Today, we can easily fill our time reading tweets, news headlines, Instagram captions and emails. With so much “content” vying for our attention, it’s a wonder anyone still writes and reads books. But it seems that we do and, believe it or not, books are still changing lives.
I enjoy reading immensely and believe it’s one way to become a better designer, whether those books are design-related or not. I’ve shared my 23 favorite books on creativity, productivity and life. I’ve also shared my way of reading books, which has allowed me to read hundreds over the last few years alone.
So in a recent search for new reading, I reached out to my favorite resource: Twitter. The tweet: “Best 3 books you’ve ever read that changed your life or had massive impact on your way of thinking?”
I've received hundreds of replies and counting – about 500+ recommendations so far. These include design books, novels, biographies, self-help books, philosophy, sci-fi, the list goes on and on. As we all know, literature doesn't have to be of motivational in nature to inspire or even change who we are. A children's book might do it. A graphic novel might do it. And that's exactly what I was after – the kind of stuff that resonated with people for whatever weird reason.
While adding a few intriguing recommendations to my list, I started noticing some of the same titles coming up again and again. So here they are, leading with the most-mentioned titles, so you can see them yourself without combing through the replies. If you’re looking for something to read, there appears to be something in here for everyone.
Disclaimer: Naturally, most of my audience works within the creative or tech industry. If someone else asked the question, they would likely get very different replies. I'd like to see what recommendations someone in science or the medical industry might receive, for example. I am also curious to know if recommendations would change if this were a private poll (more thoughts on that here). Finally, I have not read all of these books myself. These are external recommendations from several hundred random people on Twitter who may or may not share my beliefs, tastes or interests (or yours). However, considering these specific titles had an impact on many, we can venture to guess there’s something meaningful inside them.
1. "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
2. "Man’s Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
3. "Creativity, Inc." by Ed Catmull
4. "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey
5. "Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones" by James Clear
6. "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz
7. "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman
8. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie
9. "The Bible" by various authors
10. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
11. "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
12. "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight
13. "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action" by Simon Sinek
14. "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" by Mark Manson
15. "The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles" by Steven Pressfield
16. "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene
17. "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World" by Cal Newport
18. "Dune" by Frank Herbert
19. "Ego Is the Enemy" by Ryan Holiday
20. "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" by Greg McKeown
21. "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen
22. "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries
23. "Leonardo da Vinci" by Walter Isaacson
24. "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius
25. "Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean" by Kim Scott
26. "Rework" by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried
27. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki
28. "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
29. "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss
30. "The Obstacle Is the Way" by Ryan Holiday
31. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman
32. "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker
33. "Zero to One Notes on Start-Ups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
34. "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson
35. "Being and Time" by Martin Heidegger
36. "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell
37. "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall
38. "Cat’s Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut
39. "Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
40. "Creative Confidence" by David and Tom Kelley
41. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
42. "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
43. "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" by Karl Marx
44. "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling
45. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson
46. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
47. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
48. "How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul " by Adrian Shaughnessy
49. "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini
50. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
51. "Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien
52. "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs" by John Doerr
54. "Momo" by Michael Ende
55. "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell
56. "Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative" by Austin Kleon
57. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Malcolm X with Alex Haley
58. "The Courage to Be Disliked" by Fumitake Koga and Ichirō Kishimi
59. "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King
60. "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" by Ursula K. Le Guin
61. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
62. "The Hobbit" by J. R. R. Tolkien
63. "The Last Lecture" by Jeffrey Zaslow and Randy Pausch
64. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" by Marie Kondō
65. "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J. Schwartz
66. "The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture" by Scott Belsky
67. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
68. "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg
69. "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle
70. "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Samuel Clason
71. "The Stranger " by Albert Camus
72. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
73. "Think and Grow Rich" by Ben Holden-Crowther and Napoleon Hill
74. "Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold" by C. S. Lewis
75. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig
76. "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu
Hope you discovered some interesting new reading material here. I know I've saved several titles on this list and will be revisiting it often. Let me know on Twitter what you would add to the list, or ask your own audience. This may be the closest I will ever get to joining a book club.
