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Reboot Recommends: An Unconventional List of 15 Non-Business Books for Women Entrepreneurs

Setting out to start your own business or career in startup-land is a worthwhile, big-deal move for any entrepreneur. Bringing our ideas into the world successfully means a variety of things. Here at Reboot, we believe you need a marriage of practical skills, radical self-inquiry, and shared experiences to lead well and be resilient while doing so. There are many books out there on scaling, managing your board, being a CEO; all of which are great and have their place. However, each person will lead and build differently because of who they are and what internal metrics by which they lead their life.

Being the leader you want to be is less about fitting into the mold determined by any of the startup books, and more about becoming who you are (a big process, that). Sussing out what is important to and for you means many conversations with your heart. The world changes when you come home to yourself and trust sensation of your inner knowing. It’s deciphering where are you leading from and what’s leading you, so that you can find and recognize your own voice, which is always with you through meetings, fundraising, and the whole ride of entrepreneurial happenings.

Uncovering who you are (where you came from, what you need, what you’d like, what drives you and why), learning how to untangle how yourself from non-useful patterns from the past so you are free for your present and future, and recognizing what your inner knowing — the seat of your power — feels like are all incredibly useful methods, tools, and precursors to being a great leader and leading a great life.

The following is a list (in no particular order) of unconventional reads, particularly for women entrepreneurs, that can open up new dimensions of understanding who we are, how we got here, how we are in relationship to ourselves and others and the world, and how to navigate our body’s many ways of knowing.

1. salt.
   by Nayyirah Waheed
2. Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body
   by Tami Lynn Kent
3. Women Who Run With the Wolves
   by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
4. Becoming
   by Michelle Obama
5. If Women Rose Rooted: The Journey to Authenticity and Belonging
   by Sharon Blackie
6. The Little Girl Who Gave Zero F*cks
   by Amy Kean
7. Vagina: A New Biography
   by Naomi Wolf
8. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
   by Terry Tempest Williams
9. Money Magic: Clearing Your Path to Money, Time, and Happiness
   by Michelle Masters
10. Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body and Soul
    by Marion Woodman and Jill Mellick
11. The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other
    by James Hollis
12. The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship
    by Linda Schierse Leonard
13. Fathers’ Daughters: Breaking the Ties That Bind
    by Maureen Murdoch
14. Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
    by James Hollis
15. We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love
    by Stan Tatkin