The most recommended Andrew Carnegie books

Think and Grow Rich is one of the best books of all time – a true class for achieving super success and wealth.

Napoleon Hill shows you how to get ahead and build wealth. The idea is that successful, wealthy people found the way and we can too. Hill believes that how you think and use the knowledge and experience you accumulate along your journey drives your success.

He explains the importance of desire and faith and gaining specialized knowledge. He emphasizes organized planning, making decisions and taking action, and sticking with it. Hill shares stories based on his interviews with leaders including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and many other millionaires. 

For as long as I can remember, the oil industry has been saying oil is a finite resource and we are only a few years away from running dry.

It may be confusing to fathom how an industry can keep repeating that meme and have it continue to be believable. The key is understanding the cyclical nature of oil exploration and development and how the long lead time it takes to drill for new oil can lag behind a sudden burst of economic prosperity that creates more demand for energy virtually overnight. In essence, every oil shortage will eventually be temporary.

Market Madness is one of the few oil books that gets that right and uses history to prove its point. The book takes you back to the time of Andrew Carnegie and doesn’t get sucked into the idea that “easy to find” oil will eventually run out, empowering the… show more.

I picked up this book, read the prologue, and never put it down. Every African American child I know has had “the talk.”  When your parents explain why you cannot act like the other kids, and how you can navigate and transcend a toxic American sub-culture where people of color are viewed as angry, dangerous, or someone to be feared.

I love this book because it is direct, non-judgmental, and provides a path to open dialogue. Written from the viewpoint of Darrin as a six-year-old child, we trace his growth into adulthood and how he makes sense of race, culture, and trauma growing up as a biracial person in the USA. 

Written as a beautiful graphic novel, it makes the story and the lessons it teaches accessible to both young and old. It provides a bridge to understanding, compassion, and healing.  

In many ways this is the quintessential Hong Kong book because its very style and approach is, as the title says, somewhat impossible, mixing the intensely personal with the political, closely observed reflections and a large collection of unique Hong Kong voices.

Written during and after the 2019/20 protests, Cheung throws her net wide to give the reader an intimate picture of the real Hong Kong, an exasperating and wonderful place. She is the youngest of the authors I have recommended and, therefore, closer to the generation who gave rise to the protests. People often speak of the unique Hong Kong spirit in Hong Kong, and this book gives profound insight into what that means.

I can’t help but be struck by how Richardson brought together so many big topics so smoothly in one volume.

Usually, historians treat the stories of the post-war South, North, and West separately, but Richardson unites them by looking at how Civil War-era Americans thought about foundational ideas like work, freedom, and order.

Arguing that the whole country went through a broader, national reconstruction, Richardson follows ideas about “bad workers” and “special interests” from 1865 down to the early 20th century, using vignettes of interesting and important individuals to move the story along.  

How can you not already love these underwater giants? But I didn’t know much about them before reading Gigg’s love letter to our undersea cousins. They live by breathing air and giving birth like we do, but most of their lives takes place in a hidden, watery world.

The horror our species inflicted on whales during commercial whaling became more repulsive as Giggs uncovered the layers of whales’ complexity and sociality. I learned that arthritis sufferers in the nineteenth century would bathe in holes cut into whale carcasses for their curative powers. I also tried to imagine an animal with blood vessels big enough for a child to crawl through and a heartbeat that can be heard through the water for over a mile. 

Practically every page of this book has something fascinating to say about music, and Denk has an appealing, charming, often funny voice that one doesn’t often encounter in books about classical music.

As an amateur pianist I learned more about technique from Denk than I ever expected from a memoir, from how to use my thumb “as a transit system” to rolling chords at different speeds as if I were “unrolling a carpet.”

He teaches us how to listen more acutely to the messages in music, whether it’s Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, or Philip Glass, and page by page, he shines a new light on the music we think we know and how an artist approaches it.

I strongly believe business leaders and brands must engage with all stakeholders (including society and the planet) to thrive – and this is the essence of John Browne’s message in Connect.

Browne, a former CEO of BP, contrasts positive engagement with traditional corporate social responsibility, which he contends is often more about complying with laws and regulations and looking good rather than doing good. 

The first half of the book provides real world examples of how corporate success is dependent on greater engagement with society.

And the second examines Browne’s four tenets of connected leadership – map your world, define your contribution, apply world class management, engage radically – and how companies can exemplify them going forward and profitably place society at the heart of business.

Zamora recounts in vivid detail the harrowing three-thousand-mile journey he made in 1999, when he was nine years old, from El Salvador to the US, where he crossed the border illegally to join his parents in California.

The two-month journey, described through the eyes of the author as a child, was fraught with unimaginable hardships, a perilous boat trip, days of hunger and thirst in the desert, arrests, and betrayals; but there were moments of joy as well, for although he traveled with strangers, some in the group helped him survive the ordeal with their kindness and compassion.

Zamora’s poignant memoir is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

It’s hilarious and cringey at the same time to read this honest look at status anxiety. It’s hilarious to watch others seek status. As for yourself, you hopefully relieve your cringing because you see how status has obsessed people throughout history. 

The author says we seek the love of the world as well as the love of a partner. The quest can ruin an otherwise good life, so he offers solutions. I love his explanation of the original “Bohemians.” They were the hipsters of the 19th century! They created those impressionist paintings we love because they were aching for status.

The author is a famous British philosopher who inherited a fortune. He sees that money does not relieve status anxiety. But he misses the real reason: because we’ve inherited the brain of status-seeking animals (as explained in all of my books).