My Reading List: Books That Shaped Who I Am and How I Think
I’ve organised these recommended booklist as best I can by category – every one of them earns an unreserved recommendation.
My suggestion: do the same exercise yourself. Compile every book that has genuinely shifted something in you. The patterns that emerge tell you a lot about who you are and what you actually believe.
Looking at my own list, a few things stand out. I’m drawn to fundamentals – in business, in communication, in how I think about building something that lasts. That shows up in how I run The Entrepreneurial Translator and in my medical translation and linguistic validation work itself.
There’s also a section of books that mattered during one of the harder chapters of my life: my recovery from severe childhood enmeshment and abuse. Some came via therapists, others I found myself at 2 am down a rabbit hole. I’ve passed several of them on to people navigating their own versions of that particular storm.
Growing up in Birmingham, I wasn’t exactly a voracious reader, unless you count Enid Blyton’s fiction, which nobody should. What genuinely hooked me was language itself: the precision of it, the way the right word in the right place changes everything. That obsession has never ever left me.
One final note: finding a book valuable doesn’t mean I endorse everything its author stands for. We read to widen our thinking, not to adopt a creed. With that said – here we go:
Memoirs
Stories of obsessive creators who built something meaningful. I really admire their unconventional paths and admire their stories aren’t very sanitized.
- Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
- Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy (one of the original Mad Men)
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Money & Mindset
To me, money is a tool for freedom and meaning, not status. These books challenge my scarcity thinking and explore the psychological, spiritual, and practical sides of building wealth. I certainly needed it – I didn’t grow up either with abundance or a good mindset around money.
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (an all-time fave)
Books About Life & Meaning
These helped me shift from building a career to really building a life.
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (anyone who survived a concentration camp earns the right to talk about the meaning of life)
- The Second Mountain by David Brooks
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Philosophy & Critical Thinking
These are books about mental models for navigating life, uncertainty, complexity. I really like getting inside the mind of these authors.
- Think Again by Adam Grant
- Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Strategy by Lawrence Freedman
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson and Naval Ravikant
- Principles by Ray Dalio
Personal Development & Mindset
Books about the inner work that makes the outer work possible:
- The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida (for guys)
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- The Artist’s Journey by Steven Pressfield
- The Four-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss (the slow carb diet in this book is changing my life.)
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
Marketing & Branding
A lot of these are classics. I really believe in fundamentals and doing the basics well.
- Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout
- Great Leads by Michael Masterson & John Forde
- Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
- The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert Bly
- Launch by Jeff Walker (whether you like Jeff’s style or not, if you’re marketing anything on the internet this is a must read)
- How the World Sees You by Sally Hogshead
Entrepreneurship
Building businesses that don’t consume your life. Systems over hustle.
- E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
- Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
- Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
Business
Why these matter to me: high-level strategy for building authority, charging premium rates and creating systematic businesses.
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
Personal Relationships
When you’re going through something big, your emotions are all over the place. Some titles were recommended by therapists.
- Attached by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
- Stop Walking on Eggshells by Paul Mason and Randi Kreger
- I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me by Jerold J. Kreisman & Hal Straus
Novels
- The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Larsson died before these books hit it big globally. Larsson was very vocal about his government and when he died, the book rights went to his estranged family rather than his life partner, who he didn’t marry for fear of political danger. The other titles published after his death were written by others.
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Further suggested reading
- Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail by Ray Dalio
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Harari, Yuval Noah
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Harari, Yuval Noah
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
YouTube Channels
- Johnny Harris – Deep dive investigative journalism, geopolitics, stunning visuals.
- Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell – Complex science and philosophy made accessible through beautiful animation. Check it out.
- OverSimplified – History education through humour, brilliant storytelling, and stick figures.
- The Infographics Show – Data-driven explainers on everything from military to culture.
- Enes Yilmazer – Ultra-luxury real estate tours and architectural deep dives.
- Dorkly – Gaming and pop culture humour.
- Man of Recaps – Hilarious and brilliant recaps of entire TV shows and movie series. Creative genius.
Newsletters
A shout out to this one whose author I personally know. I want signal in a world of noise and almost never miss an issue:
- The Digital Contrarian by Ryan Levesque – Contrarian marketing and business insights, challenging conventional wisdom.
I would absolutely love to hear what some of your top books, newsletters, comic books, fiction, YouTube channels are. Let’s help each other grow.
