Here are 100 books that The Book Direct Playbook fans have personally recommended if you like
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Hi! I’m Danny Rusteen, and I live and breathe STRs. I’ve been hosting, co-hosting, and managing property since 2013. In 2017, I started living full-time in Airbnbs, that’s more than just a fun fact, it gives me a unique perspective that no other expert has. Maybe it’s why my calendar is full all year round. I see Airbnb as a tool for peace. I'm going to get philosophical for a moment. Airbnb creates connections that never otherwise would have existed. Instead of letting the TV tell you what country X thinks of country Y, it's better to find out from real people: hosts and the locals you interact with.
I finished it in just a few days as it’s a light read and only about 150-pages long. It is a great book to briefly introduce readers at a high level to locating markets, finding real estate agents, managing the listing remotely, and getting set up on Airbnb by creating a listing.
From analyzing potential properties to effectively managing your listings, this book is your one-stop resource for making a profit with short-term rentals!
Airbnb, Vrbo, and other listing services have become massively popular in recent years―why not tap into the gold mine? Whether you’re new to real estate investing or you want to add a new strategy to your growing portfolio, vacation rentals can be an extremely lucrative way to add an extra income stream―but only if you acquire and manage your properties correctly.
Traditional rental properties are a great way to create wealth, but short-term rentals can bring in five…
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…
Hi! I’m Danny Rusteen, and I live and breathe STRs. I’ve been hosting, co-hosting, and managing property since 2013. In 2017, I started living full-time in Airbnbs, that’s more than just a fun fact, it gives me a unique perspective that no other expert has. Maybe it’s why my calendar is full all year round. I see Airbnb as a tool for peace. I'm going to get philosophical for a moment. Airbnb creates connections that never otherwise would have existed. Instead of letting the TV tell you what country X thinks of country Y, it's better to find out from real people: hosts and the locals you interact with.
I found this book pretty straightforward and easy to digest.
This book is written by two authors that do a very good job of shaking your mind a bit and maybe push you into trying new strategies which you have to do and be comfortable at it in this ever-changing industry
Learn the medium-term rental strategy—all the benefits of investing in Airbnbs without the hassle of turnover or the risk of changing city regulations!
30-Day Stay is a thorough guide to finding and operating a medium-term rental (MTR). The concept is simple and profitable: Instead of fighting short-term rental regulations or sacrificing cash flow to long-term rentals, the host requires a month-long minimum stay in a furnished property and reaps massive profits.
With nearly thirty properties and decades of real estate investing experience between them, authors Zeona McIntyre and Sarah Weaver introduce a powerful yet flexible real estate asset class with…
Hi! I’m Danny Rusteen, and I live and breathe STRs. I’ve been hosting, co-hosting, and managing property since 2013. In 2017, I started living full-time in Airbnbs, that’s more than just a fun fact, it gives me a unique perspective that no other expert has. Maybe it’s why my calendar is full all year round. I see Airbnb as a tool for peace. I'm going to get philosophical for a moment. Airbnb creates connections that never otherwise would have existed. Instead of letting the TV tell you what country X thinks of country Y, it's better to find out from real people: hosts and the locals you interact with.
There are some really juicy tips and recommendations hidden in this book. Like the recommendation above, this one is an easy read and the author seems to know a lot about Airbnb (unlike some of the most famous, so-called “experts”, out there).
If you are starting out, this is a very good first stop.
Most Airbnb hosts possess a general understanding of the concept behind Airbnb: Making money by opening up their home to travelers looking for short-term rental accommodation.
But Airbnb hosts, both new and old, frequently need to overcome a number of common challenges and frustrations.
New hosts are often not clear on what they need to do, finding Airbnb harder than it was made out to be, or eager to get setup for success from the get-go.
Existing hosts are often not making as much money as they would like to, not getting found often enough, or having difficulty converting listing…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I’m passionate about workplace leadership, both as a writer and former human resources executive. I spent three decades in corporate HR roles. At the same time, I wrote 17 books on effective people leadership practices and published hundreds of articles as a columnist for SHRM—the Society for Human Resource Management. I’ve taught in UCLA Extension’s School of Business and Management for years, trained for the American Management Association, and served as a keynote speaker at many conferences. I find leadership and management fascinating—hiring, motivation, professional development, accountability, innovation, and even termination. Building people's muscle while protecting companies from unwanted legal liability has been my passion throughout my career.
This was the best book I’ve read for new managers because of its broad coverage of key areas of responsibility and its practical application and wisdom for newly minted leaders to build their self-confidence and transition effectively into their new roles and responsibilities.
New managers are the base of the leadership pyramid—the foundational structure of what makes businesses work. They set the tone, serve as role models, and literally create each organization’s unique culture. And they need training—lots of it—to master their craft and forge strong relationships (sometimes with people who, until recently, were their peers).
This book gets them off on the right foot and helps them build critical muscle around effective leadership principles, legal awareness, self-care, emotional intelligence, remote team management, and so much more.
The trusted management classic and go-to guide for anyone facing new responsibilities as a first-time manager.
Learn to conquer every challenge like a seasoned pro with the clear, candid advice in The First-Time Manager. For nearly four decades, this expert guide has brought newcomers up to speed on the realities of managing people.
The updated seventh edition delivers new information that helps you manage across generations, use online performance appraisal tools, persuade with stories, oversee remote employees, build a team dynamic, match a boss's style, and more.
I’m Gen X, through and through. And because I grew up in that (glorious?) time before social media, I didn’t have the worry that my messy-woman missteps would be exposed online. But the trade-off to keeping my mistakes as private as possible was that I often felt like I couldn’t live boldly. So now I’m fascinated by the ways other women handle the messier aspects of their lives: the obsessions and frustrations, the secrets we all keep, the duality we choke down. I want to know what we’re each quietly starving for, what’s driving us when we strip away social expectation and are left to sit with our gnawing hungers.
I’m drawn to books that buck expectations, whether that’s through the format, content, or approach. So I adore how this book absolutely tears them all down and creates something more original instead. Chunks of this book are written like social media posts, which create quick, digestible sections that let the absurdity, humor, and social musings really hit.
I also admire how Lockwood is able to switch so smoothly between hilarity, heartbreak, anxiety, and sadness; I was cackling one minute and then ugly crying just a few pages later. I’ve never read a book quite like this before. Lockwood’s writing style inspires me to take more risks in my own stories.
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale 'A masterpiece' Guardian 'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney 'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail 'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris 'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart * WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2022 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 * * A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK * ______________________________________________ This is a story about…
I’m a husband, father, writer, and recovering addict – and not necessarily in that order. Early in my marriage, I became a full-blown, low-bottom cocaine addict. While it wasn’t surprising that active addiction nearly led to divorce, my wife and I were baffled and discouraged when my newfound sobriety brought its own existential marital issues. Frustratingly, there was a dearth of resources for couples in recovery, especially compared to the ample support available to recovering addicts. As an avid freelance writer, I decided to add to this sparse genre by sharing our struggles, setbacks, and successes en route to a happy, secure marriage.
More and more of our interactions occur via social media. This does more than poison our minds; it poisons our relationships, including our most intimate one: life partner.
There are established downsides to social media, including its addictive nature and oxymoronic means of fomenting alienation. It promotes comparison-driven inferiority complexes, and allows racists and bigots to hide behind pseudonyms.
But for marriages, social media’s most worrisome issue is its promotion of phoniness. Cyber platforms prompt people to portray themselves in a faux-optimized light – happier, wealthier, and more moral than they really are. They also promote groupthink and reticence driven by fear of backlash.
A marriage in recovery requires two honest, unabashed partners. Two people trying to heal must minimize the festering wounds inherent in social media.
'A blisteringly good, urgent, essential read' ZADIE SMITH
Jaron Lanier, the world-famous Silicon Valley scientist-pioneer and 'high-tech genius' (Sunday Times) who first alerted us to the dangers of social media, explains why its toxic effects are at the heart of its design, and explains in ten simple arguments why liberating yourself from its hold will transform your life and the world for the better.
Social media is making us sadder, angrier, less empathetic, more fearful, more isolated and more tribal. In recent months it has become horribly clear that social media is not bringing us together - it is tearing…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
I have been an information technology and cybersecurity professional for over two decades. I’ve learned over and over again that “people are the weakest link.” You can build the most secure system in the world, with stringent password requirements. But if the user writes their password down and leaves it where someone else can see it, system security is irrelevant! The easiest way to gain access to a system is via “social engineering” – to trick a human being into giving you the access you need, rather than trying to hack the systemitself. The books on this list will help the reader lower their chances of being exploited like this.
This book focuses on cybersecurity for parents and teenagers, specifically focusing on social media. As a parent of a teenager myself, I know how critical this area really is. Teens are often using social networks and communication channels that their parents are mostly or completely unfamiliar with. Due to that lack of familiarity, parents have a hard time monitoring or setting appropriate limits on the ways their children use social media. Author Effie Manolas wrote this book for both parents and teens, enabling an open conversation on both the benefits and the risks of social media.
Do you feel your child isn’t using social media correctly?
