100 books like Effortless Mastery

By Kenny Werner,

Here are 100 books that Effortless Mastery fans have personally recommended if you like Effortless Mastery. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Sage Rountree Author Of The Athlete's Guide to Recovery: Rest, Relax, and Restore for Peak Performance

From my list on books for athletes who want to up their game.

Why am I passionate about this?

Though I’ve coached endurance athletes to world championships, I’m an expert on not working out. It’s what you do when you’re not training that matters most! All the books on this list teach habits that help you relax about things that don’t matter while guiding you to define what does matter and explaining ways to most efficiently focus your energies there. This jibes with my work as a yoga teacher: we seek to find the right application of effort, and to layer in ease wherever possible. I don’t think it’s stretching too much to call each book on the list both a work of philosophy and also a deeply practical life manual.

Sage's book list on books for athletes who want to up their game

Sage Rountree Why did Sage love this book?

I think about this book every day, even though it was written almost 25 years ago, and the edition I read explained how to manage your paper file folders! (One of my most-used apps, the to-do manager Things, is built on this system.)

I love how much time this book has saved me as I juggle running several businesses, staying active in my hobbies, and running a household. Allen’s approach to capturing your ideas and then deciding how to organize them so that you can keep track of what needs your attention is both simple and really profound.

For athletes who need to be as efficient as possible to reserve time and energy for training, this book is a lifesaver.

By David Allen,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Getting Things Done as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The book Lifehack calls "The Bible of business and personal productivity."

"A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"-Fast Company

Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen's Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. "GTD" is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.

Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text…


Book cover of Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit

Bill Bruford Author Of Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer

From my list on why drummers do what they do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been intrigued by drums, drummers, and drumming since the age of 12 when my sister gave me some brushes and told me to swish them around on a vinyl album sleeve. I was fortunate to begin my drumming career at the top, which gave me options as to how I could manage whatever came next. I spent 41 years playing the music I wanted with whom I wanted and where and when I wanted, in an endless search for the unusual and the unlikely. This brought me into contact with the great, the good, and the downright hopeless, from all of whom I learned that life isn’t about ‘finding’ things or ‘finding yourself,’ it’s about creating things and thus creating yourself.

Bill's book list on why drummers do what they do

Bill Bruford Why did Bill love this book?

If you want to know about drummers, Brennan’s book will guide you through the cultural, psychological, economic, technological, and entrepreneurial shifts which have collectively drawn the perimeter of the ballpark on which today’s drummers must perform. Now that we can all agree that drums are real instruments, that drummers are real musicians, and drumming is a real art form, this book provides an instrument-led social history that accords the subject an appropriate level of dignity and respect. Compulsory reading for the inquisitive citizen.

By Matt Brennan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kick It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The drum kit has provided the pulse of popular music from before the dawn of jazz up to the present day pop charts. Kick It, a provocative social history of the instrument, looks closely at key innovators in the development of the drum kit: inventors and manufacturers like the Ludwig and Zildjian dynasties, jazz icons like Gene Krupa and Max Roach, rock stars from Ringo Starr to Keith Moon, and popular artists who haven't always got their dues as drummers,
such as Karen Carpenter and J Dilla. Tackling the history of race relations, global migration, and the changing tension between…


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Book cover of Traps, the Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich

Bill Bruford Author Of Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer

From my list on why drummers do what they do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been intrigued by drums, drummers, and drumming since the age of 12 when my sister gave me some brushes and told me to swish them around on a vinyl album sleeve. I was fortunate to begin my drumming career at the top, which gave me options as to how I could manage whatever came next. I spent 41 years playing the music I wanted with whom I wanted and where and when I wanted, in an endless search for the unusual and the unlikely. This brought me into contact with the great, the good, and the downright hopeless, from all of whom I learned that life isn’t about ‘finding’ things or ‘finding yourself,’ it’s about creating things and thus creating yourself.

Bill's book list on why drummers do what they do

Bill Bruford Why did Bill love this book?

This biography of a person that many consider to be the greatest drummer that we’ve had so far, is excellent on several fronts. First, it is written by a long-standing friend and roommate Mel Tormé. Tormé was there when it happened, and as a highly rated jazz singer experienced in Rich’s world, he is able to help us understand why it happened. Second, it speaks volumes about American music and entertainment in the context of the Swing era. Rich could be mean, prickly, and arrogant, and then turn on a dime into a sweetheart. It says much for their friendship that, despite periods of estrangement, it was able to withstand such vacillations. I interviewed the drummer in his Dorchester hotel suite in London in 1968 and I got the sweetheart. Finally, as Jerry Lewis says on the back cover, the book is “written by a champ about a champ”.

By Mel Tormé,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Traps, the Drum Wonder as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Mel Tormé is world renowned as a leading jazz vocalist. He has performed in MGM musicals, co-wrote one of the enduring Christmas classics, "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)," and was recently profiled in Life magazine as one of the greatest living jazz singers. But
Tormé has also written five books, including The Other Side of the Rainbow, Tormé's account of his year working on the Judy Garland television show--considered the best portrait of Garland ever written. In this book, Tormé writes a brilliant biography of his friend of forty years--the drummer
Buddy Rich.
Buddy Rich was…


Book cover of Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation

Katherine Giuffre Author Of Outrage: The Arts and the Creation of Modernity

From my list on maverick creativity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent my career as a sociologist studying how creative people work, what social settings are most conducive to creativity, and how to foster creativity for everyone in our daily lives. I know that creativity is often not easy and can even be met with hostility much more frequently than we might think. Creativity is, after all, a type of deviance and creative people can face real obstacles in finding and following their vision. But a richer understanding of how and why creativity happens – and of its obstacles – can be a tool for making a more vibrant, creative, inclusive, and just world.

Katherine's book list on maverick creativity

Katherine Giuffre Why did Katherine love this book?

How do jazz musicians think about what they are doing when they are improvising within a group? How do they learn to do such a thing in the first place – going their own way, but still going there together?

This is an immersion into the minds of musicians, starting with their earliest days and going through the rigors of learning their craft and then mastering it. The combination of discipline and freedom, hard work and wild inventive joy, finding an individual voice, and being part of the larger whole – the things that make improvisation a breath-taking artistic high-wire act – come together in this book.

I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but this book made me wish I was a jazz musician.

By Paul F. Berliner,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Thinking in Jazz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This text reveals how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. It aims to illuminate the distinctive creative processes that comprise improvisation. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner demonstrates that a lifetime of preparation lies behind the skilled improviser's every note. Berliner's integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic and a tradition. The product of…


Book cover of Six Days at Ronnie Scott's: Billy Cobham on Jazz Fusion and the Act of Creation

Bill Bruford Author Of Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer

From my list on why drummers do what they do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been intrigued by drums, drummers, and drumming since the age of 12 when my sister gave me some brushes and told me to swish them around on a vinyl album sleeve. I was fortunate to begin my drumming career at the top, which gave me options as to how I could manage whatever came next. I spent 41 years playing the music I wanted with whom I wanted and where and when I wanted, in an endless search for the unusual and the unlikely. This brought me into contact with the great, the good, and the downright hopeless, from all of whom I learned that life isn’t about ‘finding’ things or ‘finding yourself,’ it’s about creating things and thus creating yourself.

Bill's book list on why drummers do what they do

Bill Bruford Why did Bill love this book?

Many of the best drummers write, or otherwise initiate, their own music for the very best reason: because they have to. This book is an oral history of Panamanian drummer Billy Cobham at the height of his powers, preparing his oeuvre for a 17-piece big band engagement under the guidance of British arranger and trumpeter Guy Barker. The gig is a 6-night run at London’s Ronnie Scott’s Club. Author Brian Gruber hangs out with the band for the duration to capture the verbal and musical fruits of an improvised series of encounters with elite performers. While the story pivots around the drummer, it is nevertheless an excellent multi-viewpoint guide over six decades as to how musicians collaborate and survive in an ever-changing music landscape.

By Brian K. Gruber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Six Days at Ronnie Scott's as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few musicians have transformed a genre like Panama-born, New York-raised Billy Cobham. "SIX DAYS AT RONNIE SCOTT’S: Billy Cobham on Jazz Fusion and the Act of Creation" is a one-of-a-kind oral history of a legend’s life work. From his early days with Horace Silver and Dreams to the epochal Bitches Brew sessions with Miles Davis to the breakthrough Mahavishnu Orchestra and beyond, here is a first-ever deep dive into six decades of musical innovation. The book’s setting is six days at iconic London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, as Britain’s hottest arranger Guy Barker orchestrates and leads a big band performing…


Book cover of Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment

Kourosh Dini Author Of Workflow Mastery: Building from the Basics

From my list on people who want to do work they find meaningful.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love playing music and games, helping others in therapy, being a father and husband, among other things. It’s taken me some time to figure out how to not only stay on top of them all, but to enjoy myself along the way. The answer to doing so is about finding and guiding play in work. Picasso's statement rings true: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Mastery and feelings of success flow when work is imbued with play. As a psychoanalyst and now as a writer, I work with both clients and readers to help them find meaning and mastery in the day-to-day.

Kourosh's book list on people who want to do work they find meaningful

Kourosh Dini Why did Kourosh love this book?

Mastery goes hand in hand with getting on top of work. Leonard gave me the long view. He does an excellent job of describing how mastery is better considered a process, a path you travel more so than a line you pass. Viewing one's craft as a series of peaks and plateaus and, more importantly, staying on the path is the work of mastery. 

By George Leonard,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mastery as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Drawing on Zen philosophy and his expertise in the martial art of aikido, bestselling author George Leonard shows how the process of mastery can help us attain a higher level of excellence and a deeper sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in our daily lives.

Whether you're seeking to improve your career or your intimate relationships, increase self-esteem or create harmony within yourself, this inspiring prescriptive guide will help you master anything you choose and achieve success in all areas of your life. In Mastery, you'll discover:

* The 5 Essential Keys to Mastery
* Tools for Mastery
* How to…


Book cover of How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

Kourosh Dini Author Of Workflow Mastery: Building from the Basics

From my list on people who want to do work they find meaningful.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love playing music and games, helping others in therapy, being a father and husband, among other things. It’s taken me some time to figure out how to not only stay on top of them all, but to enjoy myself along the way. The answer to doing so is about finding and guiding play in work. Picasso's statement rings true: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Mastery and feelings of success flow when work is imbued with play. As a psychoanalyst and now as a writer, I work with both clients and readers to help them find meaning and mastery in the day-to-day.

Kourosh's book list on people who want to do work they find meaningful

Kourosh Dini Why did Kourosh love this book?

Ahrens opened up my eyes to a method of building on, diving into, and creating notes without them getting lost. I love feeling productive whether I agree or disagree with something. I now have a way to connect my ideas together and gather them when creating articles, books, and courses. It didn't use to be fun to take notes, but now it is since I know I can get back to and update things for however long I like without ever feeling obligated to them.

By Sonke Ahrens,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Take Smart Notes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the second, revised and expanded edition. The first edition was published under the slightly longer title "How to Take Smart Notes. One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking - for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers".

The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organisation of ideas and notes. This book helps students, academics and other knowledge workers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward.
The Take Smart Notes principle…


Book cover of How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery

Kourosh Dini Author Of Workflow Mastery: Building from the Basics

From my list on people who want to do work they find meaningful.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love playing music and games, helping others in therapy, being a father and husband, among other things. It’s taken me some time to figure out how to not only stay on top of them all, but to enjoy myself along the way. The answer to doing so is about finding and guiding play in work. Picasso's statement rings true: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Mastery and feelings of success flow when work is imbued with play. As a psychoanalyst and now as a writer, I work with both clients and readers to help them find meaning and mastery in the day-to-day.

Kourosh's book list on people who want to do work they find meaningful

Kourosh Dini Why did Kourosh love this book?

Leshan has an enjoyable brass tacks approach to meditation. As a psychotherapist himself, I found his approach to be in tune with my own. Meditation helps a person better recognize the impact of emotion and thought on one's sense of agency, which is vital in any discussion about creating and accomplishing goals.

By Lawrence Leshan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Meditate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lawrence LeShan's classic guide to meditation introduced mindfulness to an entire generation. Now it's back in a special ebook edition.

Since its initial publication nearly 50 years ago, this simple yet powerful guide has helped more than a million readers reap the profound and limitless rewards of meditation. Now, in a special new edition, How to Meditate is back, singing the virtues of a quiet mind in the overstimulating bustle of the modern world.

