Guy Kawasaki's Top Book Recommendations
Author & Entrepreneur
Want to know what books Guy Kawasaki recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Guy Kawasaki's favorite book recommendations of all time.
Audiences forget up to 90 percent of what you communicate. But people make decisions and act based on what they remember, so a pragmatic approach for the effective communicator is to be deliberate about the 10 percent that audiences do retain. Otherwise, content recall is random and inconsistent.
Many experts have offered techniques on how to improve your own memory, but not how to influence other people s memory.... more
Robert B. CialdiniCarmen Simon has broken the mold by showing how to enhance memory for our good ideas―not just in ourselves but in others. (Source)
Scott AdamsFor more science on the topic of how intentional "mistakes" can aid in memory retention, I recommend the book Impossible to Ignore by Dr. Carmen Simon. The gist of it is that you need to surprise the brain or to make it work a little extra to form memories. Our brains automatically delete our routine memories fairly quickly. Most of us don't know what we were doing on this day a year ago. But we... (Source)
Guy KawasakiIf you want to evangelize and enchant people, you must influence their memories. This book shows you how to do it. (Source)
The power of glitzy advertising and elaborate marketing campaigns is on the wane; word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company.
Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows... more
Guy KawasakiWho knew that there's a science to referrals? Not I-but now that I know, I want you to benefit from John's expertise. In a sense, a jacket blurb is the ultimate referral, and I'm here to blurb this book because it will help you succeed in business. (Source)
Tony HsiehFor Zappos, part of delivering a great customer experience means developing personal and emotional connections, both with employees and customers. These are the types of connections people talk about with their friends and family. This book will show you how to give people something to talk about. (Source)
Seth GodinI don't think there are many people who know more about small business marketing than John does, and I'm certain that there's no one more generous in sharing tips and insights. What, exactly, are you waiting for? This book will pay for itself in one day (Source)
Timothy FerrissIf you want to think differently about entrepreneurship, management, or life in general, read this book. (Source)
Guy KawasakiThe underlying concept - an 'expert' putting himself on the line as an employee - is just fantastic. And then the book gets better from there! I wish I had the balls to do this. (Source)
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. 
When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
"Dear... more
Guy KawasakiI love @MargaretAtwood’s message and appreciate her efforts to prevent the end of the world. Her latest book is The Testaments, sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. 📕 Read it and spread its message to help prevent Making America Gilead again. PODCAST 🎧 https://t.co/9wBq98MWf0 https://t.co/W950dsLLN6 (Source)
Mary BurkeyObviously the book is totally fascinating as a print book. What happened with the audiobook is that because of the Netflix adaptation, a lot of the actors who were in the Netflix program were used for the audiobook production. (Source)
Peter FlorenceIt is a completely standalone, independent novel. If you read The Handmaid’s Tale, it will satisfy some of your need for understanding what happened next. If you haven’t—and incredibly, there are people who haven’t read it—it just gives you an extremely savage and exhilarating look at contemporary life and its most alarming manifestations. (Source)
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. 
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. 
Karen Pfaff ManganilloIf You Want to Write, by Brenda Euland, is undoubtedly the book that changed my way of thinking and opened up my mind to a creative career. It validated being creative… and that that is a great thing. (Source)
Originally published in 1951, and rejected at the time by one NHL coach as “the product of a three-year-old mind,” Lloyd Percival’s The Hockey Handbook went on to become an internationally recognized classic. Russian and European coaches seized on the book as the first authoritative, analytical treatment of hockey fundamentals and based their training regimes on the principles Percival described. The father of Russian hockey, Anatoli Tarasov, wrote to Percival: “Your wonderful book which introduced us to the mysteries of Canadian hockey, I have read like a schoolboy.”
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. Don't have time to read Guy Kawasaki's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
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- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
The book is now available for pre-order and will be hitting stores on September 18, 2018-- just in time for some of the most important midterm elections of our lifetime. less
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, and 1 others. Guy KawasakiView from the roof of the commonwealthclub in SF where I’ll be moderating a panel tonight. The topic is based on a great new book called Road Map for… https://t.co/rp0ErX8tgW (Source)
Creative Action Network founder and CEO Max Slavkin says this art series was inspired by a widespread interest in creating art to challenge the current political climate. Throughout the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency, 100 artists came together to illustrate the things that already make America... more
Guy KawasakiThe new book “What Really Makes America Great” features a series of inspirational posters on things–women! space exploration! public lands!–that inspire artists about the country. These posters celebrate things that really do make America great https://t.co/p8SsKARUxa https://t.co/OHGUscYs6i (Source)
Chris SaccaA perfect book to remind us what really makes America great. Get yours: https://t.co/qNlA5olYjY (Source)
What makes an effective executive?
For decades, Peter F. Drucker was widely regarded as "the dean of this country’s business and management philosophers" (Wall Street Journal). In this concise and brilliant work, he looks to the most influential position in management—the executive.
The measure of the executive, Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what... more
Drew HoustonI think one of the most valuable concepts from [this book] is measuring your time. (Source)
Timothy FerrissI think it's much more valuable than 99% of the so-called time management books out there. (Source)
Matt MullenwegWe're both big fans of Peter Drucker and his book The Effective Executive, as well as Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change your Life. (Source)
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset — those who believe that abilities are fixed — are less likely to flourish than those with a growth... more
Tony Robbins[Tony Robbins recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)
Bill GatesOne of the reasons I loved Mindset is because it’s solutions-oriented. In the book’s final chapter, Dweck describes the workshop she and her colleagues have developed to shift students from a fixed to a growth mindset. These workshops demonstrate that ‘just learning about the growth mindset can cause a big shift in the way people think about themselves and their lives. (Source)
Dustin Moskovitz[Dustin Moskovitz recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)
In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore shows that in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle--which begins with innovators and moves to early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards--there is a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements in... more
Drew HoustonIt’s [about] how do technology products make their way from early adopters t the mainstream. (Source)
Ron ConwayBestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. (Source)
Seth GodinThis is a key component in my Purple Cow thinking, but with a twist. I'm not as worried about the chasm as I am about the desire of marketers to go for the big middle. (Source)
His work is cited by the world’s best-known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In this classic bestseller—now updated with a fresh new package—innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership. Read this international bestseller to avoid a similar fate.
Clay Christensen—who authored the award-winning Harvard Business Review article How Will You Measure Your... more
Jeff BezosBrad Stone's new book, The Everything Store, describes how Bezos developed this strategy after reading another book called The Innovator's Dilemma by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. (Source)
Steve JobsIt's important that we make this transformation, because of what Clayton Christensen calls "the innovator's dilemma," where people who invent something are usually the last ones to see past it, and we certainly don't want to be left behind. (Source)
Max Levchin[Max Levchin recommended this book as an answer to "What business books would you advise young entrepreneurs read?"] (Source)
Don't have time to read Guy Kawasaki's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.