25 Books Like Wanting

This book made me laugh out loud more than once. I relate to Brooks’ story completely—like him, I built a career not by being the absolute best at anything but through sheer effort, stubborn grit, and the simple fact that I was the last man standing. But then age enters the equation. Suddenly, I couldn’t outwork or outrun people anymore—at least not as many. My old strategy no longer worked.

Brooks tells this same story with humor and insight, then takes you on a journey to discover how to compete differently in the second half—or last third—of your career (depending on when you pick up this book!). He makes a compelling case that life is, in fact, kind of fair: when you lose one thing, you gain something else. And in this case, you gain wisdom.

What struck me most is how undervalued wisdom is in the workplace. Anyone who… show more.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a better book on management than this one. Charles Koch is, of course, no ordinary business leader—his results speak for themselves. Building one of the largest private companies in the world requires not just strategic brilliance but a deep understanding of human nature, incentives, and organizational design.

What sets Koch’s approach apart is his profound respect for human excellence. His Market-Based Management (MBM) system is one of the most person-centered frameworks I’ve encountered. Unlike the rigid structures of traditional corporate hierarchies, Koch embraces dynamic, self-organizing teams. There are no job descriptions or top-down mandates—teams select their own members and redefine roles based on each individual’s strengths, experiences, and comparative advantages. It’s simple, obvious in hindsight, yet uncommon and revolutionary in practice.

His philosophy aligns closely with my own conviction that true value creation is rooted in empowering individuals to operate at their highest… show more.

Few leadership books genuinely challenge you to rethink not just how you lead but why. This is one of them. It’s not a book of trendy management techniques or quick-fix strategies—it’s a guide to becoming a leader who truly serves others with intentionality, wisdom, and, yes, love.

I’ve known Randy for over a decade and have personally benefited from his insights on leadership. His writing is as practical as it is profound, offering ideas that aren’t just meant to be read but lived. Leadership, as he sees it, is not a career-award but a continuous journey of growth, reflection, and service. His book invites leaders to pause—to be deliberate about their impact and to lead with a mindset that values human excellence over mere efficiency.

What resonates deeply with me is his emphasis on why we lead. The best leaders don’t just pursue financial or operational success; they seek the… show more.

Prolonged planning has killed more startups than actual failure ever could. Planning allows us to pre-judge our own ideas in a vacuum, fuels our fear of failure, and delays action until it’s too late. That’s why I love the ideas in this book—it removes those barriers and gives aspiring entrepreneurs a simple, actionable framework for moving from idea to execution quickly.

I teach entrepreneurship, and one of the biggest challenges I see isn’t a lack of ideas—it’s the lack of action. Some hesitate because they don’t know where to start, others because they fear stepping into the real world, and still others because there’s no pressure pushing them forward. Guillebeau’s book tackles all of these challenges head-on. He offers a straightforward, effective blueprint for turning an idea into a business through an ideate-launch-iterate process. It’s practical, fast, and most importantly, it gets you in front of real, paying customers—something… show more.

Whilst this is a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ book that takes you through the experiences of clients in therapy, Charlotte also shares her side of the story as the therapist in question. This bridges both her professional and personal experiences, which completely draws you in.

There are so many thoughtful and interesting quotes throughout this book and I found myself scribbling notes the whole way through reading it. Whilst the book is provocatively titled around the topic of desire, it’s not all sexual or erotic. It connects with something that we all want in some way – freedom, to belong, control, understanding, and love.

It’s a really smart book – not in an intimidating way, but in a ‘I wish I had written that’ kind of way. 

I love that this book encourages girls to be ambitious, speak up, and be confident. I think that when girls are shamed into silence, false meekness, or restrained by pointless societal conventions, everyone loses. In this book, Harris’ main character won’t be deterred by damaging words that try to label her “too loud, too assertive, etc.” just because she’s a girl. She is encouraged to tell the world who she is, not the other way around. My choices and my voice are precious to me and I am painfully aware that not all females have these truly precious things.

Come for the tea in the Condé Nast cafeteria, and stay for the depth. This book is a dishy and raw memoir of growing up in an Italian family in working-class Philly, rising through the ranks of the New York magazine world during its last hurrah in the early 2000s, scaling the corporate ladder–until the author realized that her greatest ambition was to overcome her workaholism.

This was the most honest book we’ve ever read about the realities of being a woman in the business world, stripped of all that irritating #girlboss gloss. It’s fast-paced and, at times, heartbreaking–but not such a downer that you can’t enjoy it poolside with an Aperol spritz. And Romolini is so funny, bright, and self-aware; we rooted for her through it all. 

Holsinger’s debut novel was published in 2019, only a few months after the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal burst into public view, capturing the attention of a horrified nation. While The Gifted School tells the story of four friends in Colorado as their children are applying (and the parents jockeying) for admission to a middle school for gifted and talented students, the parenting mania themes are cut from the same cloth. With humor and wisdom, Holsinger deftly handles the intricacies and dynamics within and across each of the four families. The twists and turns are surprising, the characters extremely well-drawn, and readers are guaranteed to cringe as the parents in the story make one bad decision after another, suffering under—and ultimately succumbing to—the weight of their anxieties. Delicious fun!

If you like lushly written literary fiction about art, desire, friendship, and ambition, you’ll love The Strays.

Lily and Eva meet as children, and Eva – the daughter of a famous modernist artist – soon draws solitary Lily into her avant-garde family life. As the years pass and the two begin to leave childhood behind, their relationship makes new demands of them both.

Although The Strays features a large cast of characters in its makeshift family of artists, the connection between Eva and Lily is the beating heart of the novel, and is by turns tender, destructive, and tragic. 

I read this book years ago in high school, and my eyes were opened. The hero, Julien Sorel, is—like I was when I read the novel—naïve, confused, trusting, inexperienced, and prone to awkwardness and error. In short, I could relate to someone in circumstances (boarding school!) where I desperately needed someone who was highly imperfect with whom I could identify.

It might have been the first time I read an adult book where I felt I might actually meet the main character one day, walking down the street or even in the hallway.