Top 20 of my favorite books
The most frequent question to me and it’s time to choose. While I haven’t done well with fiction, there are books on the list that have greatly influenced me and I refer to them often:
0. “System life” by S. Kolosov
Okay, just kidding, this book is beyond competition and time…..
1. “Education for the Educated” by A.Levenchuk
This is a set of posts about intelligence and self-development in a different way than we are used to hearing from infotsygans. A challenging read, but very pithy and very relevant right now. I often re-read individual topics and follow Levenchuk’s work.
2. “Essentialism — The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by G. McKeown
If you want to do more, you have to plan less. Here it’s about how to pick the super important from the most important. It’s very complicated and this book is a great firmware to download this philosophy into your head. By the way, Greg left a cool review of my book, but I didn’t star.
3. “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by R. Cialdini
The founder of Shopify named 2 books that made him a billionaire. One of them is this one. When I read it, I realized how to live, speak and write differently to be understood. That’s the base, it should be taught in school.
4. “The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done” D. Macchiarello, Peter F. Drucker
I love everything by Drucker, and this book is in the form of a daily planner with 366 of his inspirational tips. Short, philosophical, succinct, powerful, love it.
5. “Strategic Thinking” by G. Konstantinov [only in Russian]
The best thing I’ve read on the subject. Really wanted to meet Gennady, but didn’t have time(. His books changed my understanding of the word “strategy”.
6. “Quiet Leadership Winning Hearts Matches” by C. Ancelotti
Yes, the Real Madrid coach wrote this. He describes his career and approaches, and it’s straight about the leadership of the new generation. I am very close to his approach and attitude to work. If even far from soccer, it will be very interesting and useful.
7. “Thinking, Fast and Slow” D. Kahneman
This is the base, just like Chaldini. It is better to know about your brains what these authors know. Life will be easier and simpler.
8. “Primed to perform” by N. Doshi
About how motivation works at work. With real examples and research. Spoiler, money comes last there. A must have for managers and HR.
9. “Drive” D. Pink
This book will help you sort out your motivation down to the root causes! Lots of research and cool ideas.
10. “Rework: Business without prejudices” by Hansson, David Heinemeier, Fried
The strength of the book is its brevity and simplicity. It seems so simple, it seems like a startupers’ tale, but with experience I realized that they just got it right.
11. “Career of a Manager” by Lee Iacocca
This is the man who launched the Mustang, was COO of Ford and saved Chrysler from closing. Very gripping from the first pages and very organic lessons on management can be learned. After reading it, I thought it was cool to be a CCO and I want to see if this is how I can clean up a company and bootstrap it.
12. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by P. Lencioni
I read it when I wasn’t a manager yet and was working in a small business. I thought, what a vanilla bullshit, shit in life everything is not like that. Today I will say I totally agree with Lencioni and I can see how it works.
13. “Jack Welch & The G.E. Way” by D. Welch
Similar book to item 11. It was very interesting to read how to run a company of this size and how a pretty tough man relied on developing people. Without pathos, very vitally written.
14. “The Start-up of You” by R. Hoffman
Very structuring approach to development, and in sum with strategic thinking is generally useful for life.
15. “Clearly, clearly.” by M. Ilyakhov
Don’t pay attention to what it says about texts. This is like Chaldini for communication. If you know it, you will be cooler and everyone will be better off.
16. “The art of arguing” by S. Povarnin [only in Russian]
How to build theses and arguments so that the mentee/subordinate or any person does not accuse you of subjectivism. A very cool book for anyone who wants to argue at the highest level.
17. “I Eat Silence With Spoons” by M. Finkel
Christopher Knight left home at the age of 20 and settled in the woods among trees and animals, never to return to humans. A meditation book for the brain and helps you think extra and what’s most important.
18. “Never Split The Difference,” by K. Voss
The book that made me love negotiation. Chris is a former FBI negotiator and he describes his experiences where the stakes are really high. Interesting and very practical.
19. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by B. Horowitz
Realistically describes the experience of introducing unadorned business. Comprehensible and without pathos. Motivating and can teach a lot.
20. “The Chimpanzee Paradox” by S. Peters
Gives insight into how to manage emotions to achieve goals. I see that many people’s lack of understanding of this prevents them from developing.
Outside of this top, but one of my favorite books is “Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana” by M. Azerrad
I love this band and have seen so much content about them. This book is the only biography about Nirvana published during Kurt Cobain’s lifetime. It’s written in a very interesting and light-hearted way. It reveals the essence of why they were like that, what they went through and why the music is the way it is. For fans — it’s a diamond!
