Here are 98 books that Resonate fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve founded companies, shut them down (then rebuilt my life), and coached hundreds of executives and founders through their own turning points. Those experiences taught me that resilience isn’t about bouncing back after hard things happen to you. It’s about being open to what can happen through you, including growth, clarity, curiosity, and conviction. That’s why I wrote Rethinking Resilience and why I return to these books often. Each one has helped me see strength, adaptability, and curiosity as intentional and sustainable traits—not something we summon only after crisis. I’m passionate about helping leaders move from reaction to intention and turn pressure into power, and I think this list captures that shift perfectly.
I recommend this book because it redefined what “conviction” means for me.
Grant’s idea of “confident humility”—holding strong beliefs lightly—challenged how I think about certainty. Real conviction isn’t about defending what you know; it’s about being grounded enough to stay curious.
This book reminds me that confidence and openness aren’t opposites—they fuel each other. Every time I read it, I’m reminded that clarity comes from questioning, not clinging.
It’s one of the most practical guides I know for staying adaptable and steady in a fast-changing world.
"THIS. This is the right book for right now. Yes, learning requires focus. But, unlearning and relearning requires much more-it requires choosing courage over comfort. In Think Again, Adam Grant weaves together research and storytelling to help us build the intellectual and emotional muscle we need to stay curious enough about the world to actually change it. I've never felt so hopeful about what I don't know." -Brene Brown, Ph.D., #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead
The bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking:…
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 spent years working with women who are expected to be confident, decisive, and polished, but are rarely taught how to build those skills. Through my work in politics, public service, and coaching thousands of women, I’ve seen how small, often invisible habits can keep capable women from being fully heard or respected. What I love most is helping women with the practical, everyday moments, like how to say no without apologizing, set boundaries, and build real influence. I’m passionate about leadership because I’ve watched these shifts change careers and lives, and these books reflect the lessons I come back to again and again.
I love this book because it is the handbook of messaging that is purposeful.
It made me a better communicator by teaching me the importance of building a strong, consistent story about who you are and what you want.
Also, this book sharpened my own ability to create messages people remember, to be able to help others do the same. I love how clearly it lays out what makes a story unforgettable. It pushed me to be intentional about the words I choose and how I deliver them, something I use every single day in my work.
Why does fake news stick while the truth goes missing?
Why do disproved urban legends persist? How do you keep letting newspapers and clickbait sites lure you in with their headlines? And why do you remember complicated stories but not complicated facts?
Over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have discovered how we latch on to information hooks. Packed full of case histories and incredible anecdotes, it shows:
- how an Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria
I’m an oral historian as well as a writer, so I’ve always been fascinated by how people speak and how they interact with each other through dialogue. I soon realized some of the ways spoken language differs from written language and began exploring those differences. When I started writing, the dialogue came fairly easily, but this was deceptive, as I wasn’t being rigorous enough–I wasn’t making the dialogue really work for the script. So, I’m always trying to get better at that. I’ve had over 60 scripts performed on stage, radio, and screen, but I still gobble up books about speech and dialogue–there is always more to be learned.
I loved the voice of this book–it’s the voice of Stephen King, clever, yes, and a brilliant novelist, of course, but also absolutely down-to-earth. King is a perfectionist, continually going back through his writing to hone it–a useful reminder to all of us not to be satisfied with a first or second draft.
The book shows how, in the best writing, both dialogue and plot arise out of character. And I particularly valued his emphasis on cutting, cutting, cutting–dialogue and everything else. He’s made me do that more than ever!
Twentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen King
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the…
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…
I’m a person who deals in communication in all forms. I am an internationally bestselling novelist. A record 55-time Moth StorySLAM and 7-time GrandSLAM champion. A humor columnist for Seasons magazine and an advice columnist for Slate. The author of two books of nonfiction. A stand-up comedian. Comic book writer. Blogger. Playwright. Marketing and communications consultant. Also an elementary school teacher. Everything I do involves producing sentences that engage others. Whether from the page or the stage, I have committed my life to finding the best ways to communicate effectively with others and finding the resources that help me best achieve this goal.
Practicality and simplicity are essential when wanting to learn something, and this book offers both in heaping spoonfuls. Read five pages and you’ll already be a better communicator. But best of all, this book also provides specific examples of each principle from the works of Shakespeare and South Park. Harry Potter and The Godfather. Seeing easily implemented storytelling strategies put to use by the masters makes it far more understandable, accessible, and fun.
Open your notebook, take out your pen, and welcome a bold new approach to teaching the art of great storytelling. In 27 lessons, drawn from 27 critical moments at the heart of 27 diverse narratives--from plays, novels, movies, television, and even songs and video games--Daniel Joshua Rubin unlocks the secrets of what makes a story work and then teaches us how to understand and use each principle in our own storytelling. Rubin, an incisive and no BS teacher, writing consultant, and founder of the Story 27 Studio, expands our understanding of narrative by drilling into examples ranging from Hamlet to…
I'm an apocalyptic optimist—but I didn’t start that way. For over 25 years, I’ve studied climate action efforts and documented why governments and businesses are falling short. It’s become clear that the systemic changes we need will only come through civil society mobilizing for climate action. I’ve explored this in books, articles, and as a contributor to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. I hope my writing inspires you to embrace your own apocalyptic optimism—not as despair, but as a hopeful, urgent call to action. It’s a powerful first step toward what I believe is still possible: Saving Ourselves.
I am a huge fan of this book because of how it doesn’t pull any punches and gets real about how bad the climate crisis really is.
Goodell provides a detailed description of the dangers that extreme heat poses to humans in a well written way. When you read this book, you understand how apocalyptic our future is likely to be.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Most Anticipated Book by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times A Next Big Idea Book Club Selection The New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
Jeff Goodell's "masterful, bracing" (David Wallace-Wells) investigation exposes "through stellar reporting, artful storytelling and fascinating scientific explanations" (Naomi Klein) an explosive new understanding of heat and the impact that rising temperatures will have on our lives and on our planet. "Entertaining and thoroughly researched," (Al Gore), it will completely change the way you see the world, and despite its urgent themes, is injected…
I grew up in a small town, with a barn behind our house and an orchard across the street; nature was always part of my life. What made me more conscious of this was three canoe trips in the Quetico wilderness with my Boy Scout troop, where we saw loons, bears, and clear, sparkling lakes. I later became a political science professor, but I always hiked and camped, and eventually helped start an environmental studies program to share my passion with my students. I also learned about the growing threats we face from environmental destruction. These books helped shape my understanding of the problem and how to solve it.
I love this book because it puts planetary science in human terms. Hansen had been an expert on Venus at NASA, but switched to studying Earth because he knew we needed to understand better how the climate is changing.
I liked Hansen’s stories of trying to speak truth to power—i.e., presenting climate science to Presidents who did not want to hear it. It made me realize that real progress on climate has to come from the people.
In his Q&A with Bill McKibben featured in the paperback edition of Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen, the world's leading climatologist, shows that exactly contrary to the impression the public has received, the science of climate change has become even clearer and sharper since the hardcover was released. In Storms of My Grandchildren, Hansen speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: The planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return. In explaining the science of climate change, Hansen paints a devastating but all-too-realistic picture…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I was born in Washington, D.C., in a hospital not far from the U.S. Capitol. I remember being awestruck walking through its halls on tours as a kid. As a journalist, I covered some hearings and interviewed Congress representatives and staff there. The attack on January 6, 2021, was more than a breach of a landmark, historic building representing the top legislative body in the country; it was an assault on the fabric of democracy itself. A tragic crime occurred there that left several people dead and many injured, both physically and emotionally. We must hold everyone involved, especially those at the top who planned this invasion, accountable for what occurred that day.
This book by two Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters contains even more behind-the-scenes looks than most at what happened during Donald Trump’s last year in the White House. Leonnig, a national investigative reporter, and Rucker, senior Washington correspondent, details nuggets such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham telling Trump a couple of days before January 6 that Pence couldn’t change the result and pointing out how Al Gore hadn’t tried doing that when he actually won the popular vote - but lost the Electoral College - in 2000. Trump replied that Gore wasn’t smart enough to pull such a move.
The authors journeyed to Mar-a-Lago a few months after the Capitol attack for a surreal interview with the former president. That alone is worth the read.
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of 2021
The definitive behind-the-scenes story of Trump's final year in office, by Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig, the Pulitzer-Prize winning reporters and authors of A Very Stable Genius.
“Chilling.” – Anderson Cooper “Jaw-dropping.” – John Berman “Shocking.” – John Heilemann “Explosive.” – Hallie Jackson “Blockbuster new reporting.” – Nicolle Wallace “Bracing new revelations.” – Brian Williams “Bombshell reporting.” – David Muir
The true story of what took place in Donald Trump’s White House during a disastrous 2020 has never before…
I’m a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
Bill Bradley was as far from a typical college and NBA superstar as can possibly be imagined. He was 6’5” but could barely dunk. In a race between the tortoise and the hare, he would be the tortoise. Yet, with an uncanny set of shooting, passing, and rebounding skills, he became the nation’s top high school prospect, with more than 70 colleges, including every powerhouse in the sport, offering him a scholarship. Instead, he chose to play at lowly Princeton, in one of the game’s weakest conferences—the Ivy League—where he averaged more than 30 points a game over the course of his career, becoming a two-time first-team All-American and, in his senior season, national player of the year, leading the Tigers to the 1965 NCAA tournament’s Final Four, in which he scored an unheard of 58 points against Wichita State and was named the tournament’s MVP—the only player to this…
The first book from the legendary New Yorker writer John McPhee, tells about Bill Bradley when he was the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen.
When John McPhee met Bill Bradley, both were at the beginning of their careers. In A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee delineates for the reader the training and techniques that made Bradley the extraordinary athlete he was, and this part of the book is a blueprint of superlative basketball. But athletic prowess alone would not explain Bradley's magnetism, which is in the quality of the man himself—his self-discipline, his rationality, and his sense…
I have been fascinated by the weather since as a schoolboy I avidly followed the cricket scores and the fate of tomorrow’s match. This co-dependence of my passion for cricket with the state of the weather turned into a professional career as, first, a research scientist and then later a professor of geography, I studied the idea of climate and the many ways in which it intersects with our social, ecological and imaginative worlds. As human-caused climate change became a defining public and political issue for the new century, my interests increasingly focused on understanding why people think so differently about the climate, its changes, its future trajectory—and what to do about it.
For too long, too many earnest people have believed that the key to untying the Gordian knot of climate change lay in science—more science, better science, more precise science, more consensual science. In this beautifully written book, Smith and Howe decisively expose this belief as false. Culture, not science, shapes public perceptions of climate change. The key to acting in the world is to be found in understanding the different ways in which the social drama that is climate change is made meaningful to people. This book is an important read for climate scientists, policy advisors, and activists alike.
Climate change is not just a scientific fact, nor merely a social and political problem. It is also a set of stories and characters that amount to a social drama. This drama, as much as hard scientific or political realities, shapes perception of the problem. Drs Smith and Howe use the perspective of cultural sociology and Aristotle's timeless theories about narrative and rhetoric to explore this meaningful and visible surface of climate change in the public sphere. Whereas most research wants to explain barriers to awareness, here we switch the agenda to look at the moments when global warming actually…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Rex Weyler is a writer and ecologist. His books include Blood of the Land, a history of indigenous American nations, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Greenpeace: The Inside Story, a finalist for the BC Book Award and the Shaughnessy-Cohen Award for Political Writing; and The Jesus Sayings, a deconstruction of first-century history, a finalist for the BC Book Award. In the 1970s, Weyler was a co-founder of Greenpeace International and editor of the Greenpeace Chronicles. He served on campaigns to preserve rivers and forests, and to stop whaling, sealing, and toxic dumping.
The best available summary of Deep Ecology. An anthology of seminal essays inspired by Norwegian philosopher and activist Arne Naess, who sought to create an ecological paradigm shift in society – his work influenced the Greenpeace founders. This collection includes essays by Naess, Chellis Glendinning, Gary Snyder, Dolores LaChapelle, Paul Shepard, and others, who examine the ecological tradition from Spinoza and Thoreau to Santayana and ecofeminism.
Every day, in newspapers and on television, we read and hear about the ongoing destruction of the environment: the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, deforestation, and air and water pollution. Deep Ecology offers a solution to the environmental crisis through a radical shift in human consciousness—a fundamental change in the way people relate with the environment. Instead of thinking of nature as a resource to be used for human needs, Deep Ecology argues that the true value of nature is intrinsic and independent of its utility. Emerging in the 1980s as an influential philosophical, social, and political movement, Deep Ecology…
