A long time ago I worked in an antiquarian bookshop. By the time I reached 23, I decided I no longer wanted to work for anyone but myself, so I quit and started my own business.
However, that work in my mother’s bookshop taught me priceless things. Books have the power to change worlds as well as individual human beings, and they certainly changed me.
Note for Kindle readers: I highlight constantly on the Kindle version of books I’m reading. If you also do this, here’s where to view your Kindle highlights online: https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights
I run a private Facebook group for copywriters (and anyone in business who’s struggling or who wants new ideas). If that’s you, please do join me and over 33,000 others here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofcopywriting/
Books I’ve Read That I Found Useful
(in no particular order – also includes some I wouldn’t recommend to anyone – but were useful in coming to that conclusion)
Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Shelle Rose Charvet: Words That Change Minds
Lawrence Weinstein: Grammar for a Full Life
Stephen Mumford: Metaphysics: A very short introduction
Becca Puglisi, Angela Ackerman: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression
Janice Hardy: Show, Don’t Tell (the best book I’ve found on this important topic)
James Scott Bell: The Mental Game of Writing
Nicholas Epley: Mindwise – How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want
Ronald Tobias: 20 Master Plots
Richard Buckminster Fuller: Critical Path
Ray Dalio: Principles
Seth Godin: This is Marketing
Alan Weiss: Managing for Peak Performance
Robert Saltzman: The Ten Thousand Things
James Webb Young: A Technique for Producing Ideas
Dave Gray: Liminal Thinking
Steven Frayne: Nothing is Impossible
Dick Richards: Is Your Genius At Work?
Oren Klaff: Pitch Anything
Baltasar Gracian: How To Use Your Enemies (slipperyness defined)
Phil M Jones: Toolbox
Alan Weiss: Million Dollar Speaking
Gustave Le Bon: The Crowd (a disturbing book used by the world’s most evil people)
Hyde and Kopp: Speaking Being (Werner Erhard transcripts)
Shawn Coyne: The Story Grid
K.M. Weiland: Creating Character Arcs (+ workbook)
Carmine Gallo: Talk Like TED (top 9 TED talks analysed)
Mark Forsyth: The Elements of Eloquence
Sam Leith: You Talkin’ To Me?
Derren Brown: Happy
Victor Frankl: Man’s Search For Meaning
Chris Voss: Never Split The Difference
Ash Maurya: Scaling Lean
Gene M Landrum: Eight Keys To Greatness
Ryan Levesque: Ask
Jonah Berger: Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age
George Leonard: Mastery
Rosser Reeves: Reality in Advertising
Richard Rumelt: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy
Brendan Moynihan: What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars
George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller : Phishing for Phools
Thomas Lewis et al: A General Theory of Love
J George Frederick: Masters of Advertising Copy
Christopher Hadnagy: Social Engineering
Richard Bandler: The Ultimate Introduction to NLP
Pete Barry: The Advertising Concept Book
Stephen King: On Writing
Roy Peter Clark: The Art of XRay Reading (and everything else by him)
Seth Godin: Linchpin, What To Do When It’s Your Turn.
Seth Godin: All Marketers Are Liars
Paul Ekman: Emotions Revealed
John Warrillow: The Automatic Customer
Chris Niebauer: No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism
Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Ryan Holiday: The Obstacle Is The Way
James Altucher: Choose Yourself
Alan Weiss: Million Dollar Consulting
Jeff Walker: Launch
Dan Ariely: Irrationally Predictable
Dan Ariely: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
Daniel Priestley: Oversubscribed
Peter Thiel: Zero to One
Keller and Papasan: The One Thing
Ries and Trout: Positioning
Neil Martin: Habit
Richard Bandler: Trance-formation
Benjamin and Rosamund Zander: The Art of Possibility
Steven Pressfield: The War of Art
Steven Pressfield: Do The Work
Ray and Myers: Creativity in Business
Bella Merlin: The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit
Tony Robbins: Awaken The Giant Within
Zig Ziglar: Secrets of Closing the Sale
Andy Maslen: Write to Sell
Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice
John Caples: Tested Advertising Methods
Bill Bryson: Troublesome Words
Oren Klaff: Pitch Anything
Joe Navarro: What Everybody Is Saying
Christopher Hadnagy: Social Engineering
Chris Anderson: Free
George Classon: The Richest Man In Babylon
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point
James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds
Paul Arden: Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite
Ries and Trout: The 22 Imutable Laws of Marketing
Ries and Ries: The 22 Imutable Laws of Branding
Ken Segall: Insanely Simple
Osterwalder and Pigneur: Business Model Generation
Steve Krug: Don’t Make Me Think!
Gary Halbert: The Boron Letters
William Strunk: Elements of Style
Joe Girard: How to Sell Anything to Anybody
Claude Hopkins: Scientific Advertising
Simon Sinek: Start with Why
Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi: The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws
Robert Greene: Mastery (pick your passion, get a mentor and practice, practice, practice!)
Michael Masterson: Great Leads
Luke Rhinehart: The Book of Est
Jim Rohn: The Jim Rohn Guides
David Ogilvy: Ogilvy on Advertising
Joseph Sugarman: The Adweek Copywriting Handbook
Tetlock and Gardner: Superforecasting
Tim Ferris: The 4 Hour Work Week
Lester Wunderman: Being Direct – Making Advertising Pay
Gary Vaynerchuck: Crushing it!
Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace
Programming Books
Gang of Four: Design Patterns (if you’re into OO, this is a must)
Edsger W Dijkstra: A Discipline of Programming
Stroustrup: The C++ Programming Language