Cream-Colored Ponies and Crisp Apple Strudels
A reader writes:
“I had a question for you: Aside from your own work, what books have you found to be the most thought-provoking and inspirational?”
In the realm of business, Seth Godin’s books always delight me and make me think. The One Minute Manager had a huge impact on me back in the 80s. (Interesting: The Go-Giver ended up being repped by the same agent who repped One Minute Manager, and published by the same house that published Seth’s last few books. Law of Attraction in action?)
I was quite moved and inspired by Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now when it came out a few years back, and more recently by his A New Earth. Reading Buckminster Fuller influenced me profoundly as a teenager. More recently, I loved The Tipping Point and Blink. I loved Freakonomics.
There’ve been many business books that have intrigued me. (I think my coauthor Bob Burg has read every business/success book under the sun. That man reads and absorbs more books than anyone I know.) But the books that have had the greatest impact on me, and been the greatest inspiration, have been novels.
As a youngster (10), reading the Narnia books changed my life. I couldn’t have told you exactly how, at the time, but they inspired me perhaps more than any other books, ever.
East of Eden (Steinbeck). A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving). Stardust and Coraline (Gaiman). (I cried at the end of Stardust — the book, not the film.) American Pastoral (Roth). The great ones.
Though I’ve never been a big history buff, I recently read 1776 and John Adams, both by David McCullough, and was enormously inspired by both. Washington, Knox and the rest, and John and Abigail Adams — what amazing characters these people are! And what a gigantically talented storyteller is McCullough.
I seem to be most inspired and thought-provoked by great stories. Aren’t books miraculous things?
What are some of your favorites?