Inspir­ing Words — Books I’ve read and love

Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment: His­tory, poverty alle­vi­a­tion and innovation

The Bot­tom Bil­lion: Why the Poor­est Coun­tries are Fail­ing and What Can Be Done About It — Paul Collier

The End of Poverty: Eco­nomic Pos­si­bil­i­ties for Our Time — Jef­frey D. Sachs

Com­mon Wealth: Eco­nom­ics for a Crowded Planet — Jef­frey D. Sachs

Mak­ing Glob­al­iza­tion Work — Joseph E. Stiglitz

The Mys­tery of Cap­i­tal: Why Cap­i­tal­ism Tri­umphs in the West and Fails Every­where Else — Her­nando de Soto

The White Man’s Bur­den: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Lit­tle Good — Williams Rus­sell Easterly

Giv­ing: How Each of us Can Change the Word — Bill Clin­ton

Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the bat­tle against world poverty — Muham­mad Yunus

The Blue Sweater — Jacque­line Novogratz

Dead Aid — Dambisa Moyo

Phil­an­thro­cap­i­tal­ism: How Giv­ing Can Save Save the World — Matthew Bishop, Michael Green & Bill Clinton

Shake Hands with the Devil: The fail­ure of human­ity in Rwanda — Romeo Dal­laire with Major Brent Beardsley

Half the Sky: Turn­ing Oppres­sion into Oppor­tu­nity for Women World­wide — Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

Unchar­i­ta­ble: How restraints on non­prof­its under­mine their poten­tial — Dan Pallotta

World on Fire: How Export­ing Free Mar­ket Democ­racy Breeds Eth­nic Hatred and Global Insta­bil­ity — Amy Chua

Busi­ness and Leadership

Good to Great: Why Some Com­pa­nies Make the Leap…and Oth­ers Don’t — Jim Collins

Wiki­nomics: How Mass Col­lab­o­ra­tion Changes Every­thing — Don Tap­scott & Anthony D. Williams

Switch — Chip & Dan Heath

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Sur­vive and Oth­ers Die — Chip & Dan Heath

Free: The Future of a rad­i­cal price — Chris Anderson

Rework — Jason Fried & David Heine­meier Hansson

The 4-hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

Blink/Tipping Point/Outliers/What the Dog Saw - Mal­colm Gladwell

Busi­ness Model Gen­er­a­tion: A Hand­book for Vision­ar­ies, Game Chang­ers, and Chal­lengers — Alex Osterwalder

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entre­pre­neurs Use Con­tin­u­ous Inno­va­tion to Cre­ate Rad­i­cally Suc­cess­ful Busi­nesses — Eric Reiss

Blue Ocean Strat­egy: How to Cre­ate Uncon­tested Mar­ket Space and Make Com­pe­ti­tion Irrel­e­vant — W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne

Great Works on Cul­ture and Society

Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe

To Kill A Mock­ing­bird — Lee Harper

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Heart of Dark­ness — Joseph Conrad

Eat, Pray, Love — Eliz­a­beth Gilbert

Atlas Shrugged — Ayn Rand

The Alchemist — Paulo Choelho

Behind the Beau­ti­ful Fore­vers — Kather­ine Boo

Cre­ativ­ity and Growth

The Art of Learn­ing — Josh Wait­zkin

The Gifts of Imper­fec­tion — Brene Brown

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Nat­ural His­tory of Inno­va­tion — Steven Johnson

Mak­ing Ideas Hap­pen: Over­com­ing the Obsta­cles between Vision and Real­ity — Scott Belsky

Design and Innovation

Change By Design — Tim Brown

This Will Make You Smarter — John Brockman

Real­ity is Bro­ken: Why Games Make Us Bet­ter and How they can Change the World — Jane McGonigal

Move­ment and Net­work Creation

 The Lead­er­less Rev­o­lu­tion: How Ordi­nary Peo­ple Will Take Power and Change Pol­i­tics in the 21st Cen­tury — Carne Ross

The Social Ani­mal: The Hid­den Sources of Love, Char­ac­ter and Achieve­ment — David Brooks

What Tech­nol­ogy Wants — Kevin Kelly