Non-fiction books recommended by Seth Godin
99% True by Paul McGowan
"Paul McGowan, entrepreneurial wizard and quite a ruckus maker, has turned his autobiography into a bestseller. It’s called 99% True. A great title, and a rollicking ride." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Chasing Space by Leland Melvin
"Books worth reading.. A memoir from a real hero." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Fresh India by Meera Sodha
"Fresh India, by Meera Sodha, is the book I’m cooking from the most lately." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt
"Everyone who eats should own a copy of The Food Lab." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Forgetting by Lewis Hyde
"Lewis Hyde, author of the seminal The Gift, only writes a book a decade. The new one is due soon, I’ll be adding it to my stack on pub day. It’s called Forgetting." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik
"What would happen if the next all hands meeting got cancelled and instead the organization had an all hands-on read instead?
Category: Non-Fiction
Here are more than twenty books you might want to read at work today. You and ten co-workers reading together... it might change everything" Read more
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Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
"What would happen if the next all hands meeting got cancelled and instead the organization had an all hands-on read instead?
Category: Non-Fiction
Here are more than twenty books you might want to read at work today. You and ten co-workers reading together... it might change everything" Read more
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Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What would happen if the next all hands meeting got cancelled and instead the organization had an all hands-on read instead?
Category: Non-Fiction
Here are more than twenty books you might want to read at work today. You and ten co-workers reading together... it might change everything" Read more
Buy on AmazonHACKiversity by Kyle Winey
"Before you go a quarter of a million dollars in debt, it's worth reading Hackiversity, a new book about re-examining what gets learned in college. " Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin
"Here's my free book-length manifesto, Stop Stealing Dreams. It's been shared (in PDF and video form) more than 4,000,000 times. I hope you'll forward it to parents or learners or people you care about." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The Beak of Finch by Jonathan Weiner
"For decades, every single year, scientists have visited the Galapagos and measured the beaks of a particular species of finch.
Category: Non-Fiction
And year after year, with each generation, the beaks change, exactly as we'd expect from the weather patterns of the year before. Evolutionary biology works, and rigorous data collection backs it up.
For hundreds of years, though, science has gotten it wrong about gender, race and ethnicity. Eugenics and its brethren sound simple, but often lead to tragic outcomes." Read more
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Why Time Flies by Alan Burdick
"Alan Burdick's new book goes into the history of how we think about now (as compared to before and after) and one particular example stuck with me: What would happen if we were creatures that lived for only 28 days? Or for 300,000 days? And if our attention span compressed or expanded along with that outcome?" Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonWe Can All Do Better by Bill Bradley
"The title, of course, means two very different things." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
"I end up recommending this book to parents again and again. It will transform the way you think of schooling." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonWhat Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
"Like everything Kevin writes, this will be obvious in twenty years. If being twenty years ahead of the curve, and understanding where we're going is important to you, don't hesitate." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The Thrill of the Grill by Christopher Schlesinger
"I learned more about cooking from Chris and this book than just about any other cookbook. (Salt! Pepper! Hey, it matters).Every time a backyard chef closes the top of his grill while cooking, a sous chef in heaven loses his wings. Just don't, please." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
"More than fifty years ago, Eric Hoffer wrote this classic treatise on what creates a mass movement. Must-reading for all marketers who want to spread an idea." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonToo Big to Know by David Weinberger
"A breathtaking review of what it means to be in a world that's powered by connection." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The Master Switch by Tim Wu
"This one really stuck with me--a top level analysis of how changes in media change the culture and change the structure of industry." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte
"What happens when you have an ego, an ego, an ego and no business plan.Fascinating inside-baseball read of the movie business." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Ramen King and I by Andy Raskin
"Funny, poignant and apparently true. I couldn't put this one down. (and there's even marketing in it)." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard P. Feynman
"The fuel you choose, though, determines how you will spend your days. You will spend far more time marinating in your fuel than you will actually doing breakthrough work. Richard Feynman was famously motivated by the joy of figuring things out." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Gift by Marcel Mauss
"Considered by many to be the breakthrough book on the economy of gifts. It's not a fun read, but stuff like this rarely is." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The Ground Truth by John Farmer
"I think the ability to change your mind is one of the most important skills of our age. Do you do it often? Taking a look at the reviews of this book, it's pretty clear that this is a rare and difficult skill. It's worth developing, I think." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Inevitable by Kevin Kelly
