 2004
- The End of Faith
- 2018
- Launches the Waking Up meditation app
- Born
- 9 April 1967, Los Angeles, California
- Family
- Son of the actor Berkeley Harris and the TV writer Susan Harris, creator of Soap and The Golden Girls
- Education
- BA in philosophy, Stanford (2000); PhD in cognitive neuroscience, UCLA (2009)
- Married
- The writer Annaka Harris, in 2004
- Podcast
- Waking Up from 2013, later renamed Making Sense
- Honours
- PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, for The End of Faith
The red mark is 2004: The End of Faith, his first book and his longest-running bestseller.
How Sam Harris Writes: Argument First
Harris writes as a debater. Each book takes one claim, that faith is dangerous, that morality is about well-being, that free will is an illusion, and pushes it as far as it will go, answering objections as he goes. The short books, Lying and Free Will, are essays of under 100 pages built around a single argument; Free Will opens by stating its conclusion.
His training is in philosophy and neuroscience, and both show. The Moral Landscape grew out of his doctoral dissertation, and his UCLA research used brain imaging to study belief, disbelief and uncertainty. He uses that science as evidence, and draws on thought experiments and hard cases, such as the Cheshire murders in Free Will, to make abstract questions concrete.
Waking Up adds a first-person register. Harris describes the non-dual practice he learned in Dzogchen: rather than concentrating on an object such as the breath, the meditator looks for the one who is meditating, and, on his account, finds no self there, only consciousness and its changing contents. He presents this as something anyone can check in their own experience, with no religious belief required. Since 2013 much of his work has moved to conversation, first on the podcast and from 2018 in his Waking Up app.
Watch
Science can answer moral questions
In his 2010 TED talk Harris argues that questions of value are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures, the idea he developed the same year in The Moral Landscape.
Frequently asked questions about Sam Harris’s books
How many books has Sam Harris written?
Nine, from The End of Faith (2004) to Making Sense (2020). Two are shared: Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015) with Maajid Nawaz, and The Four Horsemen (2019) with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. Five of his books have been New York Times bestsellers.
What are Sam Harris’s books in order?
The End of Faith (2004), Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), The Moral Landscape (2010), Lying (2011), Free Will (2012), Waking Up (2014), Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015), The Four Horsemen (2019) and Making Sense (2020).
Where should I start with Sam Harris?
The End of Faith, the book that made his name and the fullest version of his argument about religion. If you want something short first, Free Will is 96 pages; if meditation is your interest, go straight to Waking Up.
What is Sam Harris’s most famous book?
The End of Faith (2004), which spent 33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
What does Sam Harris say about meditation in Waking Up?
That the sense of being a self, a thinker behind your thoughts, is an illusion and the main source of suffering, and that meditation can show this directly. He describes non-dual practice in the Dzogchen tradition, in which you look for the self that seems to be looking and find only consciousness and what appears in it. He argues the experience is real and available to anyone, but proves nothing about God or the supernatural.
Does Sam Harris believe in free will?
No. In Free Will (2012) he argues that our thoughts and choices arise from prior causes we neither choose nor control, so free will is an illusion. He argues the point matters for how we think about blame and punishment.
Why is Sam Harris controversial?
Mainly for two things. First, his statements on Islam: in October 2014, on Real Time with Bill Maher, the actor Ben Affleck called his and Maher’s views on Muslims “gross” and “racist”, and Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald and Reza Aslan, among others, have accused him of Islamophobia. Harris answers that “my criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences”, not of Muslims as people. Second, his April 2017 podcast with Charles Murray on IQ and race: in Vox the psychologists Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden and Richard Nisbett accused him of promoting “pseudoscientific racialist speculation”. Harris said he invited Murray out of indignation at a violent protest against him at Middlebury College, not out of a particular interest in the subject; he later debated the episode on a podcast with Ezra Klein, who accused him of “thinking tribally”.
What is the Making Sense podcast?
Harris’s podcast, started in September 2013 as Waking Up and later renamed Making Sense. Episodes are long conversations, often over two hours; his 2020 book Making Sense collects a selection of them. In 2018 he also launched the Waking Up meditation app.
Is Sam Harris still alive?
Yes. He was born on 9 April 1967 in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, the writer Annaka Harris, and their two daughters.
Footnotes
- Sam Harris — Wikipedia
- Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion — Wikipedia
- Waking Up — Publishers Weekly review, 2014
- Free Will — Simon & Schuster
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making.”
— Sam Harris, Free Will (2012)
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