How Reading 1 Book a Week Changed My Life

I began reading books as a regular habit since January 2015. The habit was inculcated by the love of books as well as by Amazon’s book recommendation algorithms. Over last 3.5 years I have read more than 160 non fiction books! They truly changed my life.

In first year nothing much changed externally but I began to change internally. I became happier and more positive. In next 2.5 years I became Vice President of Paytm (One of India’s largest Unicorn Startups) and a speaker at multiple conferences including the prestigious SXSW Edu conference.

Thanks to these books my son transformed from a naughty child who used to run away from studies to a child who builds iOS apps at the age of 8 and who built Arduino based robots with me when he was 6 years old.

I do not remember all books or their content but the little I still remember has changed my life. I did augment them with YouTube videos about them and also by observing their applicability in the real world. Recently I have also reduced my frequency of completing a book due to lack of time.

Learn from me by joining my Startup Masterclass: https://startuplearn.org/masterclass/

Today I want to share the names of these books (compiled from my Amazon account’s order history — Updated till March 2021) :

1. The Back of the Napkin
2. The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand
3. Visual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand
4. Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work
5. Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures
6. Scrum: A revolutionary approach to building teams, beating deadlines, and boosting productivity
7. How Google Works
8. The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses
9. Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations
10. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
11. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
12. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
13. Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want
14. Zero to One: Note on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future
15. Lateral Thinking
16. How to Build a Billion Dollar App: Discover the secrets of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time
17. Simplicity
18. The Hard Thing about Hard Thing: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers
19. All Marketers Tell Stories: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works — and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All
20. Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising
21. Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck
22. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
23. Running Lean
24. High Output Management
25. Only the Paranoid Survive
26. Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation and High Performance
27. Lean Analytics
28. ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever
29. Microinteractions
30. Remote: Office Not Required
31. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
32. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
33. Kanban from the Inside
34. Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)
35. Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design
36. The Secret of Childhood
37. The Discovery of the Child
38. The Montessori Method
39. Hire Like a Boss: The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting, Hiring, and Managing Interns and New Employees for Startup CEOs : 50 Pages
40. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
41. Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms
42. Fuzzy Logic: The Revolutionary Computer Technology That Is Changing Our World
43. Game Programming Patterns
44. The Icon Handbook
45. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
46. The Art of Game Design
47. The Timeless Way of Building
48. A Pattern Language
49. Conceptual Blockbusting
50. The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently
51. Thinking with a Pencil
52. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation
53. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
54. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
55. Art of Social Media: Power Tips
56. The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact
57. Strategy that Works: How Winning Companies Close the Strategy-to-Execution Gap
58. The 48 Laws Of Power
59. The Design of Everyday Things
60. RC Series Bundle: Understanding Media
61. Understanding Comics
62. Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
63. The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company
64. Delivering Happiness
65. Creativity Inc.
66. Thinking, Fast and Slow
67. Clean Code
68. Change by Design
69. Buyology: How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy is Wrong
70. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
71. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
72. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
73. Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World
74. The Game Believes in You
75. The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
76. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
77. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
78. Tribes: We need you to lead us
79. Sprint
80. The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand
81. Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers
82. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
83. Ogilvy on Advertising
84. The Clean Coder
85. Draw to Win: A Crash Course on How to Lead, Sell, and Innovate With Your Visual Mind
86. Design Patterns
87. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
88. Theory of Fun for Game Design (2nd edition)
89. Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t
90. Learning As Fun
91. Essentialism
92. Living with Complexity
93. A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences across Multiple Platforms
94. Visual Workplace/Visual Thinking: Creating Enterprise Excellence through the Technologies of the Visual Workplace
95. The 5 AM Revolution: Why High Achievers Wake Up Early and How You Can Do It, Too
96. The Pomodoro Technique: A Quick Start Guide To Be Productive, Manage Time And Get Things Done (Time Management, Productivity, Get Things Done)
97. Arduino: Complete Beginners Guide For Arduino — Everything You Need To Know To Get Started (Arduino 101, Arduino Mastery)
98. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
99. Free: The Future of a Radical Price
100. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution
101. The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
102. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to drive your career and create a remarkable future
103. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
104. The Corporate Blogging Book
105. Everything I Know
106. Contagious: Why Things Catch On
107. Visual Finance: The One Page Visual Model to Understand Financial Statements and Make Better Business Decisions
108. To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others
109. An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
110. The Master Motivator
111. Liminal Thinking: Create the Change You Want by Changing the Way You Think
112. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9–5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
113. Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking: What you really need to know to build high-performing digital product teams
114. Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype
115. The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way
116. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
117. Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom (Language & Literacy)
118. User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
119. A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business
120. Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom
121. The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition: Essays On Software Engineering
122. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book
123. The Curiosity Cycle (Second Edition): Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion
124. Mindset — Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential
125. Mindstorms
126. Taiichi Ohnos Workplace Management: Special 100th Birthday Edition (Mechanical Engineering)
127. A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)
128. The Language and Thought of the Child
129. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach
130. Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People’s Minds
131. The Homeschooling Handbook
132. Experience And Education
133. UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design
134. Habits: The Mother’s Secret to Success
135. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes
136. Design For Kids: Digital Products for Playing and Learning
137. The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (Basic Skills)
138. Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is Changing Our Schools, Our Jobs, and Our Minds
139. Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
140. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
141. Presentation Zen Design
142. The Startup Way: How Entrepreneurial Management Transforms Culture and Drives Growth
143. Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative
144. The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
145. Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play
146. Open Source Leader
147. On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
148. Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder
149. Event Design Handbook: Systematically Design Innovative Events using the #EventCanvas
150. Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
151. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change
152. Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
153. The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field
154. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
155. The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them
156. Make It Stick
157. You, Your Child and School
158. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking
159. TED Talks: The official TED guide to public speaking: Tips and tricks for giving unforgettable speeches and presentations
160. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
161. Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
162. Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love
163. Social Movements for Good: How Companies and Causes Create Viral Change
164. Principles: Life and Work
165. The Four Steps to the Epiphany
166. An Introduction to Stock and Options
167. Term Sheets & Valuations: A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Term Sheets & Valuations
168. Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
169. Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City
170. Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web (Voices That Matter)
171. Blockchain: Ultimate guide to understanding blockchain, bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and the future of money
172. Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management Interviews
173. How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
174. Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
175. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
176. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All
177. Purpose, Incorporated: Turning Cause Into Your Competitive Advantage
178. Presto Sketching: The Magic of Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design
179. The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better To Live More
180. Data-Driven Marketing: The 15 Metrics Everyone in Marketing Should Know
181. Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital-and How to Get It
182. Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
183. Ziglar on Selling: The Ultimate Handbook for the Complete Sales Professional
184. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Third Edition
185. You Can Negotiate Anything
186. Designing Games for Children: Developmental, Usability, and Design Considerations for Making Games for Kids
187. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
188. The 5 Love Languages of Children: The Secret to Loving Children Effectively
189. Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life
190. Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future-and What to Do About It
191. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
192. Unlimited Memory
193. How to Win Friends and Influence People
194. Sketch Thinking: Sketch ( for design) Thinking
195. Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life
196. How to Develop Self Confidence and Improve Public Speaking
197. How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job
198. Drive
199. Finite and Infinite Games
200. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
201. A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form
202. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
203. Story
204. A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form
205. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
206. Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound (New Directions in Media)
207. Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques
208. This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See [Seth Godin] Read on Kindle

