Ask Steve – Recommended Reading
July 17th, 2006 by Steve Pavlina
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Could you recommend some of your all-time favorite books?
Sure.
Since the early 90s I’ve been reading about a book a week, so that adds up to quite a few books. I’ll scan my office bookshelves to recall which ones had a meaningful impact on me after I read them.
Here are some of my personal favorites in no particular order:
Edit 8/22/06: A more complete version of this list, conveniently sorted into categories, can be found here: personal development books.
- Power vs. Force by David Hawkins (levels of consciousness)
- The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (wisdom)
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (wisdom)
- As You Think aka As a Man Thinketh by James Allen (power of thought)
- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra (manifesting intentions)
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (wealth)
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu (wisdom)
- Ask and It Is Given by Esther Hicks (manifesting intentions)
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (personal effectiveness)
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu (slaughtering your enemy efficiently)
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene (ensuring your enemy doesn’t slaughter you first)
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman (inner peace, no slaughtering)
- Chaos and Genius by James Gleick (chaos science and fractals; Richard Feynman bio)
- Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins (achievement and NLP)
- Maximum Achievement and Time Power by Brian Tracy (time management)
- The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion by Pete Egoscue (pain-free structural alignment)
- Using Your Brain for a Change by Richard Bandler (NLP)
- Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman (optimism, duh)
- The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (consciousness and awareness)
- Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution by John Robbins (health and ethical food choices)
- Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman (why a cattle rancher won’t eat meat)
- Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay by Mira Kirshenbaum (awesome book on diagnosing relationship issues)
- Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (philosophy in 1000 pages)
- The Psychology of Winning by Denis Waitley (victory)
- Lucid Dreaming and Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge (lucid dreaming)
- Far Journeys by Robert Monroe (astral projection)
- Cosmic Trigger Vol I, Vol II, and Vol III by Robert Anton Wilson (”weird” doesn’t begin to describe it)
- Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins (laughter as medicine)
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (finding meaning in the Holocaust)
- Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Holocaust story)
- Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks by Marilyn vos Savant (becoming a smarty pants)
- Built to Last and Good to Great by Jim Collins (business)
- Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony (awesome fiction series):
- On a Pale Horse (Death)
- Bearing an Hourglass (Time)
- With a Tangled Skein (Fate)
- Wielding a Red Sword (War)
- Being a Green Mother (Nature)
- For Love of Evil (Satan)
- And Eternity (God)
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (personal effectiveness)
- The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard (awareness and forgiveness)
- A Course in Miracles by the Foundation for Inner Peace (what the Bible meant to say)
- Bringers of the Dawn by Barbara Marciniak (channeled teachings of the Pleiadians)
- Inspiration by Wayne Dyer (finding your purpose)
- Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain (visualization)
- The Millionaire Course by Marc Allen (wealth, read my interview with Marc Allen)
- Getting Things Done by David Allen (workflow and productivity)
- A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer (abuse and recovery)
- Organizing From the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern (getting organized)
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki (wealth advice with fake stories)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (social skills)
- The China Study by T. Colin Campbell (health, read my book review)
- Code Complete and Rapid Development by Steve McConnell (software development)
- The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter (self-publishing)
I guess I have a lot of favorite books. 
This entry is part of the “Ask Steve” series. See the original Ask Steve post for details, or view the Archives (July 2006) to peruse the entire series.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:48 am
[...] Oh my God this is so cool. I just went through this post on Steve Pavlina’s blog to search out new books to read. What was pretty cool is that I’ve read or owned almost 80% of the list. I read the Piers Anthony Incarnations series probably about 5-7 times when I was a teenager. I swear some of the covers are missing. He has some of my favorite books on this list. The Celestine Prophecy, 48 Laws of Power, Art of War, Conversations with God series, As a Man Thinketh, The Power of Now, and just about any other book currently hibernating in my book collection. I couldn’t help but laugh as I read down this list because at first I was like OK maybe it will just be a few I’ve read, but I kept going and I realized after writing down the few I hadn’t read or re-read, that it’s mostly in the areas of psychic abilities, work and productivity, health, and possibly organization that I was lacking. Trust me that was useful info. I’m looking forward to grabbing the 10 I haven’t gotten to. I guess I was mostly excited all out of proportion to see the Piers Anthony series listed there. SUCH a good series. The only one I’d probably add would be Face Your Fears by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. A book I’ve recently been reading and is an excellent in depth study of the complete uselessness of fear. Something that I’ve read and listen to Steve address on his blog, but this book gave me added insight to see just how silly fear really is, and how dangerous. Anyway that’s my hip-hooray on Steve’s list. In a word it rocks. [...]
July 19th, 2006 at 8:30 am
[...] Steve Pavlina also posted his reading recommendations this week in his Ask Steve series. A good sized list of his personal favorites, Steve’s list is diverse, but logical based on the topics of his writing. I noticed a few of my own favorites on the list as well, along with some new things I look forward to checking out. Good resource. Go to Main Blog Page [...]
August 4th, 2006 at 6:58 am
[...] This book, Think and Grow Rich, was a catalyst for finding a deeper inner self and was recommended by another personal catalyst, Steve Pavlina. [...]
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:44 pm
[...] I’m often asked which personal development books are worth reading, so I created an extensive list of personal development books I wholeheartedly recommend. I’ve read about 800 such books over the past 15 years, and to be honest, most of them weren’t particularly good. This list includes the true gems I found to contain original ideas, compelling stories, and profound insights. It’s based on the Ask Steve – Recommend Reading post from last month, but the books are now sorted into categories including productivity, relationships, spirituality, fiction, and so on. I’ve also added several books that weren’t on the original list and linked to reviews and author interviews found elsewhere on this site. [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
[...] I first heard of The Egoscue Method from a list of recommended books on Steve Pavlina’s personal development site. I read the book and self-diagnosed myself with mild Condition II dysfunction (Egoscue breaks down dysfunctional systems in three categories). The list of exercises (with page number) I try to do daily is below. [...]