Books

Anyone who wants to expand their knowledge and develop Mental Models has to be an avid reader. No matter what kind of business you’re in—finance, technology, or anything else—developing Mental Models for ideas and decision making is essential. Charlie Munger says it best:

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren [Buffett] reads—at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.

First, here’s a list of books I’ve read multiple times or regularly refer back to (in no particular order):

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack
• The Intelligent Investor
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Buffett: Making of an American Capitalist
• Berkshire Hathaway Letter’s to Shareholders
• Hard Drive
• Andrew Carnegie
• They Made America
• Seeking Wisdom
• Antifragile
• Fooled By Randomness
• The Origin of Wealth
• Zero to One
• The Essential Drucker
• Competition Demystified
• Design of Everyday Things
• Envisioning Information
• The Most Important Thing
• The Innovators Solution
• A Pattern Language
• Integrity
• Meditations
• The Dip
• The Supple Leopard
• Fortunes Formula
• Outliers
• The Paleo Manifesto
• High Output Management
• Made in America

And below is a list of some of my favorite books categorized by subject:

Business Theory

• The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, Amar Bhide — extensive study of startups of all kinds, how they grow, what makes them successful (this is not a “help” book it is mainly observational)
• Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker — how companies should systematically innovate — lots of good startup/innovation strategies (it’s not random)
• The Innovator’s Dilemma + Solution, Clayton Christensen — every businessperson or investor needs to read these classics. “Solution” has better explanations and examples (the “jobs to be done” concept is one of the most important in business)
• Competition Demystified, Greenwald + Kahn — how businesses capture value by building a moat, and what strategies to use if you have or don’t have one
• The Halo Effect, Phil Rosonzweig — the anti-business-book, but still has great insights on how businesses work and how best to run them
• Built to Last, Jim Collins — read this with The Halo Effect in mind — lots of good advice & stories (I like this much better than “Good to Great”)
• The Strategy Paradox, Michael Raynor — dense at times but a great theory on why strategy is so hard
• Hidden Champions, Hermann Simon
• Zero To One, Peter Thiel — Thiel’s treatise on startups; must-read for entrepreneurs

Management

• The Essential Drucker, Peter Drucker — if you run any kind of business and haven’t read this, stop what you’re doing and get it now
• High Output Management, Andy Grove
• The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge — a great management book but an even greater book on thinking and problem solving
• The Score Takes Care of Itself, Bill Walsh — football fan or not, a great book on leading and operating a team
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz — great practical advice from someone who’s seen it all
• Making Things Happen, Scott Berkun — for project managers but great practical advice for all managers
• Eat People, Andy Kessler — this book seems silly at first but has lots of great insights about business & economics
• First, Break all the Rules, Buckingham & Coffman — the sections on culture/HR are great
• Drive, Dan Pink — instant classic on motivation & the right kind of incentives
• The Ten Commandments of Business Failure, Don Keough — invert, always invert

Business History

• They Made America, Harold Evans — fantastic history book with each chapter telling the detailed story of a businessperson or inventor in U.S. history
• In Their Time, Mayo & Nohria — similar to above
• The Visible Hand, Alfred Chandler — great business history book on the “invention” of management in 1800s — a little dry but if you like business history you will love this
• Andrew Carnegie, David Nasaw — great book; Carnegie was a lot more of an investor than an industrialist (steel was to him as insurance is to Buffett)
• Titan (John D. Rockefeller), Ron Chernow
• Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Roger Lowenstein — the book that got me into value investing
• Steve Jobs, Walter Issacson
• Call Me Ted, Ted Turner — I wish Ted Turner was still running a public company
• Pour Your Heart Into It (Starbucks), Howard Shultz
• Googled, Ken Auletta — “In the Plex” was good also but I liked Auletta’s better
• Made in America (Wal-Mart), Sam Walton — from the best merchandiser ever
• Grinding it Out (McDonalds), Ray Kroc — I wrote about this here
• Get Big Fast (Amazon), Robert Spector  — good early history of Amazon
• Distant Force (Henry Singleton), George Roberts — a master capital allocator in the world of tech
• Elon Musk, Ashlee Vance — a bio on one of the greatest innovators of the 21st century

Design & Engineering

• The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman — the bible of design. Read it to know why you like using Apple products so much and why everyday frustrations are probably not your fault. His book Emotional Design is a good compliment.
• Universal Principles of Design, Lidell + Holden + Butler — lots of great mental models on design and psychology
• Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte — My favorite of the Tufte collection, the “bible” of data visualization. After you read this you will realize most infographics on the web suck
• The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt & David Thomas — a must read for programmers, but also has many interest mental models for non-programmers

Retail

• Why We Buy, Paco Underhill — the best book on the nitty-gritty details of retailing, merchandising, and buying psychology
• Buyology, Martin Lindstrom
• Winning at Retail, Ander & Stern
• Bare Essentials (Aldi), Dieter Brandes — history/principles of European retailer Aldi; they own Trader Joe’s and use many of the same principles

Investing

• Security Analysis, Benjamin Graham — every time I flip through this I find something insightful — it “resets” my investing mindset
• The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham
• Common Stocks & Uncommon Profits, Phil Fisher
• Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, Warren Buffett — required reading for investors (and anyone in business). I’m biased toward this collection but a more summarized version is The Essays of Warren Buffett
• Margin of Safety, Seth Klarman — find digital copies of this here
• The Most Important Thing, Howard Marks — same as Security Analysis above
• Fooled By Randomness, Nassim Taleb — read this every time you’re doing well
• Secrets of Professional Turf Betting, Robert Bacon — an old book about betting on horse races (very analogous to investing) — used copies are expensive, and I hope one day to scan my copy and distribute it
• Bernard Baruch, Jim Grant

Other Mental Models

• The Origin of Wealth, Eric Beinhocker — an extremely informative multiple-mental-model approach to economics
• Antifragile, Nassim Taleb
• The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin — for anyone who’s wondered what the difference is between luck and skill
• Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson — amazing thoughts on how innovation works (and how to get more of it)
• Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows — excellent primer on systems thinking

History

• Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
• Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
• The Birth of Plenty, William Bernstein
• Against the Gods, Peter Bernstein — the story of risk (a great investing book also)