List Of Books According to Topics

Startups

1. The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses
2. The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company
3. Lean Analytics
4. Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms
5. Ziglar on Selling: The Ultimate Handbook for the Complete Sales Professional
6. How Google Works
7. Free: The Future of a Radical Price
8. Tribes: We need you to lead us
9. Sprint
10. Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking: What you really need to know to build high-performing digital product teams
11. Presentation Zen Design
12. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
13. The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand
14. Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers
15. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
16. Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
17. Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love
18. The Four Steps to the Epiphany
19. Term Sheets & Valuations: A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Term Sheets & Valuations
20. Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
21. Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City
22. The Startup Way: How Entrepreneurial Management Transforms Culture and Drives Growth

Game Design

1. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Third Edition
2. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
3. Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design
4. Theory of Fun for Game Design (2nd edition)
5. The Game Believes in You
6. Designing Games for Children: Developmental, Usability, and Design Considerations for Making Games for Kids
7. Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound (New Directions in Media)
8. Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques

Design

1. The Design of Everyday Things
2. The Back of the Napkin
3. Understanding Comics
4. The Icon Handbook
5. Presentation Zen Design
6. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
7. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
8. A Pattern Language
9. The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand
10. Presto Sketching: The Magic of Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design
11. The Timeless Way of Building
12. The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently
13. Thinking with a Pencil
14. Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
15. Design For Kids: Digital Products for Playing and Learning
16. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
17. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
18. Microinteractions