9 Books Worth Gifting to People You Care About
Self-transformation is the new experience gift.
My favorite thing is to gift people the experience of a book. I do this for my one year old nephew all the time, but it’s even more impactful for adults. There’s a study around experiential gifts and the meaning they leave behind, even when the giver is not physically there.
Turns out that consuming experiential gifts can make someone feel greater gratitude and a stronger sense of social connection. It doesn’t matter if the memory is considered ‘special’ or ‘ordinary’.
A book is the perfect way of helping someone feel seen, supported, and inspired to step into who they want to be. What I love about books is that they are single purpose tools. You can’t multitask on it with some other app. So you now are also gifting moments of presence, solitude, and reflection in a time where it’s scarce.
There’s at least a few here that will align with certain people in your life:
Kevin Kelly wrote the iconic blog post, “1,000 True Fans”. That continues to have an impact on me and millions of others. So when I saw this book recommended by the billionaire Mohnish Pabrai, I was happy to discover Kevin Kelly had a new book.
It’s a collection of simple ideas that will ring true in your head for hours or days. One of my favorite highlights:
“Don’t measure your life with someone else’s ruler.”
This book needs to be in the hands of everyone who needs to communicate for work.
“...study by Siemens Enterprise Communications found that a business with one hundred employees spends an average of seventeen hours a week clarifying communications. That is 884 hours a year that could be spent delivering value to customers instead of repeating information to make sure it’s understood.”— Chris Fenning
It’s the kind of book you kind read in one sitting, but will have you highlighting something on every page.
“Research shows that poor first impressions can be reversed by a consistent strong performance. It takes eight good impressions to overturn a bad one.”
I’m still shocked by how much of a lasting impact this book has had on me. It’s a book that helps you deeply understand your relationship with both inner and outer expectations. Why it’s easy to do things for others, but harder to do things for yourself. Or vice versa.
Regardless of the tendency you relate to the most, this book will make you feel like you unlock a superpower within yourself that you had all along.
Gretchen Rubin does a wonderful job of mapping the path on how to use your superpower. Aside from helping you know yourself better, it also helps you understand the people in your life that you care about.
I’ve listened to this book over and over like a theme song before I decided I had to have the physical copy. There are so many highlights I have from this book.
It will appeal to anyone who cares about craft, mastery, performance, and expertise. Anyone who’s ambitious or trying to get better at something will feel motivated by this book.
The two main ideas of deliberate practice and developing mental representations are what stick with you for life. Every time I read or listen to this, I always discover something new.
Best selling author james Clear wrote a blurb for this book taht said, “It’s like going to therapy and business school.” It feels like that because the storytelling is so good and it’s coming from someone who’s taking you through this ride of wnating ot make a lot of moeny. Andrew is someone I first heard on teh My First Million Podcast. He’s pretty humble and not your typicaly expectation of a billionaire.
There are pieces of yourself that you’ll see in Andrew as you read. The bargain of this book is living through Andrew in this wild ride from barista to billionaire. It’ll help you re-examine your relationship with what is actually enough?
If you consider yourself a generalist like myself, or you’re simply a human caught between multiple interests, you’ll feel seen as you read Range. It’s like we’ve been waiting for someone all these years to do the research and deep dive into a subject like this. And David Epstein, who also wrote Sports Gene, was the perfect writer to do it.
“The more constrained and repetitive a challenge, the more likely it will be automated, while great rewards will accrue to those who can take conceptual knowledge from one problem or domain and apply it in an entirely new one.” — David Epstein
I read this book first on Kindle before buying the hardcover. The feel of the fabric styled cover in your hands is really nice. Rick Rubin covers the creative experience in a way that’s broad enough for anyone to apply it to their craft, yet specific enough to describe the moments we will experience in any creative project.
- “If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.”
- “A practice is the embodiment of an approach to a concept. This can support us in bringing about a desired state of mind.”
- “There’s an abundant reservoir of high-quality information in our subconscious, and finding ways to access it can spark new material to draw from.”
This book is a collection of Charlie Munger’s speeches and interviews over the years. I find that Charlie Munger is someone that resonates with those of us who aren’t in finance. His obsession with learning, multi-disciplinary thinking, and mental models drew me in.
Even though you could find all of this for free somewhere on the internet, the packaging and book format is worth it for those who really appreciate Munger’s work.
My favorite quote that’s the whole back cover is:
“There’s an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business, science, and elsewhere. 1. Take a simple, basic idea and 2. Take it very seriously.” — Charlie Munger
Robert Greene is one of my favorite writers. His book Mastery had such a huge influence on my life for the past 15 years. What I love about The Daily Laws is that you get exposure to all his other books, which can be kind of dense for the average person. You’ll discover gems that you wouldn’t otherwise find.
This is a daily companion styled book where you can absorb an idea in less than a page. It’ll have you thinking, reflecting, and acting with the guidance of a mentor like Robert Greene.
“Our times might emphasize equality, which we then mistake for the need for everyone to be the same, but what we really mean by this is the equal chance for people to express their differences, to let a thousand flowers bloom.” — Mastery, Robert Greene
In your corner,
Misbah Haque
Founder, Habit Chess, Pod Mahal
Co-Founder, LapList
