Please recommend some of your favorite books!

Hannah S Kim
49 replies
Working from home has given me some extra time to read in the mornings and evenings because I no longer have to commute 2+ hours back and forth. So, I've been compiling a reading list- please feel free to recommend some of your favorite books! The more diverse the genres, the better. I am currently reading Beloved by Toni Morrison, and am looking forward to moving onto Pachinko because everyone I know has hyped it up.

Replies

Catalin Ionescu
I wrote this blog post a while ago about my favourite books for Technical Leaders. Still 6 of my favourite books to this day https://medium.com/better-progra...
Nathan Lively
The Disappearance of the Universe: Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness
Aaron O'Leary
This is my kind of question. I try to read 50 ish books a year, this year my favorites have been: - Kitchen Confidential, - The Bell Jar - Surviving Autocracy - 4,3,2,1
Jim Zhou
@aaronoleary I picked up the Bell Jar on the day I moved to NYC and I cannot put into words how much I, 60 years after publication, from a completely different background, in a different era, utterly related to almost everything Esther Greenwood was feeling. We were roughly the same age and her terse, sharp, and absurdist but never self-parodying prose was so good and timeless, I still refer to it as "The book Lena Dunham would've liked to produce into a movie and ruin for our generation." (Bourdain was of course also excellent, a completely different experience though) Paying it forward: Fortress Besieged (围城) by Qian Zhongshu: It's arguably one of the last great novels published in China during what was both a brutal occupation replete with atrocities and a surprising if short-lived revival of literature. It's nihilist, it's dark, it's self-aware in a matter-of-fact way and yet still comedic in the old sense (humorous was a loanword from English, after all), it's like a Nabokov novel except while Nabokov spelled things out and people read past it, Qian wrote past things and everyone understood. He also manages to make the same pun work in multiple languages (with Chinese always one of them). Under-read masterpiece of the 20th Century.
Hannah S Kim
@aaronoleary I strive to read as that many books one day- thanks for the recommendations!
Ashley Ball
Company of One - Paul Jarvis Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris How I Built This - Guy Raz
Katerina
The Borderline from Peter Hoeg. It's about an experiment on children in a boarding school to eradicate the evil in humans. It's not a thriller. It has two stories happening at the same time, the main story and then the questioning of the current concept of time.
Vadivel M
These are the books I would recommend: 1. Atomic Habits by James Clear 2. Can't hurt me by David Higgins 3. The Janitor by Todd Hopkins 4. Driven by Douglas Brackmann 5. Loonshots by Safi Bahcal 6. No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer
Molly O'Neill
There are some good ones listed already...another gone one is Platform by Michael Hyatt
- Red Notice - Range - Loonshots
Gabrielė Jusaitytė
A bit of everything - Talking to Strangers by M. Gladwell Bad Blood by J. Carreyrou 7 powers by H. W. Helmer
Abhishek Singh
- Emotional Intelligence 2.0 - Multipliers - Servant leadership
Sandeep Talukdar
I highly recommend "The Tipping Point"! It's a great book on how certain ideas, products or services 'tip' or rise instantly. It talks about simple but interesting things like - "Why does a product by company A go viral but B not?" "Why is 'Jake' so well-sought after even though 'Jim' has been doing the very same things? Epidemics aren't restricted to virology. They are prevalent in business and politics too. It's a really fun read.
Tushar Shahi
@sandeeptalukdar The way Malcolm Gladwell thinks is amazing. Check out Outliers and Blink too.
Hannah S Kim
@sandeeptalukdar Great recommendation Sandeep, this is one of my favorite books as well :)
David Yarde
Minimum Loveable Brands
Minimum Loveable Brands
I'd have to say The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan Linchpin by Seth Godin The People Code by Taylor Hartman Play Bigger by Al Ramadan Rise and Grind by Daymond John Daring Greatly by Brene Brown Creative Thinkering by Michael Michalko
Ronan Wall
You could also title this 'what books do i want for Christmas' @hannahsuyun :) - Business related = 'Don't make me think' - Steve Krug. This is my bible, I buy everyone who I hire a copy - Non-business related = 'All the light we cannot see' - Anthony Doerr. It's a few years old but I only just got round to reading it. Incredible
Anna Scherbak
Unicorn Nest Dataset
Anna Karenina: a story of how complex, deep and unstable the human nature is
Daniela Passos
Some AWESOME books for startup founders and marketers :) • Hacking Growth • Traction • Predictable Revenue • Hooked • Blitzscalling • Trust Me I'm Lying • Pre-Suasion • Lean Startup • Lean Analytics • Influence • Made to Stick • From zero to one
Hannah S Kim
@danielamoitinho Some of these are on my shelf right now :) My supervisor also always recommends "Sprint"!
Dibya Sahoo
My favorite book for 2020 is Hooked. That is what helped me in building the go-to-market for GradeMyEmail also.
JM
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Milan Maheshwari
Spectrum: Figma Plugin & Web App
-Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari -The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson -Atomic Habits by James Clear
Gordian Overschmidt
If not already yours, you have to read/see/transfer to todays world (comic style): The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth by Ken Krimstein
Lior Barak
I will highly recommend - Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life by Beth Kempton, Learn to clean yourself from too much noise (Second time I read it) - The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul by Jackson, Phil, learn to manage egos and pressure for success - The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty by Yanagi, Soetsu, Learn to appreciate you craft and art
Lior Barak
@lior_barak @hannahsuyun Let me know what you think about them, I think that some mainstream books are nice, but sometimes you need to also explorer things other don't usually put on their reading list to find out the value in going against the stream :-)
Hannah S Kim
@lior_barak Never heard of any of these, will check them out! Thanks :)
Hannah S Kim
@lior_barak @hannahsuyun haha yes that is how you find some real gems :).