Gretchen Rubin's Top Book Recommendations

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Thousands of books explain how we should set priorities, stay focused, and make time for what truly matters—but that advice, however sound, is all too easy to ignore. Laura Vanderkam takes a different approach. By harnessing the irresistible power of story-telling, she makes those aims vivid and compelling in an entirely new way, to show us how and why we can make room for possibilities. [source]

Alissa Carpenter

One of my favorite experts on time management and productivity @lvanderkam released a new book, Juliet's School of Possibilities! https://t.co/12kBFrvimV She's also giving away a free time makeover guide and time sheet and I needed to share! https://t.co/fXrE63NHX6 [source]

Chris Guillebeau

Laura is my go-to expert for time management and Juliet's School of Possibilities is a delightful book. You can read it in a couple of short sittings, then go away with a lifetime of application. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

I copied Franklin in my own book. He believed that we all could determinately sit down and come up with practical steps to make changes in our life. He identified 13 virtues that he wanted to imbue in himself and made a weekly chart to help him track his daily progress. I copied my resolutions chart from him. [source]

Cory Booker

The author didn’t mean to write his autobiography. He wanted to write a note to his family about what he’d learned in his experiments. [source]

Brandon Stanton

One of the very first books that I read. [source]

Andrew Copson

Other children’s books often have children behaving in terrible ways. Philip himself has acknowledged that his His Dark Materials is, to some extent, a response to the Chronicles of Narnia which has children behaving in all sorts of slavish ways, obeying authority because it is authority, and setting all sorts of poor moral examples. The children in Philip’s books are thoughtful, intelligent, and morally concerned. They are motivated by love and loyalty. And they are very complex. He doesn’t shy away from the moral complexity, the difficulties of choice, the lesser of two evils. That is also something that comes up in his books. There is no perfect solution, you struggle to truth. [source]

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

This is one of my favourite books. Lyra feels like a natural successor to Matilda. She is a character of action. She isn’t sitting in a corner reading. She is out there and she is having a real effect on her story. She isn’t being buffeted by forces and having to rebel against them, she is out there actively seeking an adventure. I read this when I was eleven and starting secondary school. I remember her really sticking with me not least because she lies so much. [source]

Lewis Smith

His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman is my favourite fictional book of all time. I just love this story so much, it's clever and thought provoking, whilst also being accessible and gripping to read. The audiobook version is fantastic too, and narrated by Pullman himself. It's also inspiring because the main characters are just children, but they are so strong and determined. There is always something new to take from it. I love that Lyra is quite a popular girls name now. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Julie Zhuo had to learn to be a manager fast, as her role kept expanding in the hyper-growth environment of a successful Silicon Valley start-up. In The Making of a Manager, she shares what she learned—often, the hard way. She combines cutting-edge analysis of how organizations work with engaging and accessible examples of how theory plays out in real life, with stories of what she did right and wrong. [source]

Ev Williams

Co-Founder/Twitter, CEO/Medium

I've seen so many people thrust into management in high-growth companies with so little guidance. From now on, I will hand them this book. Its practical wisdom is immediately useful for the newly minted manager — and us old ones. [source]

Sam Altman

Partner & President/Y Combinator

At startups, individuals asked to manage are rarely set-up for success. Julie Zhuo gives new managers the tools they need to help their people and company win. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Chris Guillebeau often says, 'Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better,' and this collection of side hustles is an invaluable resource for both inspiration and action. It’s packed with practical and engaging ideas, tips, strategies, and, most helpful, real-life examples of people who have succeeded. [source]

Daymond John

Founder/FUBU

A Side Hustle isn’t about making a few extra bucks selling lemonade to your neighbors. Chris Guillebeau has created a step-by-step methodology for imagining, building, and launching side projects that can earn real, serious cash. In my years investing on Shark Tank, I’ve seen firsthand how side hustles can take off and grow into some major profits. Whether you want to supplement your pay check, or jumpstart a full-fledged business, Guillebeau will show you how to get your hustle going in just 27 days flat. [source]

Daniel Pink

Author

Chris Guillebeau is back with another book that will teach you not just how to earn more, but ultimately how to live better. He says we can all benefit from a 'side hustle,' work you we do in addition to our day job. And he shows us how to make it happen. In fact, if you follow Chris's guidance, you can establish your own side hustle in just 5 week. What’s stopping you? [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

If you’re intrigued by meditation but don’t know how to begin—or you’ve benefited from meditation in the past but need help to get started again—Dan Harris has written the book for you. Well researched, practical, and crammed with expert advice, it’s also an irreverent, hilarious page-turner. [source]

Joseph Goldstein

A gold mine of wise guidance for fidgety skeptics and experienced meditators alike . . .With Dan’s humorous, self-revelatory style and incisive questioning and Jeff’s down-to-earth, transforming wisdom, this book addresses the common obstacles people face as they begin and deepen their meditation practice. . . . Highly recommended. [source]

Mark Epstein

If your mind has a mind of its own, this is the book for you! With humor, generosity, and devastating candor, Dan Harris makes meditation make sense. This is news we can all use. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As a devoted reader, the president has been linked to a lengthy list of novels and poetry collections over the years — he admits he enjoys a thriller. [source]

Adam Lawrence

I hate reading. I always have. Except for Harry Potter and To Kill A Mockingbird, which I've read dozens of times. [source]

Benjamin Kwan

I used to read more fiction when I was a lot younger just like any young boy. And of course the favourite book that teens my generation love would be Harry Potter! It just gives us an avenue to be part of that fantasy world that we have always dreamt of. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Samuel Johnson has such insight into human nature. His devoted fan and friend James Boswell wrote The Life of Samuel Johnson. It’s charming to read. He had so much to say about self-knowledge and what it means to be happy. In the book, he quotes a Spanish proverb that was well known in his time: “He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.” I came to feel that it had enormous meaning for happiness, that I could only find it if I brought it. [source]

Peter Lilley

This is the groupies’ biography in that Boswell was a cloying groupie but, nonetheless, he wrote the greatest Johnson biography of all time and the best known. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Reading novels about happiness or seeing movies about happiness doesn’t necessarily make you feel happy. Sometimes you want to read a book that makes you feel happy and The Enchanted April is just one of the most charming books. It’s about four women who are each unhappy in their own ways and decide to take a break from grey England by renting a house in Italy, and their lives are completely transformed. It sounds very syrupy but because von Arnim is such an astute writer it has a biting edge – it’s not all fairy dust. [source]

Ella Berthoud

At the beginning of this book, two women in the 1920s are in a club in Hampstead London on a rainy day. They see a newspaper advert: “To those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. Small medieval Italian castle to be let for the month of April.” Both go off into a reverie, and talk themselves into squandering their nest eggs on a month in this castle. They find two other people to join them – a deeply beautiful heiress called Lady Caroline, and a really annoying older woman. [source]

Liz Lambert

The author is a writer and a thinker about architecture and about how we build. [source]

Patrick Collison

Particularly great. [source]