100 Books Like Living in Information

It is through Brené Brown’s words in this book that I began to make sense of my journey, which is marked by loss, resilience, and an unwavering search for belonging. As I navigated the often-turbulent waters of corporate life, I wrestled with a deep-seated issue, a trait so common among my fellow Gen Xers: the struggle with authority. Through this book, it is evident that attempting to fit in, to mold myself into the expectations of others, often leads me to more heartache than success.

My path has been riddled with tremendous trials designed to dampen my spirit. Yet, through them, I have found strength. I appreciate the depth of resilience that Brené Brown speaks about. In this digital age, I often reflect on my past before the existence of social media, the simplicity of outdoor moments when I was young, and face-to-face conversations that now seem increasingly rare. I… show more.

A mental model is our unique map of all our knowledge. Each person has their own, and we can’t see each other’s mental models or even see our own. Yet those maps dictate everything about how we show up and how we interpret the world around us. 

Mental Models by Indi Young is the best deep dive into this subject and stands as a must-read for anyone making things for other humans to make sense of. If you are going to succeed in practicing information architecture, you must become increasingly adept at understanding how other people think about the world. 

I recommend this book because it takes something theoretical and presents a solid methodological approach that anyone can grasp and adapt to their process as long as they are curious. This book also served as a major inspiration when writing How to Make Sense of Any Mess, as it… show more.

You might not think of excitement when you hear the words “Digital Governance” but I can assure you that this book is a real page-turner…especially if your job involves managing large-scale information messes. There is a special kind of chaos that only information and knowledge workers can understand and this book paints a picture so many of us have seen in practice but in a way that leaves the reader inspired to fight another day, instead of wallowing in a sea of information-induced self-pity.

I recommend this book because I have seen too many information architecture efforts die on the vine due to a lack of good governance. The frameworks and recommendations in this book mean I always have a playbook to hand to teams in need.

Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray provides a solid roadmap to help navigate through the rocky terrain of understanding and being able to change your own mind and habits.

When I first read this book, the words mind-blown could not quite cover it. I was in fact completely devastated by the truth that I learned in this book. It taught me the danger of making sense of messes while on autopilot and the power of the present moment as a forcing function in my work. ‘Liminal’ is a word I had to look up the first time I heard it, but it has since become the go-to word I use to describe those hard and squishy times when I am still making the decision about how to show up in the world. 

I recommend this book because as Dave Gray writes “Beliefs form the basis of everything people say,… show more.

If you're a researcher, designer, content strategist, writer, developer, etc., you work with information. And while that information might be understandable to you, it likely isn't clear to your audience or users. That's where this book comes in. Abby Covert transforms the scary, frustrating process of bringing order to information and makes it feel achievable in this enjoyable read.

This book gives the philosophical underpinning for why creating a leadership development culture in all parts of your organization is essential for working in our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) business landscape. And, it shows you how to do it with specific practices and new-mindset concepts. It is geared toward organizations with Agile ways of working in the environment, but is also useful if Agile is not present. I especially enjoy the way several theories of adult development are interwoven in this book which makes using them to guide leadership development strategies (your own and others) simpler and more immediately applicable.

Authors Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen run consulting company ReD, where they put ​​anthropologists, sociologists, economists, journalists, and designers together to deeply understand humans in service of their clients. In The Moment of Clarity, the authors share their methods and approach via rich case studies, including their impactful work supporting LEGO in better aligning its products to its customers.

If you’ve ever wondered why modern buildings look the way they do—and look so different from say, the buildings of our grandparents’ generation—you cannot do better than read this collection of essays that examines the current state of modern architecture. Glazer, a sociologist who was a noted public intellectual, brings a down-to-earth intelligence and a sharp eye to his subject.

I recommend A Philosopher Looks at Architecture by Paul Guyer because it illuminates how the built environment reflects the deeper forces that also shape international relations: identity, ethics, technological change, and our evolving understanding of human dignity.

Guyer’s exploration of architectural principles (good construction, utility, and beauty) reveals why societies design the spaces they do and how those choices mirror political power, cultural values, and collective aspirations. In an era when emerging technologies and new strategic domains are reshaping global order, understanding architecture as a philosophical and ethical practice becomes essential.

Guyer’s book reminds us that the structures we build, on Earth or beyond it, are expressions of what we prioritise and how we negotiate competing interests – making it a valuable lens on the forces driving world politics today.

Two of the biggest names in twentieth-century architecture. Thoroughly researched, Neumeyer’s book explores the thought processes of the first, the generally taciturn German architect Mies van der Rohe. It includes a discussion of his fascination with traditional African architecture and its clear relationship between form and the constructional potential of specific materials (timber, grass, stone, rope, mud…) which of course translates into Mies’s own work with modern materials (welded steel and plate glass). But there is a lot more to this book than that; too much to cover here.