Graduate students in the MBA classes I taught asked for book recommendations enough times that I finally put a list together. 

The first four involve personal development

• On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. Fundamental principles and insights for anyone who wants to write better.
• The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. The principles of English language composition and the rules of usage.
• What Color Is Your Parachute, by Nelson Bolles. Mostly about job hunting, but the real value is in helping us to better know who we are.
• On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes, by Alexandra Horowitz. We pay so little attention to most of what is right in front of us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives.

The next four are indispensable for anyone who works with information

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte. Because most of the people who build slide decks do not understand the basic principles of graphic arts, they too often create chartjunk.

• City: Rediscovering the Center, by William H. Whyte. Pioneering studies that provided a view of what is  seemingly invisible to those responsible for city planning. A must for people who want to learn how to observe.
• Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy. “When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”
• Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill. The New York Times book review said Underhill did not simply study the store, but studied the precise mechanics of what human beings do in it.

The next one I read after writing a stupefyingly dreary and muddy thesis on Job Satisfaction

It taught me the importance of interviewing in a manner that encourages people to tell stories their way.

• Working, by Studs Terkel. The only Pulitzer Prize-winning blue-collar anthropologist host of a jazz radio show interviews 100 people about the jobs they do. “People are hungry for stories. It’s part of our very being.” -Studs Terkel

The final book is a national bestseller

But most would rather watch the BBC video interview with this Nobel Prize winner here.

• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, a national bestseller by Richard Feynman. “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”  – Richard Feynman

Want to look at old things in new ways, see the commonplace in greater detail and hear complex subject matter explained in simple, conversational language?

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