Buy Matt Perryman’s Books
Note: The title of this page is deceptive. There is nothing here to buy yet, excepting the vintage 2013 edition of Squat Every Day.
These are all nonfiction works in progress with working titles and descriptions (e.g., likely to change) listed below.
Really you shouldn’t even be reading this. If you found it, you’re a naughty web-clicker.
The main purpose of this page as of right now (Q3 2025) is to hold me accountable for finishing and publishing them. Sorry to disappoint you if you had your wallet out.
If you want to know when they’re ready, it’s best to be on my email list.
Against Existential Horror
A short manifesto against the pessimism, fatalism, and nihilism that rule the modern mind.
Attacking materialism and its many hydra-heads. Making a case for hope, faith, love, and freedom of the will. An attack on the culture of doom and gloom with fresh optimism, even when things are ugly. Why the world is not so ugly as the sad and depressed believe.
You can read a quick teaser over at the Substack.
Freedom is real, and so are goodness and beauty. But we can’t see them without actively looking for them.
Resentment and Gratitude
Feelings of fear, guilt, shame, resentment, and anger narrow our vision, contract our worldview, sap our vital powers, and leave us beached on the harsh sands of fate.
We don’t have to live that way. We can let go of the cloud of negative emotions. Learn to see through the illusions we build around ourselves. Choose to live in higher feelings and expanded perspectives. Look for the good in things, recognize when good people and good events happen to you, and appreciate the good that is already there.
Life isn’t always great, but we don’t have to make it worse by adding our reactions to the troubles.
The Ruins of Certainty
Why are human beings so fixated on certainty of belief? What is it that makes people believe to the point that we’ll fly into a rage, get into fights, or even die in the name of an idea?
How we psychologically attach to the beliefs and stories we tell ourselves, and defend them even into our own misery and ruin. What you can do when you stop building your identity around thoughts and feelings that happen to you.
Your Character Is Your Fate
“Ethos anthropoi daimon.” — The Greek proto-philosopher Heraclitus wrote those words in the only surviving fragment of his works.
What he meant by them is difficult to understand. The Greeks of the 5th century BC occupied a different world from our own, not only in a physical sense. Their culture, their languages, and the metaphors and concepts they used to make sense of themselves are entirely alien to our own.
He was writing about our habits, and how our habits contribute to our fate. But there’s much more happening than your morning productivity routine.
Freedom sits in constant tension with the “flow” of the fate we cannot control. Chaos and uncertainty are baked into the pie of life. These are not opposed to living happy lives.
Fear and Courage
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert only touched on the destructive power of fear with the Bene Gesserit’s “Litany Against Fear” in Dune.
Fear without courage to match will destroy anything good in your life.
This little book will examine fear as a source of unwanted emotions, undesirable behaviors, and the great portion of human misery.
How to be strong, energetic, and pretty when you’re over 40
Many of y’all (yes) know me as the strength-training, powerlifting, muscle-building guru from way back. I quit writing about that years ago, but I never stopped practicing my preaching.
In 2024 my wife and I decided to get our diets in gear and training on point and see what kind of shape we could get in.
The tl;dr is that a lot of fat came off my bee-hind, I dropped a lot of weight on the scale — I haven’t been this light and lean since I was 22 — and I’ve had multiple people tell me that I’ve aged in reverse.
I don’t have the horsepower to squat or deadlift the frankly intimidating numbers I used to move. In return for pain-free joints, decent-enough strength for my size and goals, and looking about as pretty as a middle-aged family man can get, I’ll take it.
This short little book will introduce you to my thinking about health and fitness, centered on strength training and simple high-leverage activities. You’ll learn what I did, why I did it, and how you can use my ideas and methods for yourself.
If you’re past 40, sick of fitness-bro nonsense online, and just want results with minimum headaches, this might be worth your time.