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Best Public Relations Books for Entrepreneurs and Professionals

The Power-Up is the best way stay up to date on the gaming industry news. Click here to find out why!

Public relations for businesses of any type is becoming increasingly important to ensure that all communication with your customers and stakeholders sends out the right message.

The marketplace is becoming even more competitive, and the number of media outlets is growing exponentially. This means that public relations have never before had such an important role in the success of a business.

Well-crafted and well-executed public relations campaigns are vital in developing great relationships between your organization and the public, which will be key in achieving consistent growth.

As the key influencer of public opinion for your business, keeping up to date with the best practices in the ever-evolving communications landscape is hugely important, especially if you want to be the best at what you do.

Develop Key Messages

Developing key messages that make your company stand out from the crowd will help strengthen the company image.
Communicating these messages and ensuring that the company’s actions match will effectively project your desired personality, helping to maintain and build relationships with your target audiences.

Embrace Technology

Modern technology allows you to inform and influence your target audiences, and utilizing social media platforms effectively can help you launch a global PR campaign in just minutes!

Understand Your Audience

Before you develop your PR strategy, it’s important to think about audience targeting and how you can use press conferences and press releases to your advantage. Get to know and understand your appropriate audience as much as possible before you begin to craft your messages.

Improve Your Skills

If you want to advance your public relations skills or want to ensure that your business has the best PR practices, then there’s plenty of the best public relations books out there that can help. We spoke to leading entrepreneurs and top professionals in the PR industry and asked them what books they would recommend, and these are what they said.

Best Public Relations Books

For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations

For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations

My PR book has become a staple within the industry, as well as required reading for many college courses throughout the country. The book details how valuable public relations is - how public relations can define brands; help companies and individuals court the press or avoid it; grow business; resolve crises quickly; improve search results on Google and so many other things. Effective PR makes such a difference, and I have many case studies and great stories to illustrate it.
Ronn Torossian
Founder, CEO/5WPR
The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly

Make sure to pick up the revised edition. For my generation, most advice is pretty obvious (blogs are Social Media too - oh I didn’t know that already :D), but there are some interesting cases and thoughts on going viral.
Kyrylo Taranenko
Head of Marketing/Y-Productive
Crystallizing Public Opinion

Crystallizing Public Opinion

Crystallizing Public Opinion was written by the Godfather of PR. Bernays combined crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, to become the first thinker to explain how PR could thrive by managing public opinion. It’s truly incredible how poignant his insights and analysis remain in popular culture.
Ronn Torossian
CEO, Founder/5W PR
It's Your Business: 183 Essential Tips that Will Transform Your Small Business

It’s Your Business: 183 Essential Tips that Will Transform Your Small Business

If you know an entrepreneur, give them a copy of @jjramberg new book to help them on their journey.
Simon Sinek
Best-selling Author
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

It's a history of science book that explores the question of whether science and technology make consistent forward progress or whether progress comes in bursts related to other social forces. I tend to think that science is a consistent force for good in the world. I think we'd all be better off if we invested more in science and acted on the results of research. I'm excited to explore this theme further.
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO/Facebook
A Thousand Pardons: A Novel

A Thousand Pardons: A Novel

My favorite book of the summer so far: Jonathan Dee. "A Thousand Pardons."
Malcolm Gladwell
Writer & Journalist
Scam Me If You Can: Simple Strategies to Outsmart Today's Ripoff Artists

Scam Me If You Can: Simple Strategies to Outsmart Today’s Ripoff Artists

In spite of his unusual beginning--or more likely because of it--Frank Abagnale’s abilities to teach us how to avoid fraud are second to none. He’s been there, he’s done that, so if you want to know how the criminals will come at you, and how to protect yourself from them, buy this book.
John Miller
Former Assistant Director for Public Affairs, FBI
The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies

The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies

Like Charlie Munger once said: “I’ve long believed that a certain system - which almost any intelligent person can learn - works way better than the systems most people use [to understand the world]. What you need is a latticework of mental models in your head. And, with that system, things gradually fit together in a way that enhances cognition. Just as multiple factors shape every system, multiple mental models from a variety of disciplines are necessary to understand that system". You can read this book to start building a "latticework of mental models in your head".

Ola Olusoga
Co-founder/Populum
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

I thought I might put my money where my mouth is. I keep whining that young people are not in touch with some essential books on advertising that have helped me shape the way I practise my trade today, but I never did anything about it. So I am starting here the ultimate books to read list. I will add to it as I get suggestions and as more good books get written.
Bogdana Butnar
Head of Strategy/Poke
Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

While likely uncomfortable for a lot of people, it was excellent, provocative, and challenging all at the same time.
Brad Feld
Investor, Co-Founder/Foundry Group
Why America Misunderstands the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception

Why America Misunderstands the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception

Depending on your interest and goals, if you are like me and always looking for the trends in the big picture then I highly recommend being an active contrarian reader. Read what no one else is reading. Your goal is to think outside the box. To look at the world and ask “why hasn’t this been solved?” And that gives you a roadmap as to what opportunities may exist for your entrepreneurial efforts. So to that, here’s a snapshot, in no particular order, of what might help you push your intellectual boundaries:

  • Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
  • 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
  • Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason
  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
  • Who Gets What--And Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design by Alvin E. Roth
  • The Political Economy of Participatory Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel
  • The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin
  • Why America Misunderstands the World by Paul R. Pillar
  • A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
  • Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
Lucas Morales
Founder & CEO/Zeall.us
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Where How to Break Up with Your Phone took a pretty tame view of social media – hey, maybe it’s not great, so let’s just do a bit less – this book goes for the jugular. Reviewing all the ways social media companies are conspiring against us, selling our attention to the highest bidder (whether that be an ad for a new car or a new president), and how the algorithms that drive social-media engagement are self-optimizing for the worst of everything.

There wasn’t that much new information here, especially for someone who’s been paying close attention to the social media landscape for years, but there was a renewed sense of outrage and purpose and contextualization. The idea that you don’t have to believe that Zuckerberg or Sandberg are evil masterminds plotting to derail civilization to accept that social-media engagement algorithms that run on auto-pilot much of the time could very well get us there.

David Heinemeier Hansson
Co-Founder/Basecamp
Open: An Autobiography

Open: An Autobiography

I don’t read “business books”. I may read books which were classified as “Business”, “Leadership”, etc; but, if I do, I do so in spite of the category they’ve been deemed to belong to, not because of it.

I generally split books into three main categories. Here are the titles –sorry, but I simply can’t pick just one– that currently hold the top spots in each:

[...]

Biography/Memoir: Andre Agassi’s and J. R. Moehringer’s “Open“; Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love“; and Salman Rushdie’s “Joseph Anton“.

Gabriel Coarna
Founder/Readable
Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company

Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company

One of the five books Jeff recommends to young people interested in his career path.
Jeff Gibbard
Chief Brand Officer/From The Future
Churchill: A Life

Churchill: A Life

Churchill, A Life by Martin Gilbert is the most impactful book I've read this year. I generally enjoy reading biographies, as they're a great way to understand history in a more personal viewpoint, while also getting a glimpse of how influential figures overcame adversities and pursued their ambitions.

Churchill's life stood out to me for a couple reasons. When you think about the personal decisions made before, during, and after World War II, it's really amazing to realize how much one person's vision and leadership influenced the outcome of world affairs during the 1900s. During his long public career of 50+ years, it is admirable to see how he navigated politics and overcame setbacks to reach the pinnacle of his career as a war time prime minister.

Overall, it was very humbling to learn about Churchill's work ethic. As a political leader as well as an author, he is a true example of a public servant who envisioned a better (and more peaceful) world order and worked hard throughout his career to carry out that vision while also securing his legacy in history.

Gunhee Park
Co-Founder/Populum
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

The unassuming Georgetown computer science professor has become one of this generation’s leading voices on how we can all work more wisely and more deeply. With media consumption continuing to go way up (which, for most of us, means happiness and productivity continue to go way down) and the world becoming noisier every day, this book is an urgent call to action for anyone serious about being in command of their own life. The minimalism movement successfully led millions to opt out of the many possessions we’re told we’re supposed to crave and focus instead on the small number of things that bring the most meaning and value to our lives. The same ideology applies to our online lives. Digital clutter is stressful. We don’t need the constant connectivity, the pages and pages of apps, the incessant scrolling and clicking. New technologies can improve our lives if we know how to best leverage them. This book already helped me break my Facebook addiction—and the first month of the year has been a big improvement for me because of that.

Ryan Holiday
Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check
Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge

Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge

The book is about the concept of "common knowledge" and how people process the world not only based on what we personally know, but what we know other people know and our shared knowledge as well.

This is an important idea for designing social media, as we often face tradeoffs between creating personalized experiences for each individual and crafting universal experiences for everyone. I'm looking forward to exploring this further.

Mark Zuckerberg
CEO/Facebook
Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

Most recent (like several years ago) was about blockchain technology. After reading many articles about blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrency I had a "Eureka" moment when reading Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott. That moment when I realized the potential of this technology and the massive changes that can literally transform the world we are living. A true paradigm shift.
Antonio Eram
Founder & CEO/NETOPIA mobilPay
Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?

Question: What five books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path & why?

Answer:

  • Radical Leap by Steve Farber
  • Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway
  • Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
  • Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose
  • Waiting for your Cat to Bark by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg
  • The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath
Drew McLellan
Founder/McLellan Marketing Group & Agency Management Institute
Mencken: The American Iconoclast

Mencken: The American Iconoclast

If you do enjoy this biography, I followed it up with a few others I consider to be in the same league: Knight’s Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel by David Fraser, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, and Mencken: The American Iconoclast.
Ryan Holiday
Founder/Brass Check
The Meaning of Culture

The Meaning of Culture

In The Meaning of Culture, John Cowper Powys makes the point that the difference between education and culture is that culture is the incorporation of music, art, literature, and philosophy not just into your library or your CV but into who you are. He talks too about the interplay of culture and life, the way that what we read can enrich what we experience, and what we experience can enrich what we read.
Tim O'Reilly
Founder/O'Reilly Media
Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

I knew nothing about Queen Victoria but Julia Baird does an amazing job of making her accessible and interesting–and captures just what life was like for a woman in the 19th century, even if she was a queen!
Ryan Holiday
Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check
The Outsider: A Memoir

The Outsider: A Memoir

I don’t just read business biographies. I’m a huge tennis fan, so I’ve read a lot of tennis biographies: John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Scott Draper, Rod Laver. There’s so many I’ve read over the years, Jimmy Connors, great, I love it because I love reading the “behind the scenes” stories, the more “soap opera” aspect of tennis, I guess it’s a little bit like my soap opera sometimes.
Yaro Starak
Founder/Entrepreneurs-Journey.com
FDR

FDR

The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult.
Barack Obama
Former USA President
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman impacted how I interpret and receive love. Not just romantically, but in my friendships and business relationships. I had several personal and professional relationships that improved when I could appreciate that their "love language" was different than mine. I could at least see their efforts as an attempt at showing me love and kindness, even if it wasn't how I best receive or give love. This is pivotal. And if you can separate out the idea of it being for romantic partners only, I'd say this is critical reading for leaders. Not everyone is motivated and feels appreciation by a raise. Sometimes, public recognition of kind words or an act of kindness will feel better than anything else you can do.
Kaci Lambe Kai
Writer, Photographer, Designer
The Outsider

The Outsider

Colin Wilson's The Outsider is another book that addresses the same theme: the untapped power of the mind and its constant battle with the world, to make sense of it, or be broken by it. But the book is also significant for me because at 23, reading this book, I wanted to write something as good as Wilson had done at that age. (For a wonderful story recapitulating Wilson's ideas, I also recommend his takeoff on H.P. Lovecraft, The Mind Parasites.) Wilson also shaped my relationship to books. So many critics write about literature and philosophy as a dead thing, an artifact. Wilson writes about it as a conversation with another mind about what is true.
Tim O'Reilly
Founder/O'Reilly Media
From Third World to First: Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom

From Third World to First: Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom

It’s incredible how he almost single-handedly took a third world country and built it into a first-world country in one generation.
Will Shu
Founder/Deliveroo
The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives

The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives

This is the most important—and fascinating—book yet written about how the digital age will affect our world. With vivid examples and brilliant analysis, it shows how the internet and other communications technologies will empower individuals and transform the way nations and businesses operate. How will different societies make tradeoffs involving privacy, freedom, control, security, and the relationship between the physical and virtual worlds? This realistic but deeply optimistic book provides the guideposts. It’s both profoundly wise and wondrously readable.
Walter Isaacson
Author
The Political Economy of Participatory Economics

The Political Economy of Participatory Economics

Depending on your interest and goals, if you are like me and always looking for the trends in the big picture then I highly recommend being an active contrarian reader. Read what no one else is reading. Your goal is to think outside the box. To look at the world and ask “why hasn’t this been solved?” And that gives you a roadmap as to what opportunities may exist for your entrepreneurial efforts. So to that, here’s a snapshot, in no particular order, of what might help you push your intellectual boundaries:

  • Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
  • 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
  • Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason
  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
  • Who Gets What--And Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design by Alvin E. Roth
  • The Political Economy of Participatory Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel
  • The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin
  • Why America Misunderstands the World by Paul R. Pillar
  • A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
  • Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
Lucas Morales
Founder & CEO/Zeall.us
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism

I’m especially interested in the central question that Doris Kearns Goodwin raises in The Bully Pulpit. How does social change happen? Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first? Sometimes a single leader can make a big difference: In the field of global health, Jim Grant almost single-handedly created a global constituency for children, sparking a movement to double vaccination rates and save millions of lives. But Roosevelt’s case was different. Although he tried to push through a number of political reforms earlier in his career, he wasn’t really successful until journalists at McClure’s and other publications had rallied public support for change.
Bill Gates
CEO/Microsoft
Unstoppable: My Life So Far

Unstoppable: My Life So Far

I’m definitely a story-lover and maybe that’s why I like to read a lot of biographies. It’s fascinating to discover how people with different backgrounds, interests, businesses, careers have found solutions for various challenges from all areas of their life. Elon Musk, Andre Agassi, Phil Knight, Maria Sharapova, Arnold Schwarzenegger are only a few of good recent ones. A specific moment when I recall one of the inspiring stories is probably when I think I can’t anymore. I take a deep breath and move on. It’s only in our mind. We can always do a little more.
Irina Botnari
Managing Partner & Co-Founder/Bucur's Shelter Hostel
Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill

Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill

Sonia Purnell’s examination of Winston’s better half was truly revelatory. (Churchill said the best decision he ever made in his life was marrying Clementine and this book makes it clear just how many times she saved his ass).
Ryan Holiday
Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

Is the future knowable, and by whom? All pundits and commentators should publish their prediction track records, yet don't. What to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Marc Andreessen
Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz
The Brand Flip: Why customers now run companies and how to profit from it (Voices That Matter)

The Brand Flip: Why customers now run companies and how to profit from it (Voices That Matter)

Wish all books maximized learning per hour of reading time. A very well done book on branding and new brand values. It will be the death of many incumbents.
Vinod Khosla
Co-Founder/Sun Microsystem
Being Nixon: A Man Divided

Being Nixon: A Man Divided

I was a little surprised to learn what a bad manager Nixon was. Although it doesn’t compare to his other failings, Nixon’s management style offers some good reminders of how not to run a team. He avoided conflict at all costs. His staff frequently left meetings with diametrically opposed views on what he had just asked them to do. Or he would be crystal-clear about what he wanted, while actually expecting his staff to ignore his demands. His team wisely blew off his repeated orders to break into the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, and steal a document that might be damaging to him.
Bill Gates
CEO/Microsoft
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

A clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today.
Bill Gates
Founder/Microsoft
The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

The Palm at the End of the Mind, by Wallace Stevens. Stevens is my favorite poet, and this is the most commonly available collection of his poems. His meditations on the relationship of language and reality have entranced me for more than thirty years. I keep reading the same poems, and finding more and more in them. Also someone I quote often. Special favorites are "Sunday Morning," "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven," and "Esthetique du Mal."
Tim O'Reilly
Founder/O'Reilly Media
Three Women

Three Women

I can’t remember the last time a book affected me as profoundly as Three Women. Lisa Taddeo is a tireless reporter, a brilliant writer, and a storyteller possessed of almost supernatural humanity. As far as I’m concerned, this is a nonfiction literary masterpiece at the same level as In Cold Blood—and just as suspenseful, bone-chilling, and harrowing, in its own way. I know already that I will never stop thinking about the women profiled in this story—about their sexual desire, their emotional pain, their strength, their losses. I saw myself in all of them. Truly, Three Women is an extraordinary offering.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Author
Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods

I was riveted (and appalled) by Tiger Woods and probably talked to more people about this book than anything else I read this year.
Ryan Holiday
Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Here are some of the guests and some of their books, in no particular order. I recommend all of the below books. If I didn't like a book, I wouldn't have them on the show.

James Altucher
Founder/StockPickr
The Foundation

The Foundation

In terms of sci-fi books, I think Isaac Asimov is really great. I like the Foundation series, probably one of the all-time best.
Elon Musk
Founder/SpaceX
No More Mr Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life

No More Mr Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life

Question: What five books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path & why?

Answer: Here are the main five I would recommend (in chronological order):

  • Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  • Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
  • No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover
Boban Dedovic
Serial Entrepreneur
Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

Solitude is the birthplace of clarity and perspective. As a leader, I've experienced this truth and as a researcher I've seen the power that solitude brings to leaders. The tough part is that it takes real courage and discipline to make solitude a practice. In this important book, Ray Kethledge and Mike Erwin show us how it's done and the profound difference it can make in our organizations.
Brene Brown
Author & Researcher
Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage

Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage

Written by the founder of a major crisis PR firm, the book is an insider's guide into the world of crisis communications. It's a crisis PR handbook!
Ronn Torossian
CEO, Founder/5W PR
Thank You for Smoking: A Novel

Thank You for Smoking: A Novel

While the title is more recognized for the movie, it is the book that provides the greatest perspective and strategic insight. Buckley provides an inimitable window into the development and creation of narratives, and how imperative it is for industries and brands to understand how to shape them.
Ronn Torossian
CEO, Founder/5W PR
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t

PR is notoriously a hard industry to succeed in. And as an entrepreneur, it’s really hard - and sometimes you have to make decisions that are not always easy but best for the company. A great book — necessary reading for everyone at 5WPR — is the great business book, The No Asshole Rule. The book’s theory, while seemingly obvious, is quite difficult to adhere to for many people – learn to cut your losses. We’ve had to resign clients when they no longer fit our business. It’s an unfortunate reality that you must eliminate aspects of your business that are no longer serving your mission.

One can be tough without being an asshole. A key lesson in business, and in life.

Ronn Torossian
CEO, Founder/5W PR
Confessions of an Advertising Man

Confessions of an Advertising Man

I thought I might put my money where my mouth is. I keep whining that young people are not in touch with some essential books on advertising that have helped me shape the way I practise my trade today, but I never did anything about it. So I am starting here the ultimate books to read list. I will add to it as I get suggestions and as more good books get written.
Bogdana Butnar
Head of Strategy/Poke
Reputation Rules: Strategies for Building Your Company's Most Valuable Asset

Reputation Rules: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset

Diermeier, a professor from the Kellogg School of Management, examines and explores how a company can “face humiliation and possibly even ruin within seconds of a negative tweet or blog post.” As a crisis communications veteran, I am fascinated by his analysis and tactics on reputation.
Ronn Torossian
CEO, Founder/5W PR
A Terrible Country: A Novel

A Terrible Country: A Novel

Currently, I read something like A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen. Which is one of my favorite books.
Dmitry Dragilev
Founder/JustReachOut & PR That Converts
Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less

Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less

In terms of business, some of the must-read books I would mention are Hooked by Nir Eyal, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day by Avinash Kaushik, Call To Action and Always Be Testing by Bryan Eisenberg, Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi, How To Build Websites That Sell by Peep Laja, Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina.
Raluca Radu
Owner/MTH Digital
The Senility of Vladimir P.: A Novel

The Senility of Vladimir P.: A Novel

The Senility of Vladimir P.: A Novel by Michael Honig [is] really funny. Takes your mind off the business world, it puts you in a different reality, sort of like Soviet Russia, Communist Russia. I’m from there, so makes sense.
Dmitry Dragilev
Founder/JustReachOut & PR That Converts
The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki was my bible when I started up. If you plan to become an entrepreneur – this is an absolute must-read.
Deepak Hariharan
Founder & CEO/MentorYes
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