Social media is a powerful platform that can either make the world better–or more dangerous. When a person doesn’t know how to use social media the right way, they can break relationships, disseminate false information, or even tarnish their own reputation.
As a parent, the last thing you want is for your child to be using social media in a way that can hurt them. But parents can hardly help their children if they themselves remain oblivious to the repercussions of their behavior on social media.
I’ve been doing research on polarization for most of my career as an economist and have focused on affective polarization in US politics since 2015. As a behavioral economist, I’m interested in how false and biased beliefs contribute to affective polarization. As a microeconomist I’m also generally interested in economy—not “the economy,” but the efficient use of resources—and affective polarization leads to a lot of wasted time and resources. This happens in politics at all levels, and in relationships of all types—neighbors, colleagues, spouses, siblings—as we all know from experience. So, I’m hoping to try to understand this bias better and cut down on it where we can.
To balance out my list is Divided We Fall by David French, who recently became The New York Times’s newest conservative columnist.
So, yes, he’s a moderate conservative—and his book actually stands out to me among polarization books because it does a particularly good job of articulating both conservative and liberal perspectives on various issues, and both sides’ reasons for frustration and anger.
I also especially appreciate French’s discussion of the “law of group polarization”—the tendency for people’s opinions to become more extreme when we confer with like-minded groups—French and I agree this is a key cause of US polarization. And true to the title, the book includes descriptions of potential secession scenarios—not pleasant to read but perhaps a wake-up call for some readers.
Two decades into the 21st Century, the U.S. is less united than at any time in our history since the Civil War. We are more diverse in our beliefs and culture than ever before. But red and blue states, secular and religious groups, liberal and conservative idealists, and Republican and Democratic representatives all have one thing in common: each believes their distinct cultures and liberties are being threatened by an escalating violent opposition. This polarized tribalism, espoused by the loudest, angriest fringe extremists on both the left and the right, dismisses dialogue as appeasement; if left unchecked, it could very…
I graduated early from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor to come back to my home country and work in Indian politics. Since then I’ve worked with a Member of Parliament, handled campaign design in states across India, and headed data analytics for India’s largest political party. This experience gave me an inside view of how politics operates and how elections are actually won. The fact that this was at a time when Indian politics was going through massive changes with micro-targeting, digital technologies and disinformation gaining ground made the experience even more unique. Based on this experience, my books detail how power is gained, (mis)used, and lost.
When I started working in Indian politics, I believed fixing issues that people faced was the prime driver of votes. It soon became obvious that it wasn’t facts and issues that determined election results, it was emotions. It was also clear that emotions could be manipulated, and the information people chose to believe in wasn't necessarily based in reality. This book details how troll farms built by political parties can be used to shape the conversation on social media, generate fake outrage, and derail rational thought, and how this influences election results.
Social media in India is awash with right-wing trolls who incite online communal tension and abuse and sexually harass journalists, opposition politicians and anyone who questions them. But who are they? Why do they do what they do? And how are they organized? In this explosive investigation conducted over two years and including interviews with top politicians, bureaucrats, marketeers and trolls, Swati Chaturvedi finally lifts the veil over this murky subject. Riveting, urgent and deeply shocking, I Am a Troll is an essential read.
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
I am a care aide (aka personal support worker) who has happily worked at an extended care facility for more than twenty years, and as such, I have been a compassionate listener to many a family member suffering from the tsunami of feelings involved when coping with aging parents or spouses, so I thought I would be well-positioned and emotionally prepared to cope when it was my turn to face my own mother's deterioration. How wrong I was! Thank goodness for the generous souls who write memoirs. Each of the books that I have chosen was an education and an affirmation to me as I tried to maintain my equilibrium while supporting my mother and my mother-in-law through their final years.
When Jann Arden falls into her role as caretaker to her parents, she uses journaling and social mediato maintain her sanity. "I didn't want to feel alone in a room with Alzheimer's," she writes, and so she brings the reader into her home. Comprised of excerpts from Jann's journals, photographs that make the daily minutiae feel real, and recipes, Jann's beautiful book is a generous and very personal gift. Even those who are not already ardent Jann-fans will feel like her friend when immersed in this memoir. I did my first reading in one sitting, cried, and then read it again.
This edition of the inspirational #1 bestseller draws on a new year of Jann's diaries and her mother's final days.
When beloved singer and songwriter Jann Arden's parents built a house just across the way from her, she thought they would be her refuge from the demands of her career. And for a time that was how it worked. But then her dad fell ill and died, and just days after his funeral, her mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
In Feeding My Mother, Jann shares what it is like for a daughter to become her mother's caregiver--in her own frank…
