2009 Reading List (30 books)
1. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition
By Caroline Alexander
This book made a heck of an IMAX movie.
In 1914, Shackleton sailed to Antarctica with 27 men in hopes of being the first human to transverse the continent. But his ship, the Endurance, was trapped by ice in the Weddell Sea, propelling the party into a nightmare of cold and near starvation.
Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew, were stranded on the Antarctic ice for 20 months beginning January 20, 1915, then forced to row a 22-foot boat 850 miles across storm-ravaged seas.
The author does some terrific research, relying extensively on journals by crew members to deliver a spellbinding story of human courage in the face of daunting odds. What makes this story especially vivid, however, are the 170 previously unpublished photos by the expedition’s photographer, Frank Hurley.
Here’s the best part: Not one of the men died during their sojourn in a freezing hell.
2. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth
Video book by Bill Moyers
It’s been said that “the best things can’t be told.” After all, the meaning of life isn’t as important as the experience of life. But that doesn’t keep us from talking about the important stuff.
So, Joseph Campbell talked about the meaning of life and the origin of customs, probably because people like Bill Moyers kept asking.
I first became acquainted with Joseph Campbell when I attended a speech about his “Hero’s Journey” formula. Campbell was the first to articulate what’s come to be known as hero mythology.
Here’s the pattern that Campbell identified. Heroes are forced to do something they don’t want to to. Everyone tells them not to do it, but they do it anyway and become damaged or changed in some way. Oh, and there is usually a positive result or a lesson learned.
This extensive interview is part of the old TV show Bill Moyers Journal. Its old-fashioned production values, static camera shots and cutaways to still photographs seem quaint by today’s media standards, but the topic can be fascinating.
Campbell, now deceased, was very knowledgeable and at times quite witty. He reminds us, for example, that Western dragons are symbols of unpurposeful selfishness. They protect virgins and gold, but can’t do anything with either of them.
3. Bright-Sided—How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Audio book by Barbara Ehrenreich
Despite all our positive thinking, the United States is merely the 23rd happiest nation. Ironically, anti-depressants are the most prescribed drug in the land.
Positive thinking was conceptualized as the “New Thought Movement” in the 1860’s by Phineas Baker Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy. It contained the a tinge of Emerson and a strong rebuke of Calvinism. Quimby offered what was called a “talking cure” and preached that the universe is “fundamentally benevolent.”
Quimby died a few years after meeting Eddy. The latter carried on his idea and eventually founded the religion known as Christian Science.
The author takes many revered American institutions to task, including mega-churches, motivational speakers and even cancer support groups. Barbara Ehrenreich seems rather proud that Bright-Sided is not a cheery book.
4. Wikinomics—How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Audio book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
This book has two problems and both may be my fault. First, I read it too late. Technical books have a much shorter “shelf-life” than other books and Wiki had been out two years before I read it. It was published pre-iPhone for Pete’s sake.
Second, Wiki is written (and read by Alan Sklar) like a text book. As an Internet marketer, I was anticipating more of a how-to-guide for better use of the Internet. My bad.
5. How to Cook Without a Book—Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
By Pam Anderson
My brother Joe got me this cool cook book. It has tasty recipes that are easy to remember and lots of useful cooking tips. I’ll be in the kitchen much more from now on.
Cooking, for me, is very enjoyable and surprisingly therapeutic.
6. The Last Lecture*
By Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
Wow, what a story! A dying college professor gives a final lecture and writes a book about it. The resulting effort is inspirational, instructional and compelling.
I also highly recommend that you watch the hour-long video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. Have Kleenex handy.
7. A New Earth—Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose*
Audio book by Eckhart Tolle
This Tolle guy rocks! Er, in a quiet way. He was escorted into the mainstream by Oprah he’s really helped me become more aware.
Tolle contends that thinking is not much good without awareness and that defining oneself through thought is limiting because each of us is more than our thoughts.
The more you make your beliefs into your identity, for example, the more you are cut off from growth.