Outlining a realistic and no-nonsense approach that will enable you to bring meditation effortlessly into your life, no matter how thinly stretched you are, How to…


Book cover of Seraphina

Danika Dinsmore Author Of Brigitta of the White Forest

From my list on adventurous girls in fantastic worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my first trip to Oz, Dad’s voice traveling me to sleep, I’ve been in love with fantastic worlds, from the microscopic to the intergalactic. I’m drawn to the observations of poets, astronomers, and metaphysicians, but there’s a special place in my heart for children’s authors. Someone once told me middle grade is the “sweet spot.” Readers start making independent choices, exploring stories that resonate with them. I’ve been teaching world-building to students and writers of all ages since 1998, and there is something magical about those 8-12 year-olds with their wild imaginations and eagerness to explore. I wrote my fantasy series for 10-year-old me, lost in such worlds.  

Danika's book list on adventurous girls in fantastic worlds

Danika Dinsmore Why did Danika love this book?

I love books where dragons feature as complex characters, and I’m particularly interested in their relationships with humans. Hartman’s dragons are magnificent creatures and, like humans, full of paradoxes. Our heroine, Seraphina, lives in a kingdom celebrating a forty-year peace treaty with the dragons, though not everyone is happy about this treaty.

Seraphina is quirky, clever, and a geek for intellectual pursuits like art and philosophy, and a talented musician. But she’s also moody and reclusive, isolating herself not just because of her insecurities… she has a dark secret, revealed over the course of the story. In addition to the mystery of a royal murder and in the background of a plot to destroy the peace treaty, Seraphina falls in love with the Captain of the Queen’s guard, who is engaged to someone else.

I’m not generally drawn to romance novels, but this romance developed in such an organic way,…

By Rachel Hartman,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Seraphina as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

The kingdom of Goredd is populated by humans and by dragons who fold themselves into a human form. Though they live alongside each other, the peace between them is uneasy.

But when a member of the royal family is murdered, and the crime appears to have been committed by a dragon the peace and treaty between both worlds is seriously threatened . . .

Into this comes Seraphina, a gifted musician who joins the royal court as the assistant to the court composer. She is soon drawn into the murder investigation and, as she uncovers hints of a sinister plot…


Book cover of Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning

Warren Berger Author Of The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead

From my list on lifelong learning.

Why am I passionate about this?

Warren Berger considers himself to be a “questionologist.” He has written three books on the power of asking questions, starting with the best-selling A More Beautiful Question and his follow-up, The Book Of Beautiful Questions. His expertise on questioning has been sought out by companies like Pfizer and Starbucks, as well as by the US Army and the NASA space program. He has written for The New York Times and Wired magazine, and he writes the “Questionologist” column for Psychology Today. Warren believes that lifelong learning is fueled by curiosity and questions.

Warren's book list on lifelong learning

Warren Berger Why did Warren love this book?

A big part of lifelong learning involves experimenting, trying new things, and picking up new skills. I must confess this can be challenging for me; I’m one of those people who sometimes gets frustrated or embarrassed when I try something new and find it doesn’t come easily to me. Maybe you’re the same way--if so, all the more reason to take inspiration from Vanderbilt’s book, which chronicles his efforts to learn how to play chess, surf, sing, juggle, and more. Woven in with those entertaining experiences are larger lessons about how we learn, and why it’s so beneficial to keep doing so. In the hands of a less skilled writer, a book like this--in which a journalist tries on a series of new hats--might seem gimmicky. But Vanderbilt is an insightful observer and storyteller who can even make traffic fascinating (that was the subject of a previous book of his,…

By Tom Vanderbilt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Beginners as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Beginners belongs on the list of books that have changed the way I understand my own limitations.'
Malcolm Gladwell

For many of us, the last time we learned a new skill was during childhood. We live in an age which reveres expertise but looks down on the beginner. Upon entering adulthood and middle age, we begin to shy away from trying new things, instead preferring to stay nestled firmly in our comfort zones.

Beginners asks the question: why are children the only ones allowed to experience the inherent fun of facing daily challenges? And could we benefit from embracing new…


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