37 Life Changing Books You Must Read! (2023)

Life changing books

37 Books That Will Turn Your Life Around

Don’t you find it frustrating when you’re desperately hunting for a truly inspiring and life changing book, only to keep finding a list of books that seem average at best?

We have found ourselves in that same, uninspired position – so we made it our personal mission, to compile a knock-out list of 37 genuine life changing books that you must read!

Our compelling reading list of Great Books contains 37 Book Recommendations, alongside a simple summary of its contents and the author.

Self help books, philosophy, self-purpose, increasing drive and productivity, leading from the front and psychological enhancement, can all be found in this blockbuster of best books!

1. Man's Search For Meaning

While this list is in no particular order, Man’s Search For Meaning deserves to be the first book on it!

Viktor E. Frankl lays bare his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. He describes his psycho-therapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, and then immersively imagine that outcome.

Life Changing Books

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; that last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

2. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere And Join The New Rich

In this book, Tim Ferriss lays out a step-by-step blueprint, to free yourself from the suffocation of the 9-5 corporate grind.

Life Changing Books

If you want to learn how to create a business that will fund the lifestyle of your dreams, so you can live like a millionaire, without actually having to be one – then this book is for you.

3. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Cal Newport has written arguably one of the best books ever on how to control your mind space for productivity.

Deep Work is the ultimate guide to staying productive amidst the constant distractions of the 24-hour news reel, social media, text messages, emails and phone calls.

Life Changing Books

4. The Power Of Habit: Why we do what we do in Life and Business

This is a book by Charles Duhigg about self-help, and a good book to help you change your life.

A ground-breaking book on how to create good habits.

Life Changing Books

It takes a deep and scientific look at humans and not only why we behave the way that we do, but how we can change our habitual behaviour. 

The Power Of Habit uses examples to illustrate how harnessing simple habits is the key to great success in all areas of life.

5. The Obstacle Is The Way: The Ancient Art Of Turning Adversity To Advantage

This book by Ryan Holiday is hinged on turning your adversity into your advantage.

A stoic formula for success, that has propelled some of the most brilliant and successful people to reaching the top of their field. Not because everything has gone their way, but by knowing how to turn an obstacle into an opportunity. 

Life Changing Books

Read this book to discover how you can create opportunity from some of the most seemingly impossible situations you might face.

6. The Art Of War

There is a very high chance that you may have already heard of this book.

An ancient book centered on Chinese Military strategy, Sun Tzu, (Master Sun), wrote what remains one the most influential texts in the world today.

Life Changing Books

Applicable for war, business and your personal lifestyle, these ancient philosophies offer tactics, strategy and analysis on how to operate intelligently, under stressful and changing circumstances.

7. Siddhartha

If you’re interested in the life of Buddha, this book by Hermann Hesse is a must read.

Life Changing Books

The story of Siddhartha is well-known for its insights on suffering, wisdom, enlightenment and peace and Siddhartha’s story gives the reader a unique perspective and great life lessons they can embrace to move forward positively in life. 

8. Outliers: The Story Of Success

In this intellectual journey, Malcolm Gladwell asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

Explaining the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. 

Life Changing Books

Looking at the background of what makes people successful in their cultures, generations, and the experiences of their upbringing. 

9. A Guide to the Good Life

Using the ancient Roman wisdom of Stoic philosophy, A Guide To The Good Life shows how its insight and advice still apply greatly to our modern lives and how this philosophy can still direct us toward a better life.

Using various stoic techniques, this book offers a road-map for anyone seeking to achieve tranquillity in our own lives and avoid the feelings of lingering dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. 

10. Never Split The Difference

A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations – whether at work, or in your personal life.

Life Changing Books

Chris Voss, takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations, sharing nine effective principles of counter intuitive tactics and strategies, that you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.

11. The Miracle Morning: The Not So Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life: Before 8:00 AM

Hal Elrod has taken the ‘best practices’, developed over centuries of human consciousness and captured the best of them into a daily morning ritual. 

Life Changing Books

This book could quite literally transform your life and all it asks in return, is just a few minutes of your morning. Interested?

12. Tao Te Ching

Are you looking to make your life easier and more effective by synchronizing with the natural flow of the universe? Then Tao Te Ching (‘The Way Of Power’) is for you.

Life Changing Books

This is one of the world’s oldest writings of Taoism, a meditational text by Lao Tzu, that is a truly timeless philosophy of power, based on harmony with nature.

13. The Alchemist

Centered around a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucía, this book focuses on the idea that all individuals should live in the singular pursuit of their individual dreams.

The lessons learned on his journey will stay with you long after you finish the book, leaving you feeling inspired.

Read this book by Paulo Coelho to drive you to break the monotony and make that decision!

14. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create And Dominate Markets

Authors: Al Ramadan. Dave Peterson. Christopher Lochhead. Kevin Maney.

In today’s world, it’s no longer enough to create great new products; companies now establish whole new categories that surpass old ones.