Descartes equated thinking with being when he said, “I think, therefore, I am.” Later, Sartre more correctly said, “I am, therefore, I am.”
Awareness is certainly important when it comes to achieving happiness. Seeking or wanting happiness just doesn’t work. Instead, Tolle recommends that we refuse to identify with the emotion of being unhappy. Seek freedom from unhappiness. Be the awareness behind thoughts and feelings.
The author dedicates much of the book to the discussion of ego. According to Tolle, the ego keeps us from being truly aware.
The ego is about artificial ownership. The illusion of ownership is unconscious and requires others to give you a sense of self. Ego wants to want more than it wants to have. Other forms of ego are gender identification, body identification or any identification with form.
The egoic mind places a sense of ego in every thought. This is no way to go through life.
Complaining and resentment are the ego’s strategies for self-preservation. Most complaining is ego based. Stick to the facts. Instead of saying to the waiter, “My soup is cold. (Don’t insult me!),” simply say, “This soup is cold.”
The ego always needs to be right. By complaining or fault finding, you are by implication, making yourself right. In order for you to be right, the other person has to be wrong. This is not a good way to keep friends.
Identification with thought or emotion is ego-driven. Giddiness or excitement in telling someone something they don’t know is an unhealthy exercise of the ego.
According to Tolle, there are three stages of ego: 1) Wanting 2) Small judgement wanting (such as anger, resentment orcomplaining) and 3) Indifference
Ego treats the present as a means to an end or as an obstacle, i.e., stress, anxiety and the enemy. Tolle urges us to say “no” to the ego. A high quality “no” is free of negativity.
Anger, a negative emotion, is an ego-repair mechanism and renders us as dysfunctional.
If ego is involved, your sense of self depends on the past for your identity and the future for its fulfillment. Yet, the present is far most important than the past or future.
Be in the now, the only moment there is. Be okay with whatever is. Don’t ignore it, devalue it or resist it. When you are in the moment and ego-free, you become less concerned with the concept of time. Conversely, the stronger your ego, the more time takes over your life.
Breathing, for instance, is the present. Everything else is memory or anticipation. That’s why yoga exercises that involve breathing are so powerful.
Eckart Tolle also holds forth on what he calls “the pain body,” small pockets of negativity housed within our brains and hearts. All of us have pain bodies and they do a lot of harm. Emotional pain is an addiction to unhappiness.
The pain body feeds on negative energy. It cannot digest happy thoughts, solutions or positivity. The pain body is a psychic parasite.
People in pain often don’t even know they are suffering. Sometimes, they take up causes so they can regularly exercise pain such as saving animals or helping battered women.
Other observations from Mr. Tolle include:
Shy people fear attention more than they desire it. There are two kinds of attention:
1) Form-based attention such as doing or evaluating and being obscured by doing
2) Formless attention.
If small things disturb you, you are small. Everything is small.
What you react to in others is also in you. Sometimes it is only in you.
Certainty is illusory. Be comfortable with uncertainty; enjoy it. If uncertainty is unacceptable, it turns into fear. If uncertainty is acceptable, it turns into awareness and creativity.
All perspective is limited. The sun, for example, doesn’t actually rise or set.
Here’s a good way to summarize the Tolle philosophy. Behavior comes from emotion. Emotion comes from awareness. Awareness comes from what the author refers to “essence.”
8. The Know-It-All
Audio book by A.J. Jacobs
The author relates his experience reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. A.J. Jacobs’ personality is obsessive-compulsive, like most good researchers.
The reader is very good at accents and dialects, but his “normal” reading voice is a Woody Allen style that grates after about an hour.
Jacobs infuses the narrative with stories of his own life, Daddy issues, frustrating infertility issues with his wife Julie (or as Woody Allen would pronounce it—“Joolie”).
During his reading of the EB, Jacobs attends a crossword puzzle convention, attempts to join MENSA, takes a speed reading course and interviews Jeopardy host, Alex Trebeck. The TV celebrity gives A.J. the sage advice to “be curious about things you’re not interested in.”
I enjoyed this book because it helped my brain anchor obscure names from history. For example:
Philosopher, Jeremy Benthem, a long forgotten personality to me, proposed “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”
The astronomer, James Challis, who failed to discover Neptune.
Hernan Cortez was a conquistador whose syphilis caused him to miss an ill-fated expedition to South America in 1509. Talk about good luck!
The dates October 4 through 15, 1582 never happened because the world switched to the Gregorian calendar.
Ian Fleming, the guy who wrote all the manly James Bond stories, also wrote the wussy-like Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang.
Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb? Ulysses S. Grant. And his wife, Julia Dent Grant.
The main speaker on the day Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address was Edward Everett, President of Harvard, who gave a two-hour speech. Lincoln spoke for all of two minutes.
Everyone knows that the tomato is a fruit. But you probably didn’t know that the strawberry is a not a berry. The banana, however, is a berry.
The term insomnia is often misused. Insomnia means no sleep. Hypo-somnia means little sleep.
The Star Spangled Banner was originally titled, The Defense of Ft. McHenry. The melody was stolen from the British as were fighting them. Good job, Francis!
There are lessons to be learned from The Know It All. Jacobs encourages writers to aggressively market themselves. Poet, Langston Hughes, was a busboy at a DC hotel when he placed his poems beside the dinner plate of established writer, Vachel Lindsay to get discovered.
Hugh Lofting wrote the Dr. Doolittle story as a missive to his kids while he was in the trenches of WWI.
John Hansen was the first President of the United States. He presided over the first Continental Congress.
Cinnibar, used by the Indians as war paint, contained mercury that may have poisoned them.
Finally, The Know It All helped me remember Ebbinghaus’s “forgetting curve,” which explains why humans can’t remember things and (sigh), why I probably won’t remember most of these fun facts this time around, either.
Reading an encyclopedia is already a quaint idea. No one ever can or ever will read the massive, ever-growing online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
9. A Whole New Mind—Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
Audio book by Daniel H. Pink
Another fascinating report from brainiac, Daniel Pink.
10. Pieces of My Heart
Audio book by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman
One of Hollywood’s coolest television characters was Alexander Mundy on It Takes a Thief. Mundy was portrayed by Robert Wagner, was a flirtatious rapscallion. All women wanted to be with him and all men wanted to be him. A lot of women were with both Mundy and Wagner, actually.
Wagner’s body of work is large, but not overly impressive. The book covers his early years in Detroit, the tragic drowning accident of his wife Natalie Wood and his current marriage to Jill St. John.
11. Captured Wisdom: Glenn Dietzel as interviewed by Tony Rubleski
Audio book from the Captured Mind Series
[Disclosure: I’ve met both Mr. Dietzel and Mr. Rubleski and consider them friends.]
This program offers some educational content, but is more of a vehicle to promote Glenn’s book on how to do something he calls “speed writing.”
12. Histrionics—Strange Facts About the Great and Famous
By Mark Seaman
These vignettes aren’t quite as interesting as Paul Harvey’s Rest of the Story segments, but they involve many of the same types of characters, including, Hitler, Napoleon, Edgar Allen Poe.
13. Daniel Boone—Taming the Wilds
By Katharine E. Wilkie
I found this children’s book in my collection during a move. This was one of the first books I’ve ever read! I vaguely remember learning about the frontiersman from Ms. Wilkie over 40 years ago!
14. The Blunder Book
By M. Hirsch Goldberg
Some of the biggest goofs in history are reviewed in this fun little book.
15. Butterfly Marketing (plus bonus information products)
Audio program by Mike Filsaime
[Disclosure: I met Mike when he spoke at an Internet marketing conference a few years ago.]
This cluster of information products explains techniques for online marketing, including the author’s famous “Firesale” technique.
16. Free
By Chris Anderson
In the digital age, the most effective price is no price at all, argues Chris Anderson, most recently the author of The Long Tail. He writes of something called “freemiums” and how the price of much information, for example, has moved so close to zero that it’s difficult to meter.
