Not every book I’ve read has changed my life, but hundreds have, and for those books, I’ve gone deep and written complete breakdowns of all their key ideas, takeaways, action steps, and more.

Most of them are only available to Premium Members of The Reading Life, but dozens of them are free (there are 150+ book breakdowns in total), and below are twenty of the more popular ones that I’m particularly proud of as well.

To read the rest of them (and to receive new book breakdowns weekly), become a Premium Member. See you inside!

“Going 10x means you’re living based on the most intrinsic and exciting future you can imagine. That 10x future becomes your filter for everything you do, and most of your current life can’t make it through that 10x filter.”

Almost everything you're doing now is a distraction preventing you from making a 10X leap - in revenue, leadership ability, significance, and more. Exponential transformations are actually easier than these small little 2X improvements, and Dr. Benjamin Hardy will prove it to you here in this book.

“Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.

There is little room in this crowding, competing age for the timid, vacillating youth. He who would succeed today must not only be brave, but must also dare to take chances. He who waits for certainty never wins."

This classic book from the founder of SUCCESS Magazine was first published in 1901, and helped launch the entire field of self-improvement. It's short, wildly inspirational, and will arm you with the ambition and the willpower needed to keep going no matter what.

“It’s not hours in the day you lack, it’s a vision for your life that makes time irrelevant.”

Vision. Overwhelming self-belief. And a sickening work ethic. These qualities and more helped Arnold Schwarzenegger climb the peak of three of the most difficult fields in the world to succeed in. His book shows you how you can climb to the top too.

“Think about it: Most people don’t even show up. Of the people who do, most don’t really push themselves. So to show up and be disciplined about daily improvement? You are the rarest of the rare.”

Everything that most people believe about self-discipline is wrong. In this book, through inspiring stories and using fundamental truths and hard-won insights, Ryan Holiday illustrates the true power of self-discipline to shape our destinies.

"When life or a plan feels ultimately unsatisfying, I find it's because I've forgotten to find the intersection of all three: what makes me happy, what's smart, and what's useful to others."

This is, pound-for-pound, one of the wisest, most genuinely and authentically helpful books ever written, and it's just full of simple, profound mental models and sage advice to help guide your decisions and move you toward where you want to be in life. Derek’s a deep thinker, with tremendous wisdom to impart, and the simplicity with which he delivers it means that it’s available to all of us.

“No matter where I work, the same truth keeps emerging. Neutral thinking is the key to unlocking a set of behaviors that can turn also-rans into champions and champions into legends."

Positive thinking can work sometimes. Negative thinking works negatively 100 percent of the time. But what about neutral thinking? Could it be the key to world-class performance? This book by NFL quarterback Russell Wilson’s former mental performance coach explains why he believes it is.

“It comes down to the simple but no less profound truth that effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and capability.

This single fact - that our intellectual abilities are not fixed from birth but are, to a considerable degree, ours to shape - is a resounding answer to the nagging voice that too often asks us, 'Why bother?'

We make the effort because the effort itself extends the boundaries of our abilities. What we do shapes who we become and what we're capable of doing. The more we do, the more we can do."

Most people are studying incorrectly, using outdated methods and strategies that never really worked all that well in the first place. If you want practical, science-based study techniques whose effectiveness has been verified over and over again in the real world, then you need this book. It represents the gold standard in the category of books on learning, and you’ll be able to use it every single day for the rest of your life.

“You are where you are and what you are because of yourself. Everything you are today – or ever will be in the future – is up to you. Your life today is the sum total of your choices, decisions, and actions up to this point.

You can create your own future by changing your behaviors. You can make new choices and decisions that are more consistent with the person you want to be and the things you want to accomplish with your life.”

In this book, personal development legend Brian Tracy teaches you how to establish winning habits that will lead inevitably to the success and fulfillment you desire, while helping you actualize the potential you may never have even known you had in the first place.

“Naturally, the 80 percent diligently obeying all the rules made for them and by them despise the 20 percent who defy some of the rules and the 1 to 5 percent who defy ALL the rules and get extraordinary, exceptional, infinitely better results.

If you listen to and conform to the 80 percent, you will be one of them. Here, I’m showing you how the top 1 percent to 5 percent think and act very, very differently, and get very, very different results.”

There's always a way to succeed in life, no matter who you are or where you come from, but you're never going to find it by simply following the herd. If the herd knew how to achieve success and get everything they ever wanted, then you wouldn't need this book.

“If you do not have a base income target, then you cannot calculate what your time must be worth, which means you cannot make good decisions about the investment of your time, which means you are not exercising any real control over your business or life at all. You are a wandering generality. Is that what you want to do - just wander around and settle for whatever you get?”

In this book, the eccentric entrepreneur Dan S. Kennedy shares the extreme time management strategies he uses personally to run his multimillion-dollar company while successfully safeguarding his schedule and his sanity. This is one of the best time management books I’ve ever read, and it’s certainly not just for entrepreneurs, either.

“The biggest obstacle to clarity is focusing on the way things should work as opposed to how they do work. Instead, accept the idea that society has incentives to keep you from improving. Get over it, and move forward with the proper understanding."

This is a book that tells you what you need to know, not what you want to hear. By shattering your illusions of how you think the world should work, it will free you to understand how it actually does work, and how you can use this information in order to win.

“Knowing these books can change your life and choosing not to implement what you're learning is like knowing you're guaranteed to win the lottery but choosing not to buy a ticket."

Perfect for beginner readers, yet still profoundly impactful for book lovers who may be more experienced, Rise of the Reader is the ultimate guide for transforming information into life-changing results.

“Live the life you were meant to. Try to see yourself as you could be, and then do everything in your power to believe that you can become that person. That is the first important step in becoming a successful person."

Globally-recognized leadership expert John C. Maxwell has been positively impacting millions of lives for decades, and this short, powerful book contains more of his wisdom per word than most people will ever get to experience.

“If your conscious brain is a lot more limited than you realized, your nonconscious brain is vastly more powerful than you have ever imagined."

By teaching you the beliefs, habits, thoughts, and actions that the authors have used to build eighteen multimillion-dollar companies, you'll come away from this book with the specific tools and mental strategies you need to build your dream business - and your dream life.

“Though it is full of Balaji's ideas, this book is actually a guide to thinking for yourself. Discover your own way to build the future you want to see. You might find your next great investment, start a billion-dollar company, or found an entirely new country.

Does Balaji sometimes sound a bit like a comic book villain? Maybe. He is an eccentric genius, after all. Have a conversation with this book. Adopt the ideas that serve you and wrestle with the others. When you're done reading, put the book down and get to work.

Our future is born anew every day. Use your powers well.

Create a product. Solve a problem. Build."

-Eric Jorgenson

What if the human story is just getting started? What if there's a future techno-utopia just waiting for the right group of smart, ambitious, optimistic thinkers to come along and help make it real? What if there was a book that laid out a grounded yet exciting roadmap to get to that bright future? This is that book.

“Competitive Greatness includes a love for the hard battle and teaching those under your supervision the same.

It is the competition itself - a worthy opponent - that gives you and your organization the opportunity to find out how good you are, to reach deep inside and perform at your best when it counts.

This is Competitive Greatness. In my book, the score doesn't always reveal whether you achieve it."

John Wooden's college basketball teams won 10 championships in 12 years, including an 88-game winning streak, but he NEVER talked about winning. Instead, this legendary leader spoke about Competitive Greatness achieved through effort, and how we can all aspire to it. This book distills all of his essential wisdom.

“If you want more success, find a way to serve more people.”

Those who work together, win together. Helping others isn’t just “a nice thing to do - it's actually the way that wealth and success are created in the modern economy. This book will teach you the 5 Laws of Stratospheric Success that all the greatest givers know and practice to reach the kinds of heights that the selfish “takers” of the world will never get to experience.

“If you have what it takes to conquer your psychology and your physiology, then you might just have what it takes to reach out into the world and conquer a whole lot more.

In short, the better you get at the fitness game, the better prepared you’ll be for every other game you might want to play.”

You can learn just as much (if not more) about yourself at the gym than inside any classroom. In this book, entrepreneur and world health and fitness expert Mike Matthews shows that you have more inside of you left to give - and he offers you the tools you need to bring it out.

"I want to see people live the lives they are capable of, not just the ones they think they are allowed to live."

A devastating crisis of meaning inspired Paul Millerd and many others to escape corporate slavery and build a real life for themselves in a universe teeming with more possibilities than could ever be imagined. This book is a call to adventure for you to join them.

“Since money is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we’ve created, understanding it is critical. If you choose to master it, money becomes a wonderful servant. If you don’t, it will surely master you.”

Spend less than you earn. Invest the surplus. Avoid debt. Could achieving financial independence really be that simple? Can you actually do this? The answers are “Yes” and “Yes.” This book brings it all together and shows you the way forward.