100 books like The Book That Transforms Nations

I hadn’t read this as a child, but upon reading it the first time, it made me feel like a child. The deep introspection, written with the imagination and voice of a young child, was calming, and I felt as if he knew how I thought as a child and adult.

I was living in France at the time, and the story had a foreign mood but was familiar. The book reached into personal childhood daydreams and fantasies. The prince’s way of thinking and expressing himself was definitely not from the modern day and it inspired me to write “up” to younger audiences. The immediacy and freshness of the illustrations motivated me to think less and feel more when creating.

I would recommend several of McManus’ books in my top five but that would narrow explaining what influences me.

In Uprising, we see the overlap of our need to achieve, our need for meaning, and God’s answers laid out in philosophical terms so we can see how maybe God isn’t so religious but tremendously right on, for our benefit. I underline sentences in books so I can quickly reference them at a later time.

I measure the personal value of a book by how many times I mark my book that way. This book has underlines, stars in the margin, comments above and below, and in different ink colors. It is packed with so many quotable nuggets of wisdom.

This book aimed to enhance public speaking abilities using legendary speakers of the time (in 1996), these are mostly old-timers while the new “kid” is Tony Robbins.

More than 500 pages of 15 successful motivational speakers share their key content, their own motivation, their methods and practices. You get the incredible content. You get universal tips on communication. You get personal testimonies of struggle and overcoming. Sit down with these 15 masters of motivation and feel the side effect of being challenged.

This book will still be valuable 100 years from now because it is practical and inspiring. Hey, you might aspire to public speaking.

I came across this, now out of print, booklet as a 19-year-old who could not believe the majority of the planet would believe something incorrect. This guy was a lone voice against the tide of overpopulation panic. 

The information he provided was easily confirmed with math or encyclopedia references. It is completely a Q&A format. Very strange, at first. It was as if he expected me, the reader, to reach my own conclusions based on the information alone. That was new for me. He did not coax me or summarize his conclusion. This influenced my writing style for life. It respects the reader as having a mind of his own.

The 2nd most impacting part about this was ultimately, that yes, the whole world could literally be wrong. Shocking!

This is the book that I always recommend to anyone who is just getting interested in modern Korea and wants to learn more.

A former Korea correspondent for The Economist, Daniel Tudor displays tremendous range in his command not just of business and the economy but also of politics, religion, and culture. His enthusiasm for exploring Korea is clear, but he is also able to criticize aspects of the country with genuine sensitivity.

If something on the news, in a South Korean TV drama, or in an article piques your curiosity, you can always turn to this book to get more context, get an interesting tidbit from one of Tudor’s interviews with prominent figures, or find ways to go deeper into the topic.

This was my first Samantha Price book, but it won’t be my last. I loved it!

Of course, I have always loved cold cases, and this one was fantastic. I love following clues, but it’s even more challenging following clues that are decades old. I thought the mystery was well-thought-out and very clever.

But I love it when there are lessons to be learned, both spiritual and practical. This book has both. Huzzah!

Edna O’Brien’s 2012 autobiography Country Girl is a blunt, gripping, lyrical and non-self-pitying depiction of her early life in the west of Ireland. It exposes the stultifying conformity imposed by the Catholic Church, family and community which I experienced myself. She rebelled as she sought freedom and self-expression from a domineering mother and drunken father. Edna’s escape to Dublin, London and New York as well as her exile from Ireland reflects an individual addicted to drugs and alcohol who seeks acknowledgement, liberty and success through many failed relationships. Edna’s autobiography resonates with many of my own experiences of the 1960’s. Country Girl demonstrates how one Irish female writer broke the cultural silence so that others would not feel alone. Her writing was an inspiration to me for my own memoir.

Bryson’s various travelogues give you such colourful views of the places he visits and, if you’re journeying to Australia, Down Under is a must-read. Expertly combining sharp observations, unusual factual snippets, and incisive wit, the pictures he paints will inspire you to travel and see it for yourself... or alternatively, persuade you to avoid it at all cost. Whichever the result, you will be amply entertained. 

I love this book so much it made me want to write books. Seriously. This is the book that inspired me. Until I read this book (way back in 2000), I didn’t know non-fiction could be so informative, compelling, AND funny—all at once. But Bryson showed me it’s possible. Sure, he’s a witty writer. But I think Bryson’s real weapon is that he does his research.

He digs up the fascinating, bizarre, and downright unbelievable facts about his subject—in this case, the continent of Australia—then seamlessly weaves them into a compelling narrative that keeps readers looking forward to each intriguing nugget of information waiting for them to discover next. It wasn’t until the end that I realized I’d learned as much as I’d laughed.

Neil Ansell is such an honest writer. I came to this book because I loved his other writing about nature and followed him back through time to the five years he spent living alone up a Welsh mountain, seeing no one for weeks on end, exploring and working in the woods and hills around him.

It’s a rich and deep description of place, but more than that, it’s a gradual unfurling of Ansell’s sense of self. In a later book, he writes of that time of prolonged solitude, ‘You slough off the skin of self, all self-awareness, and are left with pure sensation. Nothing has a name; it is only itself.’

Ansell is a slow-burning writer who I trust completely to take me, however slowly, to a new understanding.