Here are 100 books that If You Can Count to Four fans have personally recommended if you like
If You Can Count to Four.
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What other topic brings together human behavior, culture, business, the media, and more? And what other career allows you to use that understanding to produce compelling, entertaining, and persuasive communications across broadcast, streaming, social, outdoor, in-store, new product development, and other channels? That’s why I’m passionate about it. And that’s the passion I want to instill in my students, readers, and clients. So, who am I? I’m a professor and marketing consultant (copywritnig, creative direction, and marketing strategy) with large and small clients, and nearly 10 books on the topic. Read these books and I think you’ll become passionate about this topic too!
By now, you might have noticed a theme: if I don’t enjoy reading a book, I don’t trudge through it for the deep insights or how-to information. The storytelling needs to be as strong as the concepts are useful.
Just like The Copy Workshop Workbook, I read an earlier edition of this book when I was just starting out – and it formed the basis for some of my thinking around how to influence – i.e., persuade – consumers and the role psychology and behavioral economics play in crafting effective marketing and brand development programs.
I also recommend this book if you are a consumer, too (who isn’t), because it will help keep you from falling into many of the traps that Cialdini identified.
The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion-a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold-now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini-New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion-explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don't have…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I’ve spent my entire life dealing with mental health issues, and overcoming them took me on a long journey of learning about the mind and how to make it work for us rather than against us. I’ve explored almost every modality out there and developed my own hypnosis modality as a result. Books like these were a key part of helping me figure out how to overcome my challenges and live life to the fullest, achieve my goals, and reach success.
I’ve never found a book that lays out the whole-life approach to success as well as this book.
I was particularly impressed by the emphasis on things like marriage and masterminds—the impact those have on our success in life is often overlooked. It gave me a solid framework to look at my own life and see what areas I needed to focus on more, and I consider this book a big part of my success in life.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is one of the bestselling motivational books of all-time. Inspired by a suggestion from industrialist Andrew Carnegie, Hill explains the philosophy that helped the wealthiest and most accomplished members of society succeed.
I've been scammed several times. Even getting out of one and then being suckered into another. So after the last time, I just quit buying stuff until I'd gotten how and why I could get flim-flammed to begin with. So people could wise themselves up and get their freedom back. It only took a couple of years of my life, but I was able to use all my experiences of being scammed, so the research technically started many years earlier. I've got several degrees including a doctorate, and have published hundreds of titles from the research I've done in various fields. Even one on how to research.
This is a rare book, but in spite of the 1945 language, the author breaks down the principles of financial success. It tells what can motivate you to succeed, and what will be your ruin. When I reviewed this again recently, I was surprised how many of these key principles were common in other success and “make money” books. Well worth getting your own copy if you can find it.
"Many rich and successful men and women," declares the author of this helpful book, "have no more brains or energy than anyone else. They are usually driven to success. "Frequently they are so helpless they can't stop moving ahead even when they want to. Their money is made in spite of themselves!" Louis M. Grafe, who made his own fortune, lost it, and then went on to earn another fortune, presents an astonishingly simple formula for wealth and success. He has tested it in his own experience and has found that it has brought wealth not only to him but…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I've been scammed several times. Even getting out of one and then being suckered into another. So after the last time, I just quit buying stuff until I'd gotten how and why I could get flim-flammed to begin with. So people could wise themselves up and get their freedom back. It only took a couple of years of my life, but I was able to use all my experiences of being scammed, so the research technically started many years earlier. I've got several degrees including a doctorate, and have published hundreds of titles from the research I've done in various fields. Even one on how to research.
Sure, this book is easily found online, since it's been downloaded almost since the Internet was created—and spread by xeroxed copy before that. If you only read the last chapter, it tells you a very simple (one-page) set of key principles that makes money find you. (I memorized that last page to have it handy all the time.)
The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. The classic book updated for the modern day. Full and complete with added notes and exercises, you can write directly in the book!The added exercises help you to implement the work and gain mastery over the material. Have you even read a book and by the time you got to the end forgot the advice from the beginning of the book? This book solves that problem!
