100 Books Like The Systems View of Life

First of all, how could anyone not love a book with an author’s name like that?

This book was on display mere inches from me while I was signing books at an exceptionally enchanting indie bookstore called Sudden Fiction in Castle Rock, Colorado. I couldn’t wait for the signing to be over so I could get a copy for myself. And it did not disappoint, the contents being as beguiling as the cover. 

Sheldrake describes not only the incredible and seemingly irrepressible capacity fungi have for survival and thrival (yep, I made that word up), but also encourages us to practice the same spells. I may have to become a mycologist in my next iteration – it’s good to remake oneself every few months, I think.

I found this book to be a fascinating journey into realms of the world below the surface I had never thought about or even known existed. Cave diving is my worst nightmare, so one particular section stands out about the wild, terrifying, and utterly unrelatable passion of cave divers and the perils one faces when stuck very, very underground.

The mixture of purely natural environments and human-created ones, such as underground tunnels and cities, all held my attention as pieces of information I had read very little about in the past, all collected into one unifying theme. Having such a broad but specific topic all in one read was a fun, dynamic journey. 

Meadows, a pioneer in this arena, had an extraordinary gift for making complex systems thinking accessible without dumbing it down.

She left us all too soon. I do return to this book, especially her concept of "leverage points": places within systems where small shifts create disproportionate change. Her insight that changing paradigms proves more powerful than adjusting surface parameters directly informed my research on organizational edges.

What I treasure most is how she wrote with both rigour and humility. She acknowledged that systems are messy, that we can't predict everything, that unintended consequences are inevitable; yet she shows us how to work with complexity rather than against it.

When I'm helping organizations navigate transformation, her frameworks help me identify where to intervene for maximum impact. The chapter on system traps and opportunities has probably saved me from dozens of well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive interventions.

This is the book I gift… show more.

Raworth articulates something I'd felt but couldn't express: that our current economic models are fundamentally flawed, simultaneously transgressing planetary boundaries whilst leaving billions below social foundations.

Her doughnut framework—depicting the safe and just space between social foundations and ecological ceilings—clarifies the "why of work.”

I love how she challenges conventional economic thinking with such clarity and wit. When she explains why GDP growth can't be our goal, or why economies are embedded within society and nature (not the other way around), it feels both radical and obvious.

As a member organization of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, I've seen how this framework helps businesses understand their purpose beyond profit.

This book provides the destination; my work explores the organizational navigation, the concrete patterns and structures that enable businesses to actually operate in that safe and just space.

I love Wheatley’s book because she makes such compelling connections between what appear to be completely disparate things and then brings them right back to the reader and reveals them for us. She helps us to see that the world and life, while chaotic and nonlinear, are still beautiful and embraceable.

If the first two books provide the general context and rationale for systemic approaches, the following three will offer some guidance for the other necessities for thriving in the 21st century: achieving transformational change, shifting towards urgently needed regeneration, and the twin path of developing as a person and as a leader in order to facilitate the transformational change we need.

By now (almost) everyone will have realized: we cannot continue on the trajectories we are currently on, there is just not enough planet left. But how do we go about introducing the transformative change we so urgently need?

We all know how challenging change is, be it at the personal or organizational level. Otto has developed a systemic approach that is based on collaboration and co-creation, considers systems and has been proven to work (which he illustrates through case studies from around the world).

Again their courses and… show more.

I was impressed by this book because it so clearly explains why the way we think about business, work, and organizations has to change and it shows us how everything is connected.

The system we have known for as long as we can remember is no longer working. On the contrary, it’s harming us, our health, our wellbeing, our planet, and our future. Only by rethinking the way we lead and organize can we secure a future for ourselves and our planet.

The book is visually beautiful, it is life-affirming and full of examples of organizations that are already doing things differently, and it also works as a handbook for becoming a regenerative leader. 

It is clear, at least to me, that significant, indeed transformation change is necessary if we are to preserve the beauty of our planet.

Well, not only the beauty, its ability to sustain life.

For such transformation to happen, we need to start with ourselves – most people will be familiar with the quote by Mahatma Gandhi: be the change you want to see in the world.

In her book Dorothea shares her own story, which is a journey of integrating the innovation and sustainability agendas for Philips, and of realizing the connectedness of the own personal development journey and the journey of developing as a leader.

I loved the way Guy Claxton joined the dots between so many separate scientific disciplines.

He is (I believe) a professor of linguistics, yet he dove into human biology with clarity and gusto, presenting an accessible description of an extremely complex concept—that intelligence incorporates our whole body, not just our brain.

I loved Sally Adee’s journalistic approach to a scientific topic that has been ignored by biologists for too long. She has a relaxed voice that allows her to personalize the question of why physicists, medics, and biologists are not communicating sufficiently about our electrical properties.

It's a wonderful joining up of scientific reluctance with the bloody obvious.