Tuesday, May 11, 2010

College Graduate Reading List

Here's my 2010 suggesting reading list for college graduates entering the business world. I've included only books that have been published in the last few years.

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely
Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath
Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath
Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
SuperFreakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Different, by Youngme Moon
Change by Design, by Tim Brown
Free, by Chris Anderson
The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson
The Big Short, by Michael Lewis

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I would like to add a few of my favorites:

Let My People Go Surfing - Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia

Brewing up a Business - by the founder of Dogfish Head Brewery

Peter Osborne said...

This is a great list and I'm pleased to say I've read most of them this year (or plan to). I have a few other suggestions (in no particular order)...

Linchpin by Seth Godin

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

The Little Big Things by Tom Peters

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

Rules of Thumb by Alan Webber

And recognizing that a lot of graduates are coming out of school with a lot of book knowledge but much less practical knowledge, I'd suggest they look at either slide:ology by Nancy Duarte or Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and download What Matters Now, which Seth Godin put together (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-1.pdf).

And I know modesty precluded you from including your own terrific book in the list, but recent graduates would do well to read Know What You Don't Know.

Best wishes,

Peter
Bulldog Simplicity blog at http://posborne1.wordpress.com