After reading again a book per week on average this year, I want to share with you the books I would recommend most. If you want to see the whole list of books I read in this year, you could go to my Year in Books over at Goodreads.

For when you are leading a team

The books I would recommend provided me with new insights about how I could organise myself and/or the people around me. Furthermore, some books provided ideas on how to create and work in a culture that I can be proud of.

• Reinventing Organisations (illustrated edition) by Frederic Laloux and Etienne Appert
• What you do is who you are by Ben Horowitz
• Principles by Ray Dalio
• Great at Work by Morten T Hansen
• Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick by Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit

Biographies

And I think when you’re trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them. I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education. It’s way better than just being given the basic concepts.
by Charlie Munger

I like biographies a lot, and I should have read way more of them this year since there is so much to learn out of an excellent biography. Next year, there will be more on my list, though for this year I would recommend:

• The snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
• Becoming Kareem: Growing Up on and Off the Court by Kareem Abdul-Jabber, Raymond Obstfeld
• Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz

Creative thinking and working

I am always curious about how I can be better at the things I do and how I could help others to be the best they can be. Hence the majority of my reading list is around this topic:

• Red Teaming by Bryce G Hofmann
• Choice Factory by Richard Shotton
• One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking by Dave Trott
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Radical Focus: Achieving your most important goals with objectives and key results
• When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

The mind and mindfulness

Every year I challenge myself to improve myself, and this year I ran into the reality that was working harder did not cut it. Therefore I focused more on how my brain works. Some of the books in the previous list could also be listed here. However, every list is just an opinion by an individual.

• The new Toughness training for sports by James E Loehr
• The Headspace Guide to Meditation & Mindfulness by Andy Puddicombe
• Awareness by Anthony de Mello

Reading is fun and these books fit this category well

The majority of what I read could be seen as business books, though for me they are great fun as well. The books listed here are not at all business-focused even though they provide enough lessons to learn.

• The X-files: Stolen Lives by Joe Harris
• Rivals! Frenemies who changed the world by Scott McCormick
• Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin
• It Burns: The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chilli by Marc Fennell

I hope this list helps you if you are still thinking about what book to read next. If you have any recommendations for good books that I should read, please let me know.

If there are any questions you have about any of these books I listed, ask me, and I answer the best as I can. I wish you a lot of reading and learning pleasure for the upcoming year.