Here is a list of the best business books sorted by categories.
Getting Started
- Business Model Generation, by Alexander Osterwalder
- businessThink, by Dave Marcum
- Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, by Michael Porter
- The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufman
- The Living Company, by Arie De Geus
Branding
- Harvard Business Review on Brand Management
- Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life, by William J. McEwen
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, by Al Ries
- The Brand Bubble, by John Gerzema
- The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier
- WIKIBRANDS: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace, Mike Dover
- Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, by Marty Neumeier
Business, Business Models, Value Chains
- Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Need, by Muhammad Yunus
- Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, by Alexander Osterwalder
- Harvard Business Review on Managing the Value Chain
- Harvard Business Review on Rebuilding Your Business Model
- Open Services Innovation: Rethinking Your Business to Grow and Compete in a New Era, by by Henry Chesbrough
- Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, by Amory Lovins
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business, by by Umair Haque
- The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufman
- Ubiquitous Computing for Business, by Bo Begole
Change, Change Management
- Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down, by John P. Kotter
- Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life, by J.D. Meier
- Harvard Business Review on Change
- Inside the Tornado, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small…It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow
- Leading Change, by John P. Kotter
- Switch, by Chip Heath
- Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson
Competition
- Competitive Advantage, by Michael E. Porter
- Competitive Strategy, by Michael E. Porter
- How Companies Win, by Rick Kash
- Inside the Tornado, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small…It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow
- Reality Check, by Guy Kawasaki
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- Zag, by Marty Neumeier
Culture
- Generations, Inc., by Meagan Johnson
- Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture, by Jon Gordon
- The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Christopher Locke
- The No Asshole Rule, by Robert I. Sutton
Customer Focus, Service Delivery
- Harvard Business Review on Customer Relationship Management
- Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard
- Relationship Economics, by David Nour
- Satisfaction: How Every Great Company Listens to the Voice of the Customer, by Chris Denove
- The Support Economy, by Shoshana Zuboff
CxO, Executive
- Barbarians at the Gate, by John Helyar
- businessThink, by Dave Marcum
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The CIO Edge: Seven Leadership Skills You Need to Drive Results, by Graham Waller
- The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker
- The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, by Peter F. Drucker
- What the CEO Wants You to Know, by Ram Charan
- WINNING, by Jack Welch
Decision Making
- Harvard Business Review on Decision Making
- The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker
- The Essential Drucker, by Peter Drucker
Effectiveness
- egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability), by David Marcum
- Luck by Design: Certain Success in an Uncertain World, by Richard E Goldman
- Never Eat Alone, by Tahl Raz
- Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, by Alan Webber
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
- The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, by Stephen R. Covey
- The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg
- Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill
Entrepreneurs, Start-Ups
- Inside the Tornado, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days, by Jessica Livingston
- Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way, by Richard Branson
- Ready, Fire, Aim, by Michael Masterson
- The Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber
Excellence
- Built to Last, by Jim Collins
- Flawless Execution, by James D. Murphy
- Good to Great
- In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters
- Out of the Crisis, by W. Edwards Deming
Execution
- Execution, by Larry Bossidy
- Know-How, by Ram Charan
- Managing the Design Factory, by Donald G. Reinertsen
- Out of the Crisis, by W. Edwards Deming
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
- The Knowing-Doing Gap, by Robert I. Sutton
Finance
- Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich, by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Globalization
- C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today, by Larry Kramer
- Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, by Don Tapscott
- The Creation and Destruction of Value, by Harold James
- The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us, by Robyn Meredith
- The Temporary Society, by Warren Bennis
Innovation
- Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
- Change the Way You See Everything through Asset-Based Thinking, by Hank Wasiak
- Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Gamestorming, by Sunni Brown
- Harvard Business Review on Innovation
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship, by Peter F. Drucker
- Inside the Tornado, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Orbiting the Giant Hairball, by Gordon MacKenzie
- Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
- Seizing the White Space, by Mark W. Johnson
- The Art of Innovation, by Jonathan Littman
- The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation, by Matthew E. May
- The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen
- The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker
- Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, by Tom Peters
- Zag, by Marty Neumeier
Knowledge Management, Performance Management, Training
- Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management
- The Fifth Discipline, by Peter M. Senge
- Training Ain’t Performance, by Harold D. Stolovitch
Leadership
- Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within, by Robert E. Quinn
- Leading with Questions, by Michael J. Marquardt
- Love Leadership, by John Bryant
- Soul at Work, by Margaret Benefiel
- The Logic Of Failure, by Dietrich Dörner
- The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable, by Robert H. Thompson
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, by Seth Godin
- True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, by Bill George
Management
- Employees First, Customers Second, by Vineet Nayar
- Empowered, by Josh Bernoff
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
- It’s Your Ship, by D. Michael Abrashoff
- Management of the Absurd, by Richard Evans Farson
- Management Rev Ed, by Peter F. Drucker
- Managing the Design Factory, by Donald G. Reinertsen
- Mastering The Management Buckets, by John W. Pearson
- NOBLE ENTERPRISE, by Darwin Gillett
- Out of the Crisis, by W. Edwards Deming
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
- Self-Leadership and the One-Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler, and Lance Hawkins
- The Essential Drucker, by Peter Drucker
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Great Game of Business: Unlocking the Power and Profitability of Open-Book Management, by Jack Stack
- The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, by Philip M. Rosenzweig
- The Practice of Management, by Peter Drucker
- The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, by Bill Conaty
- The Team Handbook, by Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner, and Barbar J. Streibel
- Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, by Taiichi Ohno
- Up the Organization, by Robert Townsend
- Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head, by Kevin J. Clancy
Marketing, Sales
- Duct Tape Marketing, by John Jantsch
- Flip the Funnel, by Joseph Jaffe
- Go-Givers Sell More, by Bob Burg
- Perfect Pitch: The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business, by Jon Steel
- Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries
- Small Is the New Big and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas, by Seth Godin
- Spend Shift, by John Gerzema
- SPIN Selling, by Neil Rackham
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, by Al Ries
- The Long Tail , by Chris Anderson
- The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, by John Jantsch
- The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Ultimate Sales Machine, by Chet Holmes
- Word of Mouth Marketing, by Andy Sernovitz
Motivation
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink
- Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It, by Marshall Goldsmith
Negotiation
- Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher
Organizational Change, Design
- Managing the Design Factory, by Donald G. Reinertsen
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
- Software Architecture: Organizational Principles and Patterns, by David M. Dikel
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Starfish and the Spider, by Rod A. Beckstrom
- Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson
Outsourcing
- The Black Book of Outsourcing, by Douglas Brown
Productivity
- Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life, by J.D. Meier
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
- Make the Right Choice: Creating a Positive, Innovative and Productive Work Life, by Joel Zeff
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
Strategy, Purpose
- Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
- Business Model Generation, by Alexander Osterwalder
- Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, by Michael Porter
- Delivering Happiness
- Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today’s Profit and Drives Tomorrow’s Growth, by Inder Sidhu
- Good to Great, by Jim Collins
- Rework, by David Heinemeier Hansson
- Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes, by Robert S. Kaplan
- The Answer to How Is Yes, by Peter Block
- The Art Of War, by Sun Tzu
- The Well Timed Strategy: Managing the Business Cycle for Competitive Advantage
Strengths
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
- Go Put Your Strengths to Work, by Marcus Buckingham
- StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath
Survival, Longevity
- It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small…It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Art of the Long View, by Peter Schwartz
- The Living Company, by Arie De Geus
Systems
- Reengineering the Corporation, by Michael Hammer and James Champy
- Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life, by Barry Oshry
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber
Teamwork
- Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, by Warren Bennis
- Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High-Performance Teamwork and Innovation, by Stephen M. Shapiro
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
- The Team Handbook, by Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner, and Barbar J. Streibel
Trust
- The SPEED of Trust, by Stephen R. Covey
- Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail, by Tahl Raz
Vision, Mission, Values
- A Simple Statement: A Guide to Nonprofit Arts Management and Leadership
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business, by Patrick Lencioni
- Vision: Your Pathway to Victory by Gordon D’Angelo
Work-Life Balance
- Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life, by J.D. Meier
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
- The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss
- The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander