I have always used books as a source of knowledge, fun and even solace.
They’re funny things books, they take you into a whole new world, all on your own. No one can go with you, just you, the author and your thoughts.
Once you’ve read them though, then you return to the world and can share everything with friends, family and colleagues.
Whilst there are hundreds of books that are entertaining, I will save sharing my love of Rankin, Le Carre, and Larsson for another day.
There are books though that do change your life, or even influence it significantly. I wanted to share some of those below. Some books I read years ago, timeless classics, as wells more modern ones I have read recently.
All are about learning something; be it productivity, effectiveness, food, spirituality, teaching or technology.
I thought I would share with you, and I would love to hear what you think, and would love to know which books have influenced you too.
Note, the links are affiliate links to Amazon where I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you, but of course you can also get the books from other sources.
Have fun and enjoy reading!
5 Books That Have Changed my Life
#1 The Power of Now
The first book by Eckhart Tolle and one that completely blew my mind. I was in bed for several days recovering from an operation when I started reading this book, and then something happened and I suddenly got it – a complete ‘aha!’ moment. It felt like I was entering a parallel universe. I was totally at peace.
At the start of the book Eckhart says you need to read, not just with your logical mind, but from beyond your mind. He says he will repeat the message in various formats until at some point you realise what it is. And it was so true, at some point I got it and entered the Now. I came out of that state though, it didn’t last. However, I now knew it existed and I knew how to get there.
This book has been a guide for me ever since then, along with all of Tolle’s books (I mention another one below). I love his deadpan humour, his ability to communicate and the way he can de-mystify the supposedly ‘unattainable’ nirvana that much teaching, be it in Christianity or Buddhism, makes us feel is not for most of us. If you thought nirvana was only for those priests and monks who dedicate their lives to spirituality, thing again, it is for all of us, right now!
#2 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
In my twenties I had just been promoted from teacher to academic coordinator in a school, and I was struggling to make the leap. I had no idea how to manage my time, and that of others. I felt frustrated bay after day. This book brought concepts that I had never heard of before. I learnt that my success wouldn’t appear one day just like that, it was the steady accumulation of the right habits, day after day. This was the first kind of productivity book I had ever read, and probably that’s why it had such an impact.
Simple concepts of prioritising, strategising, understanding people first and so forth, all put in a nice systematic order (I am a very systematic person) with catchy titles.
This was a book that appeared for me at just the right time, and was a huge help in taking my professional development up a step.
#3 How to win friends and influence people
I was so reluctant to read this book for years. It smacked of false, out-dated, self-help nonsense. I never used to be into reading these kind of books, but I began to read more as I entered my thirties and took on more management duties, and maybe I matured a little. Strangely, enough this one title kept popping up, for example, in google searches, in conversations and so forth. I knew enough about attraction to stop and listen, and so I bought it.
In my early thirties, I had lived in the same city for about 10 years and so I never felt I had to ‘win friends’ – I already had friends and didn’t need anymore, thank you very much! I originally, felt ‘influencing’ meant manipulating and so it was bad.
However, this book changed my paradigm. Influencing people wasn’t so much about manipulating people, but about understanding them, empathising and building stronger relations with them. Sometimes, getting them to do things you want, but willingly, rather than against their will.
It proved to have some of the most useful lesson for my life, especially as I was about to leave the city I had been in and set off to a new country and new job. I was about to move out of my comfort zone and needed new friends and relationships. This book was a gift for me.
As with a few of the ‘older’ generation of books, (such as ‘As a man Thinketh’ by James Allen, once you get over the style of writing, they contain absolute gems of knowledge. Well worth investing in.
#4 The One Thing
This is a relatively new book, but one that has influenced and guided my work to significant extent, and with huge benefits, in the last year. I am a bit of a perfectionist and a systems person, but I also get distracted easily. I can set out with the best of intentions, but if I feel a pull to look at something, I will often follow it and then 2 hours later, I am not doing what I wanted, nor what I should be doing.
This book, narrated in such a simple way (and as focused as the title suggests), really helped me focus, and learn to say ‘no’ to what was important to others, but not to me. The logical part of me loves it, and I still use the concepts daily today. I love the fact it is so hands on and practical.
#5 Think and Grow Rich
Another ‘old school’ book that is full of great ideas. This is one of the earlier books explaining and advocating the law of attraction, long before the concept was popularised by Rhonda Byrne in her film ‘The Secret’.
Napoleon Hill based on years of research, sets out a Blueprint for making money, based on how you think. At the time, that was a new idea for me – your thoughts create your world; not the other way round. Mind-blowing!
When I read it, I wasn’t actually focussed on making lots of money (believe it or not) but I was looking for more in my life, more knowledge, more love, more understanding – and of course I came to realise that ‘growing rich’, wasn’t just about money. It was about getting an abundance of anything in your life.
Again, if you like systems, then this might match your style. It’s one of those books where you can also pick up new things every time you dip into it.
I recently discovered some old footage of Napoleon Hill talking about the book and going through its principles in a very old-style TV documentary on Amazon – very entertaining!
5 Books That Have Changed my Approach to Food
#1 Jamie’s Dinners
I have always been attached to the kitchen, I used to watch my Mum cook and loved helping out whenever I could. It all starts with opportunity, right?
I guess I really started cooking when I left home to go and study at university, but I was rubbish at it, and to be honest I just did enough to get by. It wasn’t until many years later that I started to think I needed to learn more, I needed some recipes and some new techniques. Cue Jamie Oliver!
I found this book and a series of TV programmes by Jamie and I was hooked. It became my first cooking bible and he was my role model.
#2 In Defense of Food
This was the first book I ever read about food nutrition that wasn’t a cook book. I can’t remember why I picked it up, but when I did, I quickly realised I was on a steep learning curve. My eyes were opened to what food is and what it does to us, and to the whole food industry that did not have our health as their number one goal!
The simplicity of the mantra, ‘Eat food, not too much, mostly plants’ was great and has stuck with me ever since. Sometimes, we choose to over-complicate life, and likewise food. At times, simplicity is best and this book gives it.
#3 First Bite
In some ways, I guess it was a natural progression for me to move from reading about cooking, to nutrition and then to learn about how we eat. Bee Wilson’s book is not so much about food, but about our relationship with food; how we learn to eat, likes and dislikes, feeding, hunger and much more.
Whilst learning about nutrition from a scientific perspective is useful, this book looks at all those factors that affect our bodies in ways we may not have realised; such as environment, family and even culture. This book will help you understand weight loss or weight gain much better than any diet-nutrition book.
#4 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
What I love about this book is the focus first and foremost, on cooking techniques. Yes, it is also a recipe book, but not like any I have seen before.
Samin reveals her philosophy about cooking, one that most professional chefs already know instinctively, but may have never articulated. All cooking is about salt, fat, acid and heat; if you learn to master these, then you can master cooking.
The first half of the book explains the concepts and the second half gives guided recipes so you can practice the techniques. With each recipe you learn about why it works, how you can adapt it, and there are frameworks where you can mix and match ingredients and techniques to produce your own dishes.
It’s a great skills development book, and one I am finding to be hugely liberating and empowering, as an amateur chef.
#5 The Diet Myth
If there is one book you need to read right now to understand why diets don’t work, and why we have all been barking up the wrong tree for years, then it is this one.
It’s as gripping as a John Le Carre novel, well almost, and takes a whole new approach to the problems we are facing around health, obesity and heart disease. Some of the ideas maybe familiar to you, but others will be new, and for me a lot of this is mind-blowing.
It is very well written, some of it narrated as a story, rather than a scientific summary. I am just half way through it as I write this, and I wish I had discovered it months ago.
4 Books That have Changed my Personal and Professional Effectiveness
#1 The Power of Habit
Charles Duhigg gives a in-depth understanding of how and why our habits are formed. If it is true that we are our habits, then this is an incredibly important book.
Duhigg looks not only at how habits are formed, but also how we can change them by understanding the key factors that influence them. The implications and applications are numerous whether you are an alcoholic getting off the booze, somebody wanting to lose weight, or an office worker wanting to be more effective at work.
The book combines research with stories and looks at habits from various perspectives; the individual, companies and societies.
I used this book to successfully get me into a reading habit every evening. So far, so good!
#2 Chicken Soup for the Soul
There are now hundreds of books in this series, appealing to every kind of person, which is a good thing. I think we all need inspiration and motivation, and although I am not sure about the direction of the series into pets, golf and the like, I still think these books (podcasts and videos) are a great source of inspiration.
One of the things I like about these books, is the move the authors made to start giving children and teenagers access to these ideas and support. I often wonder why I never learnt so many of these useful ideas about the world at school. Why didn’t we have a class on basic life-skills, emotional intelligence, how to handle people, or just knowing other people were going through the same stuff as you – you know, the stuff you actually need to know. Anyway, I wish I had had access to books like this when I was at school.
Now as parents, not only can we benefit, but we can help our kids benefit too.
#3 168 Hours
I loved this book, not so much as a guidebook for time management, but because it made me realise how many hours we actually have in a week and how I was spending them.
I now combine strict time management with flexibility to follow the flow when it comes to doing my stuff, but this book was useful in giving me a new perspective and to be honest a bit of a wake call as to what I was doing and could be doing with my time.
Very practical and applicable ideas, well worth reading.
#4 The One Minute manager
Probably one of the oldest series of books on time management, but the simplicity is captivating. Again the narrative style works exceptionally well, and the fact I can still remember most of the story 20 years after reading this book, means it must have been pretty effective.
There is now a new version out, relating the ideas to our new technology enhanced world. When I first read this, we had no computers at work and mobile phones were as big as a box of dominoes (although we seem to have gone full circle on phone size!). Much of that has changed now and the new version is very welcome.
In a world looking for fast and simple answers, this book delivers.
3 Books That Have Changed my Spirituality
#1 Stillness Speaks
As I mention above, for me, Eckhart Tolle is one of the most powerful and accessible writers on spiritually around today.
In this book, he reveals how we can access peace (God, Buddha, the Divine, whatever you want to call it) though stillness. In the same way that Paulo Coelho reveals to us ‘portals’ through which we can access the spiritual world (in books like the Alchemist), Tolle presents silence and stillness as one such portal to the now, to peace, to your ‘God’.
He avoids the word ‘God’ because it is too loaded with different connotations, as all words ultimately are, and so fails (indeed even distracts) to capture the essence of the spirituality he is describing.
This book is very easy to read and is deliberately interspersed with gaps, so you can contemplate what you are reading, allowing the concepts to enter you and allowing stillness to appear.
#2 The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
My first Robin Sharma book, and very enlightening. The concepts are told through a story which is a great way to convey spiritual ideas, because we tend to suspend reality and stop being logically critical when we hear a story.
I didn’t realise until after reading it that it has already been around for twenty years and is considered a bit of a classic. It just goes to show how many spiritual truths are timeless.
Robin Sharma was responsible for getting me out of bed early in the morning to plan and take control of my days, rather than letting them drift by, for this and much more, I am forever grateful for this book and his writing.
Wonderful story and great messages. Get hold of it and see for yourself.
#3 The seven spiritual laws of success
Another classic that has been around for twenty odd years, but one you cannot afford to miss. If you have yet to read any Deepak Chopra, this is a good place to start.
In this pocket-book, he presents the idea that we can realise our desires, not by hard work, but by aligning ourselves with nature and the laws of nature.
The idea of achieving by aligning with and following natures’ laws is the same concept behind the law of attraction. I have to admit, I struggled with this idea for years, because I had been brought up to believe hard work was a virtue and was necessary to get success.
I do actually still hold that belief but I have re-framed ‘hard work’ as ‘time on task’. The word ‘work’ is a non-starter for me, for most people it has a negative connotation, something we ‘have to do’, something that requires effort and a struggle. It’s not a helpful word.
By ‘time on task’ I mean we need to spend time doing stuff, but we need to be doing the right stuff and that can be best guided not by our logical minds but by (and this is where words don’t capture it) intuition, the divine, the laws of nature; call it what you will.
This was one of the books that helped me change my thinking on this.
2 Powerful Books on Learning and Technology
#1 Visible Learning
Having been a teacher and a trainer, I am about geeky when it comes to teaching. Actually, whilst most teachers focus on teaching, I think we need to be focusing more on learning, understanding how people learn, and empowering students to learn.
The whole idea of teaching is a myth, it supposes we (the teachers) are in control and can give the students something. We are not and we cannot. Students learn when they are supported and empowered to do so. They take from the teacher, when they are ready.
Just because a teacher has taught something, does not mean the student has learnt it.
Anyway, my ranting aside, this book is by the modern guru of teaching, John Hattie who carried out extensive meta-research (a summary of research papers already done) on what affects learning and achievement in schools.
The results are at times surprising, and hugely relevant for our schools, teachers, parents and children today.
It is very much a book aimed at educators, but the results are impotent for all of us who play a role in bringing up children.
#2 Untangling The Web
Aleks Krotoski is a journalist who specialises in writing about technology and its influence on our lives. This book, along with an accompanying article and website in the Guardian newspaper, gives a fascinating insight into a whole range of areas where the web intertwines and influences our lives. It looks at social media, children, funerals, sex, revolution and cats.
For someone who mainly uses the internet for work, this opened up a whole new world for me that I wasn’t fully aware of. Whilst I don’t relate to all of it, it is still very useful to be aware of.
For a well written, engaging and humorous trip into the internet and what it means for our lives, this is the book to read.
That’s it!
Enjoy your reading, and do share your most influential books with me below.
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