Life Changing Books

Uber created a fresh personal transportation category, marginalizing the use of standard taxis. Airbnb, Workday and Netflix are all successful by creating entirely new business categories. 

This book lays out how entrepreneurs and established enterprises can innovate, develop and dominate in a brand new category over time.

15. Shoe Dog

This book tells the story of how Nike was created from scratch, following the ups and downs of its entrepreneurial journey.

Life Changing Books

Phil Knight started out by selling shoes from the back of his car, to now being synonymous with global icons such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

A truly inspirational read, conveying what goes into the makings of a global brand.

16. 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos

A motivational and influential philosophy by Jordan B. Peterson.

Life Changing Books

This book is story-based, and acts as a self-help manual for young people, laying out simple principles that can help you become more disciplined, conduct yourself with integrity, and generally balance your life, while still finding enjoyment along the way.

17. The Path Made Clear

Everyone has a purpose – ‘Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honor your calling in the best way possible.’

The 10 chapters laid out by Oprah, are organized to help you recognize important markers along your road to self-discovery and what you need to do, in order to achieve your personal serenity.

Oprah Winfrey shares her guide for activating your deepest vision of yourself, offering the framework for creating not just a life of success, but one of significance, and what life’s detours are there to teach us.

18. Authentic Happiness: Using The New Positive Psychology To Realize Your Potential For Lasting Fulfilment

A powerhouse in positive psychology, Authentic Happiness was one of the first books written that talked about this science, showing us how we can apply it in our own lives to realize our potential for lasting fulfillment.

Life Changing Books

Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. explains why happiness matters, what determines it, and how we can create more of it in our lives.

19. Principles: Life And Work

Billionaire Ray Dalio shares the Principles that have helped him to succeed in life and work.

Life Changing Books

The book shares how successful people are guided by principles – fundamental truths guiding our actions, helping us achieve what we want in life. This set of ‘Principles’ will help you to uncover and apply your own.

20. Rich Dad Poor Dad

Planning financial freedom? Looking to up your financial literacy?

Life Changing Books

In this book Robert Kiyosaki teaches the importance of financial independence and building wealth through investing in assets, real estate investing, as well as starting and owning businesses, are all laid bare.

In this international best seller, learn what the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and the middle class do not!’

21. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfilment of Your Dreams

A prominent figure in the New Age movement and alternative medicine, Deepak Chopra  has created this practical guide to the Fulfilment Of Your Dreams, a pocket-sized, self-help book, freely inspired in Hinduism and spiritualistic concepts.

22. Think And Grow Rich

Author: Napoleon Hill.

Centred around personal development and self-improvement, Think and Grow Rich lays out a series of principles for you to attract your desires.

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Imagination, desire, planning and persistence, are just a few of the 13 principles that will help you access ‘Infinite Intelligence’, that you can use to attract wealth and abundance.

23. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness

Authors: Richard H. Thaler. Cass R. Sunstein

Based on behavioral psychology, this book takes an in-depth look into the decision making of humans.

Life Changing Books

Laying out a ‘choice architecture’, that we use daily to make all of our decisions.

Understanding perhaps why you make poor decisions; it can become much easier to utilize this system to prevent them.

24. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Reading this book buy Noah Harari can be a truly life changing experience.

Life Changing Books

An account of human history, providing not only a sense of perspective of how minuscule our time on earth can be, but also delivers a profound understanding of the impact of our actions on the ecosystem and how critical the decisions we make today, will be on the future of tomorrow.

25. Meditations

Written with no intention of publication by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement.

Life Changing Books

Marcus Aurelius offers a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises, developed as the emperor struggled to make sense of the world around him and understand himself.

A great book that translates seamlessly to the modern world.

26. Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action

Start With Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does.

Simon Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

27. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap… And Others Don’t

In this management book by Jim C. Collins, he describes how companies transition from being good companies to great companies, and how most companies fail to make the transition.

Life Changing Books

Following a 5 year research project, the underlying variables that enable any type of organization to make the leap are uncovered.

Rigorously supported by evidence, his findings are surprising and at times, even shocking.

28. The Power Of Now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment

In this New York Times bestseller, Eckhart Tolle reminds you to come back to the present moment.

Our analytical minds are wired to constantly travel to the past or future, creating false perceptions and often giving rise to negative thought.

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

This book takes a closer spiritual look at transcending thoughts of the past or future and really harnessing the present moment.

29. How to Win Friends And Influence People

In this book, Dale Carnegie’s advice will teach you how to become a better speaker, make friends quickly and easily, persuade people to follow your ideas, increase your popularity and enable you to win new clients and customers – what’s not to love?

30. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

With over 15 million copies sold, this book by Stephen R. Covey is widely recognized as one of the most influential books ever written.

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

Presented as a principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems, with perceptive insights and pathways for living amidst change and uncertainty with fairness, integrity, honesty and human dignity.

31. Now, Discover Your Strengths

Authors: