Favorite Books
I love to read. I’ve always loved to read. I share my thoughts on books on Medium from time to time and have created this page to share a running list of my favorite books.
Brace yourself — this is a long list.
Artificial Intelligence
- Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick
- The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar
- The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Disrupting Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
- The Worlds I See by Fei-Fei Li
- The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence by Ash Fontana
Communication/Negotiation
- Crucial Confrontations by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan & Al Switzler
- Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton
- Thank you for Arguing : What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion by Jay Heinrichs
- You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen
Leadership
- The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
Business
- The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert H. Frank
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
- Small Giants: Companies that Choose to be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham
- The Trusted Advisor by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford
- Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
- Trust Based Selling: Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships by Charles H. Green
- The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More by Barry Schwartz
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover
- The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future by Steve Case
- The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream by Steve Case
Entrepreneurship Frameworks
- Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup by Bill Aulet
- The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
- Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series) by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
Customer Success
- The Customer Success Economy by Nick Mehta and Allison Pickens
- Customer Success: How Innovative Companies are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy
- The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook by Ashvin Vaidyanathan and Ruben Rabago
- The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch
- Chief Customer Officer 2.0 by Jeanne Bliss
Happiness
- Stumbling On Happiness by David Gilbert
- The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
- Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and David Messing
- Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin E. P. Seligman and other books on the art and science of happiness
- Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard
- The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur
- The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
Science
- Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
- The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph Ffom the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
- How to Read a French Fry: And Other Stories of Intriguing Kitchen Science by Russ Parsons
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Education
- The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do About It by Tony Wagner
- Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play by Mitchel Resnick
Parenting
- Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (now with Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting) by Pamela Druckerman
- Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne and Lisa M. Ross
- The Art of Roughhousing by Anthony T. DeBenedet and Lawrence J. Cohen
- Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein
- Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
- How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber
- The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori
- Teaching Montessori in the Home by Elizabeth Hainstock
- Theories of Childhood by Carol Garhart Mooney
- How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between) by Mei-Ling Hopgood
- French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters by Karen Le Billon
- A thousand days of wonder : a scientist’s chronicle of his daughter’s developing mind by Charles Fernyhough – the science of how children’s brains develop written into an elegant narrative (without providing advice on how to raise your own children)
- The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming Our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity by Meg Meeker
Pregnancy/Childhood Loss
- An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir by Elizabeth McCracken – “It’s a happy life, and someone is missing.” (read the first chapter here)
- Ended Beginnings: Healing Childbearing Losses by Claudia Panuthos, Catherine Romeo and Peggy O’Mara McMahon – “It is not enough to seek a return to normalcy, for no such return is possible.”
- A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss – Guidance and Support for You and Your Family by Ingrid Kohn and Perry-Lynn Moffitt – “You may choose to say you had a baby who died, or you may prefer not to tell strangers or acquaintances of your loss. Not mentioning the baby to others does not mean you have forgotten your child.”
- Empty Arms: Coping After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Deathby Sherokee Ilse
- Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby by Deborah L. Davis – “…when we hear about the death of a baby, many of us do not recognize the depth of the loss to the parents. The fact that the baby was in the womb or in the parents’ arms for such a brief time adds to their pain and isolation.“
Post-Partum
- The year after childbirth : surviving and enjoying the first year of motherhood by Sheila Kitzinger – authoritative mother-care book; great read since most books focus either on pregnancy or babies (few on post-partum)
- The post-pregnancy handbook : the only book that tells what the first year after childbirth is really all about– physically, emotionally, sexually by Sylvia Brown with Mary Dowd Struck – read this one if you prefer alternative remedies such as homeopathy, herbals, acupuncture, shiatsu, chiropractors, acupressure, osteopathy, aromatheraphy, or reflexology.
History
- The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough
- Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
Spirituality/Religion
- Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths by Bruce Feiler
- The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Lifeby Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander
- The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 by Melvin McLeod
- God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism by Jonathan Kirsch
- The Monk & the Philosopher: Father & Son Discuss the Meaning of Life by Jean-Francois Revel & Matthieu Ricard
Women’s Studies
- The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain
- Bachelor Girl: 100 Years of Breaking the Rules–a Social History of Living Single by Betsy Israel
Memoirs
- Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard
- Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
- Papillon by Henri Charriere
Historical Fiction
- Forever: A Novel by Pete Hamill
- Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
- Time and Again by Jack Finney
Novellas
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
- Shopgirl: a Novella by Steve Martin
Short Stories
Children’s Books
- Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
- Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss