100 books like Ben Franklin

Tim Ferris is a genius. In his book, he describes how he crafted a lifestyle while building a very successful business. This book demonstrates how to make the most of your extremely busy day in commercial real estate and creates a "maximum value/productive capacity" that is crucial when getting started in a commercial investment career.

He discusses how he went from micro-managing everything to virtually managing nothing, all while traveling the globe and having some life-changing adventures. He is the undisputed king of outsourcing and taking back control of your life.

I read this book and started to implement some of his concepts immediately, and while I am not working 4 hours a week, I am not working 60-70 hours either; I am getting down there!

If you struggle with productivity and want to achieve extraordinary results, The ONE Thing is a must-read.

This book emphasizes the importance of focus and teaches you how to identify the one thing that matters most each day. By choosing the one thing that makes everything else obsolete or unnecessary, you can accomplish more in less time.

The book’s central message is that by focusing on one thing at a time, you can achieve extraordinary results in productivity, achieve your goals, and live a more fulfilling life. 

In 2009, I dislocated and broke my ankle in the Honolulu airport. Bedridden after surgery, I remembered a friend had given me a copy of The Secret. I read it in one sitting and had an epiphany! I have been manifesting my entire life but didn’t know that it’s name was Law of Attraction. This book catapulted me on my spiritual journey and forever changed my life. I realized I am a deliberate creator and can manifest any desire I want. 

I’ve always appreciated the personal power and connection that comes from networking, but Big Game Hunting takes it to another level. Kai explains how you don’t just want to go make connections in a room; you want to be in the room. BGH does an excellent job sharing action steps for you to build meaningful, long-lasting connections. I’ve found my network correlates to my net worth, and this book absolutely helped me build it better.

No understanding of the difficulties, and joys, of life in the buildup to revolution is complete without some understanding of that quintessential American, Benjamin Franklin.

More than any popular figure of the day Franklin represented the defiance, wit, and resourcefulness of the emerging American identity. There are many excellent biographies of the inventor-statesman but he had such a complex, long life that he is perhaps better fed to us in smaller doses, like this look at his life as ambassador-agent in London, where he lived for one-fifth of his life. 

We meet Franklin in his prime, as he engages in eloquent resistance to the British government, conducts experiments (some quite bizarre) on the cutting edge of science, completes many of his remarkable inventions (e.g. the armonica musical instrument and three-wheeled clock) and carries on his nontraditional lifestyle, including his daily “air bath” in which he sat at an open window,… show more.

It may seem unfair to group Benjamin Franklin among con artists and impersonators, but he certainly had a talent for self-invention. Most biographies of Franklin take it as a given that he was the “first American,” who set the mold for what we call the American dream. In this highly readable and comparatively brief biography of the great man, Wood breaks from that tradition and tells the story of a provincial striver whose many public personas were motivated by a desire to fit in among aristocratic Europeans. If you think you know what made Franklin tick, this biography will make you think again.

I am a big Franklin fan, as anyone knows who has read my own book about him. This is my favorite book about Franklin as an inventor. I love Gene Barretta’s bright, cartoony illustrations and cleverly written text, which juxtaposes familiar modern-day scenes with Franklin’s astonishing array of innovations (he even invented the odometer??) in a rollicking salute to a Founding Father far ahead of his time.  

Suppose conservative court justices objectively framed their decisions according to the original intent of the Founders. In that case, they would have more than adequate grounds to curb the influence of big money and well-heeled lobbyists in American politics.

Besides equating money to speech over the last half century, Courts have decided in major decisions since 1970 that large campaign contributions and lavish gifts from lobbyists to public officials are legal as long as there is no explicit quid pro quo.

The book’s title refers to the controversy over a snuff box given to Frankin by the King of France upon his leaving Paris. For Teachout, the cloud of scandal that enveloped Franklin is a good illustration of how the first- and (until recently) subsequent generations of Americans had a much broader understanding of the corrupting role of money and lavish gifts play in our politics.

David Hendrickson recovers the paradoxical origins of our nation in the contentious diversity of citizens who identified with their state rather than as Americans, and who dreaded those of other states as potential enemies. To avoid the bloodbaths of European-style wars in America, the founders framed a union of states meant to provide a framework for mutual peace. But they also generated a recurrent political struggle between those who feared the Union as too strong, as potential tyrannical, and those who wished to perfect that Union as a true nation.

The brilliance of Shenk’s book is that even someone who didn’t know the basic rules of chess would be enthralled by the backdrops of the game he introduces to the reader. Chess is played around the world by hundreds of millions of people and Shenk delves into the reasons why the game has such perversely addictive appeal.