The Right to be Rich We are all destined to great thing if and when we put our mind to it. Discover the age old principle…
More than 40 years ago, I first started writing a book on great ‘Tory’ leaders throughout history, several of whom were inexorably tied to this Regency period. Having never lost interest in the topic I continued to study the period and its political life and found a way to parlay experience from my career in finance and international business into a biography of the most economically proficient Prime Minister Britain has ever had. Research for that biography as well as for future Industrial Revolution-related books on which I am currently working has resulted in a broad and fruitful list of books on the period's politics.
This book is heavier going than the first two yet answers a deep and interesting question: how in a political system with dilettante politicians and tiny departments of amateur administrators, did Britain fight and eventually win a 20-year total war against a country with twice the population. The period’s politicians are here shown at work, wearing themselves down with long hours and short weekends, setting up policies and systems that could do the job. Their sheer intelligence and professionalism is remarkable; a century later Britain almost lost World War I because it had forgotten lessons about Naval convoys learned during this conflict. Of all the books here, this shows best why Pitt and Liverpool had a much tougher job and worked much harder than Disraeli or Gladstone.
From Roger Knight, established by the multi-award winning The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat
For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and eventually won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807…
I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On répète Tête d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished work—the project they struggle with but never complete—holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.
I was interested by Stanley Kubrick's book because it shows just how deeply Kubrick researched and planned his films. As someone who studies unfinished film projects, I was fascinated to see all the detailed work that went into this movie that was never made—from the costume designs to the battle plans to Kubrick's handwritten notes.
The book lets us peek into Kubrick's creative process through the thousands of photos, documents and research materials he gathered. What makes this book special is that it doesn't just tell us about the film that could have been—it helps us understand how Kubrick's mind worked when developing his projects. This is a rare look at the early stages of what might have been his greatest film.
"The Greatest Movie Never Made" is the fascinating tale of Kubrick's unfilmed masterpiece. It is now available in an unlimited, single-volume edition! For 40 years, Kubrick fans and film buffs have wondered about the director's mysterious unmade film on Napoleon Bonaparte. Slated for production immediately following the release of "2001: A Space Odyssey", Kubrick's "Napoleon" was to be at once a character study and a sweeping epic, replete with grandiose battle scenes featuring thousands of extras. To write his original screenplay, Kubrick embarked on two years of intensive research; with the help of dozens of assistants and an Oxford Napoleon…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
When I lived in France as a youngster, museum portraits became friends. I could hear courtiers scheming in Versailles and gladiators clashing in coliseums. Naturally, decades later, when I learned Napoleon Bonaparte tried to write a novel of love and betrayal, I vowed to finish it for him. But to ghostwrite for Napoleon, I had to know him as personally as his great love Josephine did. I dove into research, translated his writing to capture his cadence, and became secretary of the Napoleonic Historical Society. Finally, on remote St. Helena Island in the ramshackle rooms where Napoleon died in exile, I found the intimate connection I demand from historical fiction.
This memoir reads like historical fiction and influenced my perspective on Napoleon. As its title proclaims, it’s not so much about the writer, Betsy Balcombe, but about Napoleon himself. Upon arrival on St. Helena, the British billeted the exiled, depressed emperor on her father’s estate. Fourteen-year-old Betsy, who spoke French, treated him like a favorite uncle, teasing and playing tricks on him. Unlike other contemporaneous memoirs I’ve read, Betsy’s doesn’t demonize or glorify Napoleon. Rather, her recollections provide the most extensive, reliable account of the real Napoleon, a lonely human hiding behind the vestiges of power. Look for the version with the excellent introduction by J. David Markham who puts the history in context.
Young Elizabeth Balcombe, or Betsy to friends and family, found life on the remote island of St Helena intolerably dull. Most fourteen-year-olds would. Her father had been posted to that unforgiving station in the Atlantic and, being a family man, he took his family with him.
Life was bleak in Balcombe's bungalow on the fringe of James Town. But then, in October 1815, the situation was transformed by the arrival of an unusual visitor. Napoleon Bonaparte, one-time master of Europe, now prisoner and exile, stepped ashore. The Balcombes, like all the islanders, were amazed. And even more so when Napoleon,…
I have been fascinated by Napoleon and the French Revolution since I was a teenager. Novels that capture the essence of the struggles of the French people – and especially those that feature Napoleon as a highly layered character – have always called to me. As a Jewish author, I am particularly drawn to a fair representation of Jewish characters in these tales – which frankly, Georgette Heyer does not, as she adheres to stereotypes in describing any Jewish characters. (I only forgive her because her books are so brilliant.)
I especially treasured how the author used Napoleon’s own young writing to tell the story of his life – as well as the disappointments at the end of his life, including his defeat, imprisonment on Saint Helena, and his separation from his young son.
Margaret Rodenberg made me appreciate Napoleon’s indomitable spirit – the man refused to give up despite daunting odds!
“Rodenberg inventively uses Bonaparte’s own unfinished novel to tell the story of the despot’s rise to power, which she juxtaposes against the story of his last love affair. Told creatively and with excellent research!” —Stephanie Dray, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of America's First Daughter and The Women of Chateau Lafayette
“Beautiful and poignant.” —Allison Pataki, New York Times best-selling author of The Queen’s Fortune
With its delightful adaptation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s real attempt to write romantic fiction, Finding Napoleon: A Novel offers a fresh take on Europe’s most powerful man after he’s lost everything—except his last…
I grew up in Catholic Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s a time of rapid change just before the advent of the Celtic tiger. Experiencing such a transformative moment in the history of that island I became fascinated by revolution. With my Italian roots, I was always outward-looking and interested in just how interconnected European history can be. My work started with a book on the downward spiral of Louis XVI’s court in 1789-1792, but recently I became interested in how Napoleon exported the culture of the French Revolution wherever he went. Now I am preparing a book on Catholicism and the politics of religion during the age of revolutions 1700-1903.
This is by far the best single-volume history on Napoleon.
Forrest is one of the foremost experts on the French Revolution and its military in the world. He has written a readable and unromanticised account of the French Emperor’s life.
Particularly strong on the background, ideology, and wider forces impelling that man forward. A thoroughly enjoyable and captivating read.
From Alan Forrest, a preeminent British scholar, comes an exceedingly readable account of the man and his legend
On a cold December day in 1840 Parisians turned out in force to watch as the body of Napoleon was solemnly carried on a riverboat from Courbevoie on its final journey to the Invalides. The return of their long-dead emperor's corpse from the island of St. Helena was a moment that Paris had eagerly awaited, though many feared that the memories stirred would serve to further destabilize a country that had struggled for order and direction since he had been sent into…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve been fascinated by Central and Eastern Europe all of my adult life. Many cruises along the Danube and around the Baltic Sea have allowed me to see the stunning best of the region. Since the early 1990s, I’ve taught the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Russian Empire to a generation of students. Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at University College London since 2013, my next challenge is to promote the history of Poland to allcomers via the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, the wonderful city which is my home.
Adam Zamoyski writes with rare lucidity and grace. In this book, my favorite in his distinguished oeuvre, he takes on an epic subject and triumphs—unlike Napoleon in 1812. We understand the unfolding tragedy—not only of the Grande Armée, but of the people in its path—just as we are scorched by the sun, drenched by the rain, and frozen by the early onset of winter.
Adam Zamoyski’s bestselling account of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and his catastrophic retreat from Moscow, events that had a profound effect on European history.
In 1812 the most powerful man in the world assembled the largest army in history and marched on Moscow with the intention of consolidating his dominion. But within months, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia – history’s first example of total war – had turned into an epic military disaster. Over 400,000 French and Allied troops perished and Napoleon was forced to retreat.
Adam Zamoyski’s masterful work draws on the harrowing first-hand accounts of soldiers and civilians on…
