I love reading books.
I didn't use to, but since buying a Nook the amount of books I've read has increased significantly. I read non-fiction almost exclusively. I mostly read about psychology, productivity and philosophy.
Here's the list of my favorite books, which I hope you will enjoy as much as I did.
How to win friends and influence people A must read for anyone dealing with people in their day to day work (everyone). Packed with great advice for effective work relationships. Although its title might suggest so, this isn't a self-help book.
The talent code This book explores how brains work and how we reach our peek performance in both sports and art. Sheds some light on reasons behind talent pools like Brazil in soccer, Renaissance Florence in art, Russia in woman tennis etc.
Stop stealing dreams Great critique of our current education system and how it's obsolete for the modern age. Explores history behind modern schools and lays out the problems they cause.
Hackers and painters Although my first thought about this book was that it's going to lay out the differences between painters and programmers, this book explores the similarities between them. Interesting read for any programmer out there, although some chapters are mildly annoying with extreme libertarian agenda.
The pragmatic programmer If I had to pick one book for every programmer to read, it would be this book. Packed with great advice from people that spent decades in software development.
Mastery Exploration of what it takes to become a master. In this book, the author describes lives of famous masters of their craft like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein and explains how finding your niche is key to becoming master.
Outliers This book describes how most people are only interested in what talented people are like and completely ignore the fact of their environment and the time they were born at. It explores how the environment affected the success of many people we consider talented like Bill Gates and the Beatles.
To have or to be Great book that describes two modes of existence: the being and the having mode. It lays out the problem of the pointlessness of having mode and just acquiring things and suggests to reader to focus more on the being mode. A must read for anyone displeased with consumerism of our age.
The obstacle is the way If you're looking for an introduction to Stoicism, start with this book. It explains how Stoics view obstacles in life as opportunities and how many successful people in history followed the Stoic philosophy to get through difficult times in their lives.
A power governments cannot suppress A book that explores current political situation in the US. It concludes how civil disobedience is the key to democracy and is telling the truth about war and politics, being anti-war. It also gives criticism on celebrated US heroes like Columbus.