The consideration of open and free software was at one time a short discussion. Who wants software that’s not provided by a reputable company? Yet, giant Microsoft now discovers that people are procuring and enjoying office application software virtually free through various open source options.
The discussion about the value of open source code is now being taken very seriously.
17. Inside Drucker’s Brain
By Jeffrey A. Krames
Peter Drucker invented management, despite the fact that he never managed anything. The man even wrote three dozen books on the subject.
The author’s book is predicated on a surprisingly short interview with Mr. Drucker and serves more as a review of the master’s work. The text tends to cycle back on itself and repeat several passages. While this book doesn’t cover a lot of new ground, the subject matter is still fascinating.
Drucker’s early career didn’t go well. He was fired by President Eisenhower when they both worked at Columbia University.
Whereas organizational behaviorists Frederick Taylor wrote about what to do as a manager and Elton Mayo wrote about how to manage, Drucker was the first to discuss what and how to manage .
Drucker coined the term “management by objective” (MBO) in 1954 and the term “knowledge worker” in the 1960s. He was the first person to use the term “outside-in” to describe work cultures that are customer driven.
The author reminds us that is was Mary Parker Follet, who first coined the term “conflict resolution.”
Mr. Drucker foretold problems with corporate excess by saying that CEOs pay should be capped at 20x the pay of the average worker.
Hospitals are the worst at managing, according to Drucker. They are very good with emergencies, yet less than 20% of their day-to-day activities are emergency procedures.
18. Joe Girard: The Complete Audio Collection
Audio book by Joe Girard
Joe Girard is the Yogi Berra of selling.
Talented for sure—the author sold six cars a day when average dealers only sold seven in a month—Mr. Girard’s sage advice seems ordinary and even nonsensical in the modern age.
Girard, for example says his motto was “The customer is gonna walk in and drive out.”
Such language makes this unusual book entertaining but a little rudimentary. Girard used simple metaphors when selling, such as “Selling is like staging a play.” This may not provide the type of specific “how-to” formula that readers are looking for.
Still, Girard offers some secrets for his success. He favored what’s known as the “order form close.” When selling, he used the word “when” instead of “if.”
He offers great advice for handling objections and strongly recommends sellers have all decision makers attend the sales call. Girard also believes that buyer procrastination is caused by insecurity and that a good seller can often mitigate such issues.
Girard specialized in plain talk that was often grammatically incorrect, such as “You don’t use profanity to nobody” and as Yogi himself might’ve said, “It’s imperative that sincerity is honest.”
19. Born Standing Up—A Comic’s Life
Audio book by Steve Martin
The author notes that a troubled childhood leads to a career in the arts. In Steve Martin’s case, this seems to be true. Not always as successful with personal relationships as with his career, Martin didn’t get along with his Dad for most of his life.
Many of Martin’s most well-known bits first appeared early in his career. Both “Excuuuuse me!” and “Happy Feet” came from early gigs at Disneyland. Like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis before him, Steve Martin worked his ass off honing his many talents, including banjo playing and magic.
He worked at Knotsberry Farms for three years, giving a six-minute show, four times a day with five shows on Sunday. He also did a lot of free Rotary gigs just to be in front of audiences.
Of course, Steve Martin has become one of the most successful comedians in history, creating what he refers to as laughter from the absence of comedy.
Martin provides many examples of what he considers to be funny. He loves comedian, Martin Mull’s, line that, “Noses run in my family.” Martin drops a lot of names, but only because of his long and storied career. He’s friends with musician, Glen Frey, who talked about starting a band called “Eagles.” Martin recalls bombing in front of a new duo of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
There are many fascinating insights to Martin’s comic genius. The author also writes about the difference between being interviewed by Johnny Carson—who’s from comedy—and Merv Griffin, who is not.
The “wild and crazy guy” comes off as intellectual, if not a bit restrained in this terrific autobiography.
He spends more time talking about his trademark white suit than any of his wives.
20. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
By Darren Rowse
This is an interesting concept and the author provides lots of great ideas. In fact, this book inspired me to create my own version of this type of information product.
21. Wishful Drinking
Audio book by Carrie Fisher
For my money, Carrie Fisher is one of the funniest women in America. She says, “Instant gratification takes too long.”
When asked “Are you happy?” Carrie sometimes answers, “Yes,” among other things.”
In Wishful Drinking, Fisher continues to reconstitute the comedy routine of growing up as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds, the ex-wife of Paul Simon, the daughter of Eddie Fisher, etc.
Fisher’s sarcasm and wit is on par with Joan Rivers, but she tends to make fun of herself more than Ms. Rivers. Think of her as a cross between Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller.
Fisher’s most recent update is her experience with electro-shock therapy for depression, a sad story, if not for the humor. The audio book version of “Wishful Drinking” is read by the author and no doubt helped provide the tone of her one-woman Broadway show.
Carrie knows you want to hear about her famous friends, so she obliges. Director Mike Nichols referred to the Paul Simon and Carrie Fisher marriage as “two flowers, no garden.”
Second husband, entertainment agent Brian Lourd, left Carrie for another man. That’s an interesting story.
Fisher gives life advice such as “Know the difference between a problem and an inconvenience.”
In reading Fisher’s book, I also gleaned some serious information about mental health. For example, manic depressives usually share three traits. They are sexually promiscuous, reckless spenders and usually have substance abuse issues.
22. Outliers—The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell
The author of Tipping Point and Blink does a very good job explaining how uber- successful people get that way. Gladwell’s work is often one-part research, one-part narrative and one-part deductive reasoning.
Outliers considers why most hockey players are born in the early part of the year and the interesting story of Billy Joy, whom many consider to be “The Edison of the Internet.”
Malcolm Gladwell has an engaging style. Expect to learn about relative age and why manhole covers are round. Readers will get to know geniuses such as Chris Lanagan, who scored a perfect 100% on his SAT score even though he briefly fell asleep during the exam.
According to Gladwell, it takes about 10,000 hours to become expert at something. For example, the Beatles performed 1,200 times before their 1964 breakout.
I was especially fascinated by the section on why airplanes crash due to something the author refers to as “mitigated speech.”
23. Reality Check—The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition
Audio book by Guy Kawasaki
I like the author’s previous book, The Art of the Start. This unusual tome has over 75 chapters and seems a bit like a patch work of business advice, not all directly related to the actual title.
It has good content for young business people, but the advice is sometimes quite basic, such as, “Start meetings on time.” The anecdote of Roger Bannister running the four-minute mile and John Landy doing the same less than four weeks later is quite familiar to most people, I would think.
Kawaski does turn over some fresh dirt. Apparently, Sony Beta Max failed even though Matushta VHS was a lower performing, less expensive format. Surprise! People weren’t using the platform to record, they were merely watching video. Rented movies, including pornography turned out to be the killer app.
I also like how he rolls out fun catch phrases such as “high-quality problem” and “Nobody’s perfect unless you believe what you read on a resume.”
We learn that if Bill Gates were down to his last dollar, he would spend it on public relations.
The author is not shy about offering advice. By nature, humans horde, collect, store, contribute, do more, add on, etc. Instead, Kawasaki writes, we should subtract and do with less. Guy thinks we talk too much and think too little.
This book is read by Paul Boehmer.
24. The 4-Hour Work Week
Audio book by Timothy Fariss
This is my new manifesto. The title is catchy but probably not doable for most people. But man, how about a 20-hour work week or even a 30-hour work week?
Author, Tim Fariss, gives fantastic techniques for managing time and really captured my imagination with ways I can work smarter and better.
Tim doesn’t seem much like a people person, though. Many of his time-saving techniques involve cutting people out of communication loops and minimizing interaction with business associates.
He talks a good game, but I’m not altogether sure Mr. Fariss has worked this out for himself, yet. He doesn’t recommend reading, but gives advice on how to “speed” read. He’s down on the processing of information, but he recommends dozens of books, including his.
Brusque and business-like, reader Ray Porter sounds like an unfunny version of TV’s Stephen Colbert. I listened to the audio book and got a little tired of Mr. Porter reading the URLs of recommended Web sites. “H-T-T-P://W-W-W. . .”
25. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
By David Allen
Certainly, younger folks stand to learn the most from lessons related to fundamental business skills. But this veteran businessman learned a thing or two from David Allen’s fine book on getting things done (GTD).
I’m trying his tip for organizing incoming e-mails into sub-folders such as messages that require action by others and a “to-do” folder. Messages that can be handled in less than two minutes (most incoming e-mails) don’t have to be moved to a sub-folder at all.
Allen’s basic GTD five-step formula sequence is “collect, process, organize, review, do.” Even Aristotle weighs in on the issue of organization with his pithy quote: “What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.”
26. Wired to Care—How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy
By Dev Patnaik with Peter Mortensen
Thanks to Al Hatfield, a client and friend, for recommending this book. Okay, Al made me read it. He hired me to fly to Laguna Beach to teach his employees more about empathy and the reading was my pre-work. I was intrigued by the assignment and had many questions:
Can empathy be taught? If so, can it be monetized? From a business perspective, what’s the difference between sympathy and empathy?
Al forwarded an observation from one of his brilliant employees, who said, “Sympathy costs our company money.” I teach sales training and am often surprised at how much money sellers and customer services reps leave on the table.
After reading Wired to Care, I can confidently append the comment about sympathy to be, “Sympathy costs companies money, but empathy earns companies money.”
27. The Power Presenter—Technique, Style and Strategy from America’s Top Speaking Coach
By Jerry Weissman
[Disclosure: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for reviewing it on Amazon.]
It’s always a pleasure studying the work of someone who knows his stuff. I’ve never heard Jerry Weissman speak, but he definitely knows a lot about the subject.
The book contains plenty of great content including the use of non-verbals, creating empathy, preparing a speech, handling nerves and using graphics.
I’ve always said that reading a book to become a better speaker is a bit like listening to the radio to become a better cook. The author makes great use of video by regularly referring the reader to a Web site where you can hear and see great (and not so great) speakers in action.
28. Marco Polo
Audio book by Laurence Bergreen
This explorer’s life is legendary, but largely uncorroborated. Apparently, historians believe Polo went to all the places he did simply because he said he did.
The book suffers a bit from the writer’s fairy tale rendition and reader’s sing-songy voice. Perhaps I was looking for something more factual than whimsical.
29. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
By Alice Schroeder
Warren Buffett is not coy about how he made his millions. In fact, he has spent considerable time and energy documenting his wealth strategies regarding risk, credit cards, compounded savings and how he chooses stocks. Ironically, most people who want to be rich don’t take his advice.
It’s no coincidence that Warren Buffett became the richest man in the world. It was a very specific goal of his from when he was a young lad. As a paper boy at age 14, Warren made more money than his teachers. When he filed one of his first tax returns, young Buffett only paid $7, partly because he deducted his wrist watch and bicycle as business expenses.
Young Buffett discovered the power of working capital when he placed pinball machines in area retail stores. He’s a smart guy who graduated 16th of 350 in his high school class.
His biography has many touchstones to modern business, including adventures with Geico, Coca-Cola, Salomon Brothers and his first stock, City Services.
The book offers a terrific lesson in losing money: You don’t have to make it back the same way you lose it.
Buffett predicted he would be a millionaire by age 35. One of his favorite books growing up was “1,000 Ways to Make $1,000.” (Note: Do what the title says and you’ll make a million dollars.)
An early fan of Dale Carnegie training, Warren actually split-tested compliments and measured the results.
30. The Creativity Tools Memory Jogger—A Pocket Guide for Creative Thinking
By Diane Ritter & Michael Brassard
I first heard about this little book from a client. The authors explore the basis and process of creativity. Expect to learn about Alex Osborn and (SCAMPER), George Prince and Synetics and Edward de Bono and Lateral Thinking.
The book also covers creative processes known as brainwriting, brainstorming and knowledge mapping
