This just in, the ultimate reading list. I love to read. I love to be inspired. I love to learn. This list, in no particular order, combines a little bit of each.
1. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. This sly and lucid book discusses why we make the decisions that we do, including why headaches disappear after taking a 50-cent aspirin but not a 1-cent aspirin and why we ever started spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee. This was a favorite read of mine- very insightful.
2. The Foreclosure Survival Guide: Keep Your House or Walk Away With Money in Your Pocket, by Stephen Elias. Written from the perspective of a bankruptcy attorney, this is a must-read for anyone facing foreclosure.
3. The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie. Blogging is the future. People blog about everything from money to love to coffee. This fun book is full of humor, wit, and great information on how to get your blog going, and noticed. And this book isn’t just for the girls.
4. Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, by Don Tapscott. I haven’t read this, but was told that I should. In reading the jacket, I think I will…afterall, it was selected as a 2008 best business book of the year by The Economist.
5. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. This book takes a look at why some people succeed and live remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential. Read this and you will be saying “huh…who knew?”
6. The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. The 40th edition of this book brings us back to a time when friendship has no barriers. Give this special book to someone special in your life.
7. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel H. Pink. Ok people, time to re-think your world. The author seeks to engage the brain in a new way of thinking. The author uses research, storytelling, and provocative examples on why lawyers, doctors and accountants are out and designers, inventors and teachers are in. Or, more specifically, why the latter will rule the world.
8. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama. When Obama was offered a book contract little did he know that the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life.
9. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. I didn’t read this book, rather I listened to it on tape. But it was worth the listen. This book is a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. I know I will never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.
10. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. Because I think this author is just too damned funny.