ashes of my shelf
Over the years, I've read a few thousand books. Some of which were about business. This list has 44 recommendations.
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel’s *The Psychology of Money* offers a profound yet accessible look into how people make financial decisions based not on logic or spreadsheets, but on personal history, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives. The book’s strength lies in its storytelling—short chapters illustrate big ideas using vivid anecdotes and real-world events. Housel emphasizes that doing […]
Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson revolutionized the world of advertising and marketing when it first appeared by proposing bold, unconventional strategies for small businesses with limited budgets. The book’s core message is simple but powerful: creativity and energy can outperform expensive ad campaigns. Rather than relying on traditional media buys, guerrilla marketing emphasizes tactics […]
The Long Tail
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson explores how the internet has reshaped business economics by enabling niche products to flourish alongside mainstream hits. Anderson argues that the traditional focus on ‘blockbusters’ is becoming less relevant in a world of infinite shelf space, thanks to digital distribution, search engines, and recommendation algorithms. This shift allows businesses […]
Shoe Dog
Shoe Dog is not a sanitized corporate biography; it is Phil Knight’s raw confession of the messy, exhilarating birth of Nike. Knight recounts pounding Japanese factory floors in the 1960s, selling running shoes out of his Plymouth Valiant, and facing perpetual cash-flow crises that threatened to sink the company. Alongside him is a motley crew […]
Messengers
Why are self-confident ignoramuses so often believed? Why are thoughtful experts so often given the cold shoulder? And why do apparently irrelevant details such as a person’s height, their relative wealth, or their Facebook photo influence whether or not we trust what they are saying? When deciding whether or not someone is worth listening to, […]
Live Work Work Work Die
At the height of the startup boom, journalist Corey Pein set out for Silicon Valley with little more than a smartphone and his wits. His goal: to learn how such an overhyped industry could possibly sustain itself as long as it has. But to truly understand the delirious reality of the tech entrepreneurs, he knew […]