“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket” – Proverb

Books that have helped shape my thinking

A few books that offer insights into the workings of life, work, and the world.

The list starts with some books on behavioral psychology especially as it relates to work and managing people. This is a theme throughout as it interests me and underlines just about everything we do at home and at work.

Finance is next – an important part of live and work.

The theme of organizational culture is next. For me, this is the soil for building good governments and companies alike.

Books on leadership, measuring success, management systems, negotiating, personal drive and habits, and the role of chance are next – they support the above themes. These are pillars that support culture and organizational frameworks.

Next come books on various topics that I find interesting and instructive. They hold great lessons that are transferrable to any field. Those include history, physics, meditation, Zen Buddhism, and breathing techniques.

I like to think that by reading all these books, you will learn just about everything you need to know about life.

But do not limit yourself – read on diverse topics and take what you find useful! Get perspectives and opinions from as many fields as you can – broaden your range and you will be able to reach higher.

This is a running list. I add on to it as I discover gems. Dig in:

My favorite 81 books in 8 categories:

Life & business governance

  1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
  2. Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  3. Principles: Life & Work by Ray Dalio
  4. Mastery by Robert Greene
  5. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
  6. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
  7. Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson
  8. Good to Great by Jim Collins
  9. How The Mighty Fall by Jim Collins
  10. Measure What Matters by John Doerr
  11. Trillion Dollar Coach Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
  12. Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy by Patrick Bet-David
  13. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
  14. Uplifting Service by Ron Kaufman
  15. Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund
  16. The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel by Kati Marton
  17. How Google Works by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg
  18. The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K. Liker, Gary L. Convis
  19. Lee Kuan Yew by Graham Allison, Robert D. Blackwill, Ali Wyne, Lee Kuan Yew
  20. The Box by Marc Levinson
  21. Reentry by Eric Berger
  22. Switch by Dan Heath, Chip Heath

Finance

  1. Value: The Four Cornerstones of Corporate Finance by McKinsey & Company, Inc. , Tim Koller , Richard Dobbs , Bill Huyett
  2. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
  3. Financial Shenanigans by Howard Schilit

Organizational culture

  1. An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey
  2. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
  3. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh 
  4. Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Self-governance

  1. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
  2. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
  3. Motivational Interviewing by William R. Miller, Stephen Rollnick
  4. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  5. Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
  6. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
  7. Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
  8. Quiet by Susan Cain
  9. Atomic Habits by James Clear
  10. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Stephen R. Covey, Joseph Grenny
  11. The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
  12. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
  13. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
  14. The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest
  15. Getting Things Done by David Allen
  16. Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim Vandehei , Mike Allen , Roy Schwartz
  17. Breath by James Nestor
  18. Brain Energy by Christopher M. Palmer
  19. Originals by Adam Grant

Domain-specific

  1. Data Science by John D. Kelleher, Brendan Tierney
  2. Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards & Neal Ford
  3. Clean Architecture by Robert C. Martin

History & science

  1. Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond
  2. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
  3. Rubicon by Tom Holland
  4. Persian Fire by Tom Holland
  5. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
  6. The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
  7. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
  8. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  9. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  10. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence
  11. River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins

Physics

  1. Reality is Not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli
  2. Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli
  3. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  4. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
  5. Quantum Space by Jim Baggott
  6. Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski
  7. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein
  8. What Is Life by Erwin Schrodinger

Philosophy

  1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
  2. Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
  3. The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
  4. Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
  5. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  6. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
  7. Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
  8. Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
  9. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
  10. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
  11. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Recent reads

Recent reads that I am still taking in.

  1. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Potential next reads

A short list of potentials that I might pick up next. This list is very dynamic but I am currently focused on software engineering.

  1. The Pragmatic Programmer by Dave Thomas & Andy Hunt
  2. Clean Code by Robert C. Martin
  3. Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach by Ivar Jacobson
  4. Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari
  5. Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky
  6. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Quanta and Fields by Sean Carroll
  7. Game Theory: Understanding the Mathematics of Life by Brian Clegg
  8. Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath by Ben S. Bernanke
  9. The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan by Sebastian Mallaby

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