Great Books Distilled: Books by History's Greatest Innovators, Founders, and Investors

The page is a reading list sharing the best books written by history's greatest innovators, founders, and investors. This is a reading list for people who don’t have time for unimportant books—which should be everyone. I only list the best books I've read and recommend.

All Book Summaries

For the best books that I read, I go through the painstaking effort to put together and publish my personal notes including highlights, excerpts, and takeaways. You get the best 5% of the ideas in these books in a form that takes 20 minutes at most to read.

Great Books by Category

These are the best books to read, listed by category. Along with a few collections of rare and hard-to-find speeches, lectures, talks, interviews, letters, and memos that are a great way to go deeper.

30 Days to Better Traction & Results: A simple step-by-step guide for achieving more each day.

  • Take the guesswork out of achieving more. 11 email lessons walk you through the first 30 days of peak performance practices step-by-step, so you know  exactly what to do.
  • Get the tools and strategies you need to take action. The course includes a 20-page PDF workbook (including templates and cheatsheets), plus new examples and applications that you won’t find elsewhere.
  • Learn a framework that works for any goal. You can use this course to help you achieve any goal — from getting fit to daily meditation. Everything I share is time tested and science backed.

Enroll in the free email course.
Get your first lesson today.

SUBSCRIBED

Thanks for subscribing! You’re all set.

You’ll be notified every time I share a new post.

Something went wrong while submitting the form. Please try again.

You will get one short email every three days for a month.
You can unsubscribe any time.

Daniel Scrivner

10 Books with the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom

This is my list of the 10 books that offer the most page-for-page wisdom. These books will make you smarter. They offer wisdom that has stood the test of time, provide ideas for managing the complexities and challenges of life, and foster a greater understanding of our world.

On This Page


New and Notable

This section features recently released books that are worth your attention.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness
by Erik Jorgensen
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness (W1NNING)
by Tim Grover
Print | eBook | Audiobook

How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets
by Felix Dennis
Print | eBook | Audiobook


10 Books with the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom

If you can only read ten books, over and over, for the rest of your life you can't go wrong with these.

Principles: Life and Work
by Ray Dalio
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl
Print | eBook | Audiobook

How Will You Measure Your Life
by Clayton Christensen and James Allworth
Print | eBook | Audiobook

The Lessons of History: The Most Important Insights from The Story of Civilization
by Will & Ariel Durant
Print | eBook | Audiobook

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
by Will Durant
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Meditations: A New Translation With an Introduction by Gregory Hays
by Marcus Aurelius
Print | eBook | Audiobook

A Manual for Living
by Epictetus
Print | eBook | Audiobook

How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
by Vaclav Smil
Print | eBook | Audiobook

A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking
Print Edition

The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence
by Benoit Mandelbrot
Print | eBook | Audiobook


10 Speeches with the Most Word-for-Word Wisdom

Want more timeless wisdom? Below are the ten speeches with the most word-for-wisdom, all of which have been transcribed so they're easily readable.

The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment
by Charlie Munger
Read the speech transcript →

The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking
by Peter Kaufman
Read the speech transcript →

A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom
by Charlie Munger
Read the speech transcript →

How to Guarantee a Life of Misery
by Charlie Munger
Read the speech transcript →

Solitude and Leadership
by William Deresiewicz
Read the speech transcript →

Make Your Bed
by Admiral William H. McRaven
Read the speech transcript →

Seeking New Laws
by Richard Feynman
Read the speech transcript →

Creative Thinking
by Claude Shannon
Read the speech transcript →

Creativity in Management
by John Cleese
Read the speech transcript →

Personal Renewal
by John W. Gardner
Read the speech transcript →

Related Reading Lists

If you enjoyed this collection of book recommendations, don't miss exploring my other collections.

Or browse all book recommendations →

About the author

Daniel Scrivner is an award-winner designer turned founder and investor. He's led design work at Apple and Square. He is an early investor in Notion, Public.com, and Good Eggs. He's also the founder of Ligature: The Design VC and Outlier Academy. Daniel has interviewed the world’s leading founders and investors including Scott Belsky, Luke Gromen, Kevin Kelly, Gokul Rajaram, and Brian Scudamore.

Last updated
Aug 15, 2023

Thanks for reading. You can get more actionable ideas in my popular email newsletter. Each week, I share 5 ideas, quotes, questions, and more to ponder this weekend. Over 25,000 people subscribe. Enter your email now and join us.

SUBSCRIBED

Thanks for subscribing! You’re all set.

You’ll be notified every time I share a new post.

Something went wrong while submitting the form. Please try again.