The alternate click-bait title of Ann’s great new book could have been 73 Ways to Improve Your Writing and Conquer the World! …and it would have been an understatement. We’re all publishers now, and the better writers connect, persuade, and win. Be one of them with this book.
Brian Clark
Founder & CEO/Copyblogger Media
Blog Marketing

Blog Marketing

One changing point for me was reading Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright lots of years ago. Made me rethink my entire online business orientation.
Mircea Scarlatescu
Co-Founder/123flori.ro
Brain Rules: 12 Principles of Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School

Brain Rules: 12 Principles of Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School

I can say that my area, or my background involves a lot of practical work, traveling, learning and performing a big variety of sports, meeting new people and making contacts. But taking into account that being a young entrepreneur I wish I had known a lot of things before starting everything. Therefore, what I would suggest people to do is invest a lot in themselves professionally and personally, where I put a lot of emphasis on developing an equilibrium between mind, body and spirit. This equilibrium will help a lot in everything you do in your daily life. So these are the books I would recommend.
Tudor Teodorescu
Founder/Transylvania Uncharted
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change

Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change

A prominent whistleblower chronicles her experience fighting discrimination against women and people of color in tech.
Eric Ries
Founder/Long-Term Stock Exchange
Napoleon

Napoleon

I just finished Vincent Cronin’s book on Napoleon, a man who definitely needed better PR. Napoleon codified the laws for the first time in Europe. He was constantly limiting kings and other tyrants. He opened the ghettos and stopped religious discrimination. He was an extraordinary man who wrote a lot of laws himself. He was incredibly polite, generous almost to a fault, a remarkable person who was vilified. By who? The kings that he deposed — the kings of England, and the old king of France, and the kings of Prussia, and the Tsar of Russia — were all threatened by this man who was bringing democracy.

I think it’s interesting to read this book and look at Napoleon and see how history has treated him. Even the expression “Napoleon complex,” Napoleon was average height for a French person. The idea is just preposterous, treating maybe the most gifted man of the 19th century as some kind of despot. He was a liberator, a law-giver, and a man of incredible gifts. He never considered himself a soldier, he considered himself a politician, though he was probably the greatest general in all history.

It’s interesting to read about him for a couple of reasons: to see what one man of modest birth can do with his life, and to see how history can distort the truth entirely. The job of historians is often just that, to distort history, because history is based on fashion. So we’re changing American history all the time, whatever’s politically fashionable. The school districts decide they want to emphasize this person in history, and de-emphasize that person. It’s illuminating to understand that even history is based on fashion. Even morality — popular morality — is based on fashion. Real morality is based on reason, and never make the mistake between the two.

Larry Ellison
Co-Founder/Oracle
How Will You Measure Your Life?

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clay’s Innovator’s Dilemma was important. Also, about 10 years later, he had another which really had a profound impact on me and on my belief systems – How will you measure your life.
Dragos Novac
CEO/Nordic 9
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Of the five books I finished over vacation, the one that impressed me the most – and that is probably of broadest interest – is Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by science writer Joshua Foer. This is an absolutely phenomenal book that looks at memory and techniques for dramatically improving memory. Foer actually mastered these techniques, which led him to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. His book gives fascinating insights into how the mind works.
Bill Gates
CEO/Microsoft
Badass: Making Users Awesome

Badass: Making Users Awesome

How to make amazing products. Super fun to read too.

Lewis Smith
Entrepreneur & Developer/BodyTracker
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

I'm still working my way through The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, which is an amazing book so far — about how violence has declined throughout history due to effective governance, the growth of commerce and the spread of ideas.

I see a lot of Facebook's work in these themes. The more we all have a voice to share our perspectives, the more empathy we have for each other and the more we respect each other's rights. Similarly, the more we benefit from global commerce and the services others provide us, the greater our incentive is to keep each other safe as it improves our lives.

Gang Leader for a Day is loosely related to the themes Better Angels in that it explores what life is like for those who don't live under effective governance. I'm looking forward to reading this and finishing up Better Angels.

Mark Zuckerberg
CEO/Facebook
Rework

Rework

If given a choice between investing in someone who has read Rework or has an MBA, I'm investing in Rework every time. This is a must read for every entrepreneur.
Mark Cuban
Co-founder/HDNet & Broadcast.com

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