In no particular order, what’s on my bookshelves. Generally speaking, those I like more will find their way to the top of each list.

Rating system:

• All time favorite. Dare I say, lifechanging: ❤
• Insightful: 🤯
• Practical: 🛠

Management

When I became the manager of a team back during my time at Microsoft, I had confidence in my technical abilities, but not really in my ability to be of service for the people who now reported to me. I wanted to be good at all aspects of the job but above all else, I wanted to be of service for them.

So I dove head first into numerous books, some of those in this list, others in the Psychology and Emotional Intelligence list.

• First, Break All the Rules (Gallup Press) 🤯❤
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Daniel H. Pink) 🤯
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Simon Sinek) 🤯
• The Manager’s Path (Camille Fournier) 🛠
• Non-Violent Communication (Marshall B. Rosenberg) 🤯❤
• Rework (Jason Fried) 🛠
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Chip & Dan Heath) 🤯🛠
• The Mythical Man-Month (Fred Brooks) 🤯
• The Effective Executive (Peter Drucker) 🤯🛠
• Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek) 🤯
• Hit Refresh (Satya Nadella)
• Tribal Leadership (Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright)
• Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life (Marcus Buckingham)
• Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman–Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual (Yvon Chouinard)
• Talking with Tech Leads: From Novices to Practitioners (Patrick Kua)
• Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager (Michael Lopp)
• Lean Startup (Eric Ries)
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank)
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (Nir Eyal)
• Stop the BS (Shane Mac)
• The Burning Entrepreneur (Brad Feld)

Psychology and Neurosciences

Trying to understand the workings of the mind started as a tool to manage myself and others, but it took me a while dive into emotional intelligence and mindfulness.

• Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) 🤯
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol S. Dweck) 🤯❤
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (James Clear) 🛠❤
• Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad (Steven Kotlen) 🤯❤
• The Power of When (Michael Breus) 🛠
• Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke) 🛠
• Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (Annie Duke) 🛠
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Angela Duckworth) 🤯
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It (Chris Voss) 🛠
• Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein)

Emotional Intelligence

• Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Daniel J. Siegel) 🤯❤
• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Daniel Goleman) 🤯
• The Gifts of Imperfection (Brené Brown) 🤯❤
• Daring Greatly (Brené Brown) 🤯❤
• Rising Strong (Brené Brown) 🤯❤
• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (The Dr. Sue Johnson Collection Book 1) (Dr. Sue Johnson) ❤

Mindfulness

• Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (Jon Kabat-Zinn) ❤
• Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day (Amishi P. Jha) 🛠
• Unlocked: Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success (George Mumford)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)

Personal Reinvention

The idea of changing lifestyle dramatically can be appealing sometimes. Always interesting to read what people who study how people redirect their careers or have been through it themselves, is always interesting.

• Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team (Simon Sinek, David Mead, Peter Docker) 🛠
• Stand Out Networking: A Simple and Authentic Way to Meet People on Your Own Terms (A Penguin Special from Portfolio) (Dorie Clark)
• Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It (Dorie Clark)
• Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive (Dorie Clark)
• Reinventing You, With a New Preface: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (Dorie Clark)
• The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World (Dorie Clark)

History, Politics & Society

Taking a step back from the constant noise of “news” and finding the larger patterns governing our lives… or digging into personalities, scandals or events in particular.

• Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling) 🤯
• No Place to Hide (Glenn Greenwald) 🤯
• Super Freakonomics (Steven D. Levitt - Stephen J. Dubner) 🤯❤
• Think Like a Freak (Steven D. Levitt - Stephen J. Dubner)
• The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient (Simon Singh)
• In the Beginning was the Command Line (Neal Stephenson)
• Hacks (Donna Brazile)
• Mindf*ck (Christopher Wylie) 🤯
• Permanent Record (Edward Snowden)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harrari) 🤯
• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (Bill Gates)

Making

• The Hardware Hacker (Andrew “bunnie” Huang) 🛠❤
• Maker Pro: Essays on Making a Living as a Maker (John Baichtal & others)
• Every Tool’s a Hammer: Life is What You Make It (Adam Savage)
• Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust At Offerman Woodshop (Nick Offerman)
• The Why & How of Woodworking: A Simple Approach to Making Meaningful Work (Michael Pekovich)
• Thinking with a pencil (Hennan Nelms)

Tech

• Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and Devops (Nicole Forsgren, PhD with Jez Humble and Gene Kim)
• Designing Distributed Systems (Brendan Burns)
• Zero Trust Networks: Building Secure Systems in Untrusted Networks (Evan Gilman, Doug Barth)
• The Art of Invisibility (Kevin Mitnick)
• Tribe of Hackers (Marcus J. Carey, Jennifer Jin)

Sports

• Daniel’s Running Formula (Jack Daniels)

Space

• Endurance (Scott Kelly)
• An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (Col. Chris Hadfield)
• Chasing Space (Leland Melville)
• Hidden Figures (Margot Lee Shetterly)
• The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe)