My goal is to read & learn new things, on varying topics, then integrate the techniques into life, prior to reading more new material.
It’s very easy & addicting to constantly read books and hear new concepts, then never actually implement what was read.
Since too much information has many downsides, I hope that this list of my favorite books will help you out.
The book list is broken down into sections which you can view using the table of contents below.
5 Books that Changed My Life
The books are listed in no particular order.
Each of the books contains techniques I use on a daily basis for my photography, writing, website, and business.
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
- Getting Things Done by David Allen: You can’t just read this book, it’s also a must to build the GTD System out and implement it in everyday life. This takes time, but it’s well worth it. I recommend Evernote Pro for this.
- The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
Building Stuff that Matters, Creativity & Art
- Do the Work
- Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur
- The Flinch
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups & How to Build the Future. I found this book to apply nicely to a one-man small business as well.
- Turning Pro
- Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
- Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
- The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
- The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?
- Poke the Box: When Was the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time?
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Mindset, Lifestyle Design & Minimalism
- Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Stoicism)
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm
- The Big Leap
- The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. This book has a few paragraphs that discuss religion. I don’t believe in a God and still find this book to contain a lot of good info.
- Tools of the Titans
Science, History & The Human Mind
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins: I found this book to be a great way for my engineering mind to conceptualize Evolution.
- Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character
- Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
- Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
- The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition
- The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
- Gulag: A History
- The Gulag Archipelago
- Thinking, Fast and Slow
- The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality
- The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
Fiction Classics
- East of Eden: My favorite fiction book & writer.
- Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner: This is up there with East of Eden for the best writing on the American West.
- The Big Rock Candy Mountain
- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- 1984
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Of Mice and Men
- Travels with Charley in Search of America
- The Winter of Our Discontent
- A Fools Progress
Wilderness, Adventure & Outdoors
- The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abby
- Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West
- Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
- The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
- The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons
- Coming into the Country
- Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
- Encounters with the Archdruid
- Limits of the Known
- Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813
- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
- Desert Solitaire by Ed Abbey
- Fire on the Mountain by Ed Abbey
- Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America by Craig Childs
- House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest
- The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
- The Secret Knowledge of Water : Discovering the Essence of the American Desert
Outdoor Education
None of these books suffice for an in-person class on each of the topics. They should be used as supplemental learning material for reference, upon taking a class.
- Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills
- NOLS Wilderness Medicine: It’s essential to take a Wilderness First Responder course to go along with this book.
- Swift Water Rescue: A course is also required for this material.
- Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain
- Training for the New Alpinism: A Manual for the Climber as Athlete