The most recommended Thomas Edison books

Fascinated by innovations, I’m drawn to these concise profiles that span two centuries, moving from the steam engine to the search engine. Continuing the theme of electricity, my favorite story is of Samuel Insull, who served for a time as Thomas Edison’s secretary. He created a business model—a utility monopoly—that brought cheap and drudgery-reducing electricity to millions, yet his corporate pyramids collapsed in the Great Depression, leaving millions of investors penniless. What a grand arc – from being the most powerful modernizer of the 1920s became the most notorious business villain of the 1930s.

Here is another “classic” that should be part of your personal library.

Michalko shares life-changing creative techniques captured from creative “experts” such as Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Pablo Picasso. With easy-to-follow instructions, you too, can lead a more creative life (and change the world) at home and at work.

The author shows you, in exquisite detail, how to alter your thinking or modify your problem-solving abilities to generate tons of new ideas and tons of satisfying solutions to ongoing challenges.

No matter your occupation, this is a book that will generate an array of new and positive ideas.

We’ve all heard of these two inventors, but I hadn’t heard of the time they met. The title immediately intrigues and hooks in readers  – what did Ford and Edison learn from each other? Curiosity was a trait they shared that got them both into heaps of trouble and spurred them on to explore, innovate and create life-changing inventions. But before Henry successfully invented the Ford car, he looked longingly at Edison’s numerous successful inventions. What was the secret of his success? “Keep at it!” – such a simple, empowering tip, one that everyone can find inspiring and encouraging, especially young readers.

Gabler offers a detailed and persuasive history of Hollywood’s first producers, all immigrant Jewish Americans seeking to achieve the American dream.

This handful of men started in New York as peddlers or small business owners and then moved west to build their own film empires. No one saw motion pictures as more than a superficial pastime, but it seemed a good business opportunity. Unfortunately, Thomas Edison owned the rights and patents that kept Jewish entrepreneurs from accessing New York, so the immigrants went west.

MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Universal: these were their kingdoms and are still the names we know today as the major Hollywood studios. Meet the remarkable (and sometimes horrible) men who built this world and learn about their lives and ambitions in Gabler’s engaging book.

Each of the mostly very short stories in this collection features at least one animal and at least one real person—from Madonna to Thomas Edison and from David Hasselhoff’s dogwalker to Nicola Tesla. It’s funny, sad, and textured, uniting my interest in scientists with my love of animals. Often funny and often sad, each story is a gem of craft, sentence by sentence. As a writer, I admire the audacity of the project and the exuberant skill with which is carried out. This is not a book I could write, and I love it for showing me such a radically different approach to lying to tell the truth.

Like Da Vinci, Thomas Edison was possessed of great genius, but the point Edmund Morris drives home so well is that Edison was also indefatigable. The Wizard of Menlo Park worked untold hours on end, often sleeping on a mat on the floor, hard by whatever his current project was. It’s such a simple concept—enormous work can lead to enormous accomplishments—and Morris gives us a living example of one man whose work ethic changed civilization.

The author had a great idea: to give us a history of New York City by offering us pages of the diaries of famous people and obscure figures from the early 1600s up through the first decade of the 21st century. 

She goes day by day through a year – with multiple entries from different years and different diaries for each of those days.

We get to see comments on the major political and historical events that shook not just New York but the country and the world, from perspectives that differ drastically from today’s. She was masterful in choosing the diary entries. 

My writing is often historical fiction, and getting inside the mind of someone a few hundred years ago is simple about some things – timeless things – but a challenge about other things. I have to be constantly vigilant to keep my modern mentality from interfering. So… show more.

The Wizard of Menlo Park tells the Thomas Edison story frankly and compellingly, combining the tale of America’s most famous inventor with the story of a man who worked extremely hard to achieve what no one else could.

I learned a lot from his book about an amazing idea man, but also about someone who knew how to translate ideas into reality, break through barriers to achieve a goal, and persevere when success seemed impossible.

When we pay our electric bills, many of us send them to “Edison” because he set a new standard of brilliance and productivity. This is a brilliant read to get to know the man behind the electric company.

The Victorian Internet traces the development and impact of the telegraph in the United States in the nineteenth century, and explicitly draws parallels to the emergence of the Internet in the twenty-first century.

It is a wonderful source of perspective on the tumult and turmoil of our Digital Age by reminding us that any major new means of communication is sure to generate social upheaval, including a new generation of winners and losers.

The book is also very provocative and enlightening by sharing plenty of anecdotes about how people reacted to the emergence of the telegraph—how ordinary folks immediately used it for love, business, and crime, giving rise to entirely new social phenomena and transforming American industry.

For those of us trying to understand consciousness, autism, and higher minds, The Victorian Internet is a wonderful guide to the transformative power of increased connectivity. 

This book was my first foray into social and political history of Hollywood.

Sklar covers early film industry battles with Thomas Edison, the impact of censorship in Hollywood, the monopoly-like integration of the studios, and the overarching mythology that Hollywood sold through their movies.

I read it as an undergraduate when I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Looking back as an author and professor, I can see this book as planting seeds that continue to blossom through my own work in the classroom as well as in books and articles that I publish.