"Kevin Kelly is the most erudite, original and prophetic futurist of our time. If you've ever picked up a copy of Wired, he's had an impact on your life.If you hope to be working, producing value or merely alive in ten years, his new book is essential. It might take you an hour or two to read certain pagesÑif you're smart enough to take notes and brainstorm as you go." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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The American Myth of Success by Richard Weiss
"The evolution of our culture as seen through self-improvment books. Weiss starts around the Civil War and goes up to the 1950s. What we read reflected who we were and where we were going." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
"Amanda Palmer's breathtakingly honest and personal memoir of one artist's approach to life." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"Taleb makes a compelling case that the predictable events that everyone knew were going to change everything are not predictable at all." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonThe Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
"This book isn't about what you think it's about. And it's certainly not about the USSR. The key argument here is that small experiments in communism don't work, because they are corrupted by the temptation to defect and engage in trade with neighbors that exploit their workers (so you can benefit). Only worldwide revolution and grabbed power by farmers and factory workers can upend the unfair bargain that kings and capitalists have put in place. At one profound level they are right: as long as the workers don't own the means of production, the exchange will be inherently unfair. A lot of what they pessimistically predicted has occurred to the workers at the bottom of the ladder." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonStanding on the Sun by Christopher Meyer
"The power of the world economy to impact just about everything." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Stone Age Economics by Marshall Salins
"Despite the clever title, this is actually a book about how primitive cultures worked. One key takeaway is that hunter-gatherers were the idle rich. They worked about three hours a day and spent the rest of the day lolling about." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler
"Dense, a little scattered and occasionally riveting, this book may change the way you think about art, forever." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonRadio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli
"Lisa Napoli's heartwarming, insightful and eye-opening journey to the other end of the world. The first chapter alone is worth the price." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig
"Can we insist that every politician read this and be quizzed on it?" Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Man on Wire by Philippe Petit
"Petit is an artist, someone living an adventure through his actions. His life is a gift to us, and this book, as much as the movie, will encourage and provoke you." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonMisbehaving by Richard H. Thaler
"A book I wish I'd read earlier in my career" Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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I’m Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards
"I can't get this one out of my head. It's not just an inside look at Google, it's an astonishingly honest take on what it is to be a cog, a sheep, a follower in a company filled with leaders. I wanted to shake Doug and push him to go fail, to do something, loudly." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonIn The Plex by Steven Levy
"Google is endlessly fascinating, and Steven is a brilliant narrator." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonJust Kids by Patti Smith
"The single best Audiobook ever recorded" Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonJust Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
"Just Mercy will resonate with you and stay with you for a long time." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonEver Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould
"There are so many wonderful books about evolution, it's difficult to pick one. I picked this one because of the quote I grabbed, but I could have easily picked books by Dan Dennett and Matt Ridley." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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From So Simple a Beginning by Charles Darwin
"There are a thousand great books about evolution, but I picked the originals.Evolution doesn't care a bit about whether or not you believe in it. It's like gravity. It's there, it's a law, it's true, get used to it.The lesson of Darwin's life, though, his profound impact on the world on the basis of an idea that spread--this has inspired me to rethink change, to rethink influence and to rethink the responsibility each of us has to move the conversation forward." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonGdel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
"In the last week, I discovered that at least two of my smart friends hadn't read Godel, Escher, Bach. They have now. You should too." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonGuns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
"Every one of Diamond's books is an eye opener. This one is a classic, and it will change the way you think about the world." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
Buy on AmazonHere Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
"Clay is both the erudite professor and the compelling author, a rare combination. This book will change the way you think about our revolution." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik
"And the fact that you don't instantly know why PARC is important is reason enough to read this painstakingly researched yet fast and fun history of the Xerox PARC, the Mac, the Internet and everything." Read more
Category: Non-Fiction
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