I loved these books. Maybe you will too!

 

Start-Ups and Entrepreneurship

 

 

Good for getting "centered" on thinking through your career arc. Helpful in determining your assets, what value you bring to the table.

Chock full of practical tools for building and maintaining networks.

 
 

More of a reference book -- no need to read straight through from beginning to end.

Incredibly powerful, simple and practical tools for thinking through Product-Market-Fit (Customer Development)

 
 

A wonderful complement to StartUp Owner's Manual and Lean StartUp ... focused on the core business model.

Fantabulous tool for sketching out your own Business Model Canvas.

Feel free to try this version of the Business Model Canvas I made in Powerpoint

 
 

Eric Ries is a pupil of Steve Blank (StartUp Owner's Manual). This book by Eric is a common sense approach to building a company with limited resources. Distills the StartUp Owner's Manual philosophies into practical, iterative steps.

Another book chock full of practical tools and resources.

 
 
Rework
By Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

A fun take on what work could be like.

 
 

A cookbook full of recipes for creating innovative (read: Disruptive) ideas.

I've read this one at least twice and still use as a reference book.

 
 

Inspiring and provides a sharp focus on how to truly build a differentiated company.

Felt repetitive about half way through.


 
Monetizing Innovation.jpg
 

Another cookbook of recipes, this time for packaging and pricing. I cannot over-emphasize how important this book is to read in order to understand how to design your product for your customer.

 

 

Business

 

Bill Gurley Must Reads for every Entrepreneur:

  • Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschalk

  • Competitive Strategy, Michael Porter

  • Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore

  • Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen

  • Startup, Jerry Kaplan

  • Shoe Dog, Phil Knight


 

Science

 

  • Waking Up, Sam Harris

  • A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

  • The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil

  • Germs, Guns, and Steel, Jared Diamond

  • Collapse, Jared Diamond

  • The World Without Us, Alan Weisman


 

Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories

 

  • Hail Mary, Andy Weir

  • The Martian, Andy Weir

  • Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

  • Leviathans of Jupiter, Ben Bova

  • Enders Game, Orson Scott Card

  • Life of Pi, Yann Martel

  • Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

  • Reamde, Neal Stephenson

  • My Life, Bill Clinton

  • Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson

  • Wool Omnibus Edition, Hugh Howey

  • The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

  • Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

  • Armada, Ernest Cline

  • The Lord of the Rings Series (& The Hobbit), J.R.R. Tolkien