This is a collection of notes taken from books that I found thought-provoking. The notes are grouped and (generally) limited to ten, which caused me to filter and pull out the most essential points. If you like the selected notes, then read the book – I have provided ISBN-10 numbers for your reference. Highlighted book titles are foundational.
Keeping books on a bookshelf is a waste; the books never get read again. The full bookshelf itself is a talisman to convince yourself and others you are smart or care about education. Get rid of books you have already read (or will not read).
Below is a running list of books with recommended excerpts / thoughts:
The Four Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz
The 4-Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss
The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling, Scott Thele, and Beverly Walker
The 6 Conversations – Heather Holleman and Gary D. Chapman
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families – Stephen Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership – Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp
Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman
The Affluent Society – John Kenneth Galbraith
Am I Being Too Subtle? – Sam Zell
Andrew Carnegie – David Nasaw
The Anxious Generation – Jonathan Haidt
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie – Andrew Carnegie and John Charles Van Dyke
Anything You Want – Derek Sivers
The Art of Being Unreasonable – Eli Broad
The Art of Happiness – Dalai Lama
The Art of the Start – Guy Kawasaki
The Art of Virtue – Benjamin Franklin
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Awaken the Giant Within – Anthony Robbins
Benjamin Franklin – Walter Isaacson
Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders – Warren Buffett and Max Olson
The Better Angels of our Nature – Steven Pinker
Beyond Basketball – Mike Krzyzewski and Jamie K. Spatola
Beyond Freedom and Dignity – B. F. Skinner
Big Debt Crises – Ray Dalio
Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Blue Zones Solution – Dan Buettner
The Bomber Mafia – Malcolm Gladwell
Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
Boundaries – Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Brain Rules – John Medina
A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
Buffettology – David Clark and Mary Buffett
Bull! – Maggie Mahar
Business Stripped Bare – Richard Branson
Calling Bullshit – Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West
The Carbon Almanac – Seth Godin
Career Renegade – Jonathan Fields
The Checklist Manifesto – Atul Gawande
Choose Yourself – James Altucher and Dick Costolo
Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money – Kevin O’Leary
Collapse – Jared Diamond
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings – Philip A. Fisher and Kenneth L. Fisher
The Complete Investor – Tren Griffin
Conspiracy – Ryan Holiday
Daily Rituals – Mason Currey
Darwin’s Blind Spot – Frank Ryan
The Demon Haunted World – Carl Sagan
Eating the Dinosaur – Chuck Klosterman
The Economics of Innocent Fraud – John Kenneth Galbraith
Endless Referrals – Bob Burg
The Effective Executive – Peter F. Drucker
The Essential Galbraith – John Kenneth Galbraith
Essentialism – George McKeown
Feel-Good Productivity – Ali Abdaal
The Fish That Ate the Whale – Rich Cohen
The Formula – Ronald F. Ferguson and Tatshia Robertson
Freakonomics – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Free Range Kids – Lenore Skenazy
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got – Jay Abraham
Getting Things Done – David Allen
Going Infinite – Michael Lewis
The Gold Standard – Mike Krzyzewski and Jamie K. Spatola
Good Profit – Charles G. Koch
Good to Great – John Collins
The Great Crash 1929 – John Kenneth Galbraith
Grinding It Out – Ray Kroc
Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared M. Diamond
High Output Management – Andrew S. Grove
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty – Dr. Dan Ariely
The House of Kennedy – James Patterson and Cynthia Fagen
How Successful People Think – John C. Maxwell
How the World Really Works – Vaclav Smil
How to Become a Straight-A Student – Cal Newport
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia – Mohsin Hamid
How to Get Rich – Felix Dennis
How to Win at College – Cal Newport
How To Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
I Will Teach You To Be Rich – Ramit Sethi
In Search of Time – Dan Falk
Influence – Robert B. Cialdini PhD
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig, and Warren E. Buffett
Jim Cramer’s Real Money – Jim Cramer
John Adams – David McCullough
Leadership – Rudy Giuliani
Leading with the Heart – Mike Krzyzewski, Donald T. Phillips, and Grant Hill
The Lessons of History – Will and Ariel Durant
Limping on Water – Philip Beuth, K.C. Schulberg, and Sheridon Wright
Linchpin – Seth Godin
The Magic of Thinking Big – David J. Schwartz
Make Your Bed – Admiral William H. McRaven
Making Choices – Peter Kreeft
Man in Full – Tom Wolfe
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
The Martha Rules – Martha Stewart
Mastering the Market Cycle – Howard Marks
Mastery – Robert Greene
Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
Men to Match My Mountains – Irving Stone
The Millionaire Fastlane – MJ DeMarco
Misbehaving – Richard Thaler
Money – Master the Game – Tony Robbins
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke – Suze Orman
The Most Important Thing – Howard Marks
My Life and Work – Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther
My Personal Best – John Wooden and Steve Jamison
Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferazzi
Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle
The New One Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
The Obstacle Is the Way – Ryan Holiday
On the Origin of Time – Thomas Hertog
The Outsiders – William Thorndike
A Passion for Nature – Donald Worster
Perennial Seller – Ryan Holiday
Personal Development for Smart People – Steve Pavlina
Poor Charlie’s Almanack – Peter D. Kaufman, Ed Wexler, Warren E. Buffett, and Charles T. Munger
The Power of Positive Thinking – Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Powerhouse Principles – Jorge Pérez
The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel
Range – David Epstein
The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
The Ride of a Lifetime – Robert Iger
The Road to Character – David Brooks
The Road Less Traveled – M. Scott Peck
The Rule of St. Benedict – St. Benedict
Sam Walton – Sam Walton and John Huey
Same as Ever – Morgan Housel
Samuel Johnson – George Irwin
Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
The Second Mountain – David Brooks
See You at the Top – Zig Ziglar
Shadow Divers – Robert Kurson
ShipIt – Seth Godin
Smart Money Smart Kids – Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz
The Smartest Guys in the Room – Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind, and Joe Nocera
The Snowball – Alice Schroeder
So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport
Solution Selling – Michael T. Bosworth
Start-up Nation – Dan Senor and Saul Singer
Start with Why – Simon Sinek
Succeeding with What You Have – Charles Schwab
The Success Principles – Jack Canfield
Think! – Michael R. LeGault
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Thou Shall Prosper – Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Thrive – Arianna Huffington
Tools of Titans – Tim Ferriss
Total Money Makeover – Dave Ramsey
Tribe of Mentors – Tim Ferriss
Trillion Dollar Coach – Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
The Undoing Project – Michael Lewis
Unshakeable – Tony Robbins and Peter Mallouk
Upheaval – Jared Diamond
The Upside of Turbulence – Donald Sull
Washington – Ron Chernow
What It Takes – Stephen A. Schwarzman
Wild At Heart – John Eldredge
The Wizard of Menlo Park – Randall E. Stross
Your Money or Your Life – Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, and Mr. Money Mustache
Your Move – Ramit Sethi
Zeckendorf – William Zeckendorf and Edward McCreary