Book Lists (Episode IV)

My eclectic taste in books strikes again. I think I may have reached a limit of how many open loops I can handle without it starting to get unruly.  I think it’s 50.

Finished Books:

1. The 4-Hour Workweek
   
2. The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry
3. The Lean Startup
4. Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands 
5. Anything You Want
6. Outliers
7. Managing For Results
8. The Powder Room

The 4 Hour Workweek is great if you are just looking for a few life or work hacks (introductions to virtual assistants, ways to improve productivity which you may or may not want to use).  It won’t actually reduce your workweek to 4 hours, but he at least asks the right questions.  The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry actually inspired me to start learning French and go to Paris in May (or at least helped in that decision!) Wonderful book if you want to escape reality.  The Lean Startup is my Bible for NextDrop, and if you’re even remotely considering the world of Startups, read this book because it will change your life.  Lovemarks was pretty decent, but it isn’t the first book I’d pick up about branding.  It’s sort of a…after you have the basics down.  Anything You Want had the highest highlights to page ratio ever.  It was a quick read (literally 1 hour) but his story was a good one.  I could live without it, but it was still cute.  Outliers basically put words to lots of things I had considered.  I think it wasn’t really anything new because I’m behind the curve on this reading (so lots of other authors/bloggers have discussed these ideas), but it was still enjoyable.  Managing for Results was, as usual, incredibly informative (but in the most dogmatic way possible). The Powder Room was an amazing look inside the fashion industry in India.  It was so compelling I finished it on the way from Mumbai to Istanbul.  Potentially my favorite book of the lot, just because it’s so different.

• Personal Development:

1. A Year of Living Consciously
2. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity (52%)
3. HBR’s 10 Must Reads: On Managing Yourself (6%)
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (11%)
5. The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, And Living The Good Life (10%)
6. The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide To Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, And Becoming Superhuman (21%)
7. Mastery (5%)
8. The Emotional Energy Factor: The Secrets High Energy People Use to Beat Emotional Fatigue (44%)
9. Do You Know What I Mean: Discovering Your Personal Communication Style (58%)
10. Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship With an Entrepreneur (6%)

• General Non Fiction:

1. Googled: The End of the World as we Know It (18%)
2. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not The French (18%)
3. Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind The Scenes of a New China (32%)
4. Warren Buffett’s 3 Favorite Books: A Guide to the Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis, And Wealth of Nations (79%)
5. Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (8%)
6. The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls (15%)
7. The Art of War (34%)
8. Wild (8%)
9. In the Garden of Beasts (4%)
10. Growing Up Bin Laden (8%)
11. Catherine the Great (7%)
12. Steve Jobs (5%)
13. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (33%)
14. My Spiritual Journey (Haven’t Started)
15. Drinking: A Love Story (23%)
16. The Intelligent Investor (10%)
17. Beating the Street (27%)
18. Istanbul: Memories and the City (15%)
19. Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (17%)
20. Classy (1%)

• Business:

1. HBR’s 10 Must Reads: Strategy (9%)
2. For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business (10%)
3. Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR (28%)
4. Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Can Achieve Extraordinary Results (34%)
5. Mastering Communication At Work: How To Lead, Manage, and Influence (8%)
6. Good To Great (54%)
7. HBR: On Managing Yourself (6%)
8. Stop Workplace Drama (39%)
9. Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way (36%)
10. The Brand Gap (17%)
11. Founders at Work (70%)
12. The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success (12%)
13. The Essential Drucker (Haven’t Started)
14. HR Transformation (10%)
15. Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a 5 Star Customer Service Organization (18%)

• Fiction:

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (12%)
2. Almost French (10%)
3. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy (haven’t started)
4. Istanbul Passage (3%)