I’d like to apologize for my absence since October. Work has been crazy, but that’s a weak excuse. I’m working on building out more structure around posting for 2013. I will be posting something new in a few weeks.

Anyways, an exercise that I hope you’ll help me with for the start of the new year is to think through what books I should be reading this year. My major goal is to develop my business knowledge, but there are definitely other skills that aren’t directly-related to business that will also be helpful to focus on.

I sort of tried this last January (see post), but I didn’t really follow-through on it. My plan for 2013 is to choose two books a month to read and maintain a small pool to choose from for the next month. That way, I still have some excitement in choosing what’s next, but I won’t get too overwhelmed with the entire Amazon website.

My list has been curated by two major sources: Josh Kaufmann’s 99 Best Business Books and Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter’s Humanize Reading Recommendations (Amazon). As such, the category names were created by them (the Humanize ones, that start with “being” may seem strange, I can explain them further if you’re curious). Each category has one book that I’m interested in, but it would be super helpful if you could write out your own recommendations in the comments sections. Either for a specific category or for a category that you think I’m missing. If there’s enough response, I’ll summarize them all in a separate post.

Thanks for all of your help! It will definitely be interesting to look back at this in one year to see how many of these I ended up reading.

February’s Books (These are not negotiable because I already bought them)
The New How by Nilofer Merchant
The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin

Project Management
Results Without Authority by Tom Kendrick

Management
The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker

Being Trustworthy
Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman and James O’Toole

Being Generative
The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson

Being Open
Open Leadership by Charlene Li

Being Courageous
Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey

Problem Solving
Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer

Negotiation
Bargaining for Advantage by G. Richard Shell

Design
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

Sales
SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham

Networking/Relationship Building
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferazzi

Innovation
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen