Here are 100 books that Powerhouse fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a self-taught guy, having started in my first job at IBM Oslo, when I was 18 years old, as punched card machine operator, and plug-board ‘programmer'. I did night studies in sociology/philosophy for 10 years at University of Oslo. I read about 30 books a year, and I’m 82 in 2023. I have spent most of my career as an independent international consultant to corporations and governments, while building up my ideas of useful methods to solve problems. In retirement, I love to spread my ideas, and learn more. I also write about 5 new books a year, when at my Oslofjord Summer cabin. They're all digital and free or free samples.
From my notes after I read it, “Great content and organization. Triggered me to write and plan a 2022 Book.”
There was specific practical content like removing vacation policy, removing travel and expenses policy. An opening the books, which showed the practices behind the no rules idea, and their consequent results in the business. As a consultant, these give me a tool for discussion with clients. What if you did the same?
Again a great leader, and successful businessperson, using persistence and imagination to deal with the forces against change.
Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss.
These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower - with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin…
Just your friendly neighborhood thriller novelist. When people find out I write books, they inevitably enquire, “Really? Have I read anything of yours?” Well, funny you should ask! I’ve been cranking out stories since I was sixteen but took a couple of decades to finally land a publishing deal for my debut novel Hammerjackand its sequel Prodigal(Bantam Spectra). A lifelong Star Trekfan, I’ve also published the novella “Revenant” in the collection Seven Deadly Sins (Gallery Books). My latest is the high-tech thriller Candidate Z, available on Amazon.
I have zero fascination with celebrities, but remain a sucker for a showbiz memoir as told by a true raconteur. And though you might never have known it from the pretty-boy reputation cemented firmly by his 80’s era film oeuvre, Rob Lowe ranks right up there with George Hamilton in both his having known pretty much everybody in Hollywood, but also having a great story to tell about each one. At turns self-deprecating, deeply touching, brutally honest, and laugh-out-loud funny, Lowe’s Storiesdoesn’t dish any dirt—so if that’s what you’re looking for, you might want to look elsewhere. But if you’d like an inside peek at Hollywood as told by a Gen-X icon in his own words (no ghostwriters here!), you can’t go wrong here.
A wryly funny and moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye.
Teen idol at fifteen, international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.
The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal…
Joe Pardavila has produced over ten thousand hours of audio content over the course of his career in podcasting and terrestrial radio. Joe was a radio personality and producer on the legendary New York City radio station, 95.5 PLJ, where he was part of the iconic Scott & Todd in the Morning. He studied sketch and improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and was a founding member and actor in the New York-based sketch comedy group, Clip Show. He is the codirector, writer, and producer of the award-winning horror satire, The Witches of Bushwick. Currently, he serves as the director of podcasts for Advantage Media Group | Forbes Books.
Business books tend to be stuffy and over technical, but Iger’s book was the model I was going after when writing my own book. Iger shares the hits and misses (but mostly hits) of his time running one of the most prestigious brands the world has ever seen. But even though they’re mostly showbiz and Disney-focused, any human can relate and learn from his stories.
'One of the best business books I've read in years.' BILL GATES THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 _____________________________
The CEO of Disney, one of Time's most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life.
Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's…
Abuse as a buzzword is so broad and big. Our stories are so unique in how we were neglected, abused, abandoned, not seen, beaten, or sexually molested, but what also differs is what area of our lives it affects. For some of us, it's our bodies and food. For others of us, it's addiction to drugs and alcohol. And then there is promiscuity or sexual isolation. As a survivor myself, and having written a book that covers how denial was my go-to in my abuse history, I'm always fascinated by the human’s desire to persevere and be resilient. As a survivor, I want to be part of opening the conversation about abuse up louder.
When more than three women recommend a memoir, especially one that is by someone famous, I have to pick it up. Usually, I am not attracted to the lives of famous people, partly because I worked in Hollywood for so long. I saw they were just people like us, playing roles and doing their jobs. But Demi Moore’s long battle with body dysmorphia stemmed from a cruel relationship with her mother, where she was even sold for money. As she finds her fame, she is never satisfied with her body, but acutely aware she is underpaid when compared to her famous husband. So on one hand, she can’t align with a personal image of self-love and worth, but somewhere inside is a voice that knows she deserves more.
A Daily Mail Book of the Year. A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year.
Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.
For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight - or the headlines.
Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her…
I’m an Irish novelist and occasional screenwriter. My latest book, Duffy and Son, is my sixth. I can be drawn in by any well-told tale, of course, but I’ve always had the strongest reaction to stories with at least some element of comedy. I don’t know, I just find books in which no one says anything funny to be deeply unrealistic. It infuriates me when any piece of fiction is viewed as ‘lesser’ because there’s a chance it might make you smile. The books listed here will definitely make you smile. If you give them a chance, I hope you find them as worthy of your time as I did.
You can read a good screenplay with as much ease and pleasure as you read a novel, and the Fleabag scripts aren’t just good—they’re immaculate.
I pore over this book again and again, hoping that maybe this time I will see the trick, the moment of misdirection or sleight of hand that enables a story of profound personal pain—grief, loneliness, fear, they’re all here, all the big ones—to be so bloody funny. There is no trick, of course. There’s just flawless writing.
You should of course watch the TV show these scripts underpin, but do yourself a favour and read them too. Phoebe Waller-Bridge really did something here.
Go deeper into the groundbreaking, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning series with this must-have collection—“a completist’s dream of a book, including the show’s full scripts and Waller-Bridge’s commentary” (Vogue).
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY EVENING STANDARD
“Her coat falls open. She only has her bra on underneath. She pulls out the little sculpture of the woman with no arms. It sits on her lap. Two women. One real. One not. Both with their innate femininity out.”
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s critically acclaimed, utterly unique series Fleabag took the world by storm with its piercing dialogue, ruthlessly dry wit,…
I grew up in a reading and history-loving family. My parents read all the time, and their books of choice combined historical fiction and nonfiction. It’s no wonder I ended up teaching high school history for over three decades. The first books I read were my older brother’s hand-me-down Hardy Boys. Then, I went on to Agatha Christie. Books written in the 1920s and 30s were historical mysteries by the time I read them decades later, so the historical mystery genre is a natural fit. As for the Victorian age, all that gaslight and fog makes it the perfect milieu for murder.
This delightful book erases the stiff, sepia portraits of a bygone age, painting the Victorian world in living color. It shreds the era’s image as fun-challenged. The Victorians knew how to have a rollicking good time, inventing popular entertainment on a commercial scale.
In two generations, theatrical performances, professional sporting events, and seaside holidays were accessible to the masses. Jackson traces the social and economic transformations that made it possible.
I am a part-time pooka and native of the Unseelie Court. I collect acorns, glass beads, and pretty rocks, and the crows outside my house know me as She Who Has Bread. My fantasy novels are crafted in the dead of night after offering sacrifices of almonds and red wine to the writing-block deities. You can reach me by scrying bowl, carrier pigeon, or @egradcliff on social media. If I can’t describe myself in fantastical terms, why take me seriously as a fantasy author and recommender?
Another book remarkable for its descriptions, The Weight of Feathers combines the real world with enough distance and faint magic to make everything in it shimmer. Not everything makes perfect sense, and not everything needs to, because in Anne-Marie McLemore’s rewriting of the classic Romeo and Juliet love story, the taste of aguas frescas and the clinking of wind chimes make the otherworldly seem perfectly plausible. The Weight of Feathers is the sort of book that made me want to live in its world, to be privy to the hidden magic. The love story unfolds gradually as the deep cultures and subtle, colorful fantasy steal away the senses.
The Palomas and the Corbeaus have long been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows. The Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find. Lace Paloma may be new to her family's show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she's been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small…
I’ve loved the theater ever since I first stepped on stage in a high school production of You Can’t Take It With You. I had one line and was hooked! And as for Shakespeare–I fell in love with the Bard when I was 13 and saw Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. My best friend and I spent hours reciting the lines (I still remember whole speeches). So, when I was looking for an artsy subject (I love the arts) for my third novel, I naturally turned to the theater. I have a Master of Arts in Drama from the University of Toronto and when I’m not writing, I run Art In Fiction, a website showcasing 1700+ novels inspired by the arts.
This academic work rarely left my side when I was writing The Muse of Fire. It provides an in-depth and well-researched overview for readers who want to know more about the Old Price Riots of 1809—the central historical event in the novel. For me, a huge bonus was that the author, Marc Baer, very graciously consented to read and provide feedback on my book before it was published to ensure I got my facts right about the longest-running and most disruptive riot in British theatrical history.
In September 1809, during the opening night of Macbeth at the newly rebuilt Covent Garden theatre, the audience rioted over the rise in ticket prices. Disturbances took place on a further sixty-six nights that autumn and the Old Price riots became the longest running theatre riots in English history. This book describes the events in detail, sets them in their wider context, and uses them to examine the interpenetration of theatre and disorder. Previous understandings of the riots are substantially revised by stressing populist rather than class politics and the book concentrates on the theatricality of audiences, the role of…
As a kid, I had a lot of experience having a close group of friends… and a lot of experience looking into other groups from the outside. I waded from circle to circle, trying on friendships like some people try on hats. The books I’m recommending represent the best of fictional friend groups—the groups that topped any clique I saw in real life. Reading these books made me feel like an in-kid in the best possible way. Many of the characters remain the absolute coolest people I know, and serve as inspiration for the friend group dynamics I get to explore in my own stories.
My Spice Girl-loving heart would have diedto be in an SG fan club at my school. Back in my day, we had to settle for quick half-memorized dance routines under the monkey bars during recess. But in Akemi Dawn Bowman’s sweet story of niche interests and building a community person by person, the characters’ shared love of a music group is only the tip of a huge and fulfilling friendship iceberg.
Eleven-year-old Millie Nakakura is starting sixth grade at a real school for the first time in her life. Previously homeschooled, Millie dreams of finally making friends and having a little bit of freedom-though this proves tricker than she expected.
Then she spots a flyer for an after-school club for fans of Japanese pop music, which she loves more than anything else in the world. Millie makes true friends with this crew of misfits, and when of their members starts to bend under the strain of a troubled home life, the friends band together to help her get through these tough…
I’ve always loved writing comedy, since my first attempt at a joke in the school magazine. I never thought I’d get to do it professionally but somehow, through cheek and luck, I found myself as a comedy scriptwriter for the BBC, penning lines for the likes of Lenny Henry and Tracey Ullman. I’ve since gone on to have a career writing more grown-up things but nothing gave me as much pleasure as creating those lines. So I’ve returned to my comedic roots, writing comic novels. And it’s still a thrill to know I’ve written words that make people laugh.
Believe me; I know how hard it is to write humour. To produce a successful comedic novel with laugh-out-loud lines as a debut novelist is no mean feat, but for me, Jane Ions has pulled it off with this book.
I found the voice of Sally Forth (I know!) engaging and hilarious from the off. There was so much for me to enjoy, from the wayward teenage son living in a lean-to in the garden to Sally’s long-suffering and respectable husband, who just happens to be an MP.
I love this kind of well-observed comedy that treats its characters, no matter how misguided, with kindness and compassion.
Sally's son Dan has come back home from college after completing his performing arts degree. He needs rent-free accommodation, friends, a love life, and somewhere to perform his arts. Sally herself is taking a career break from teaching English. She's tired of teaching year eleven pupils about the Mockingbird. She wants to kill the bird and stuff it with all the redundant apostrophe's' she's ever seen in twenty years of marking essays. She needs a rest. She does not need her adult son Dan, his current girlfriend, his previous girlfriend and his old school friend to move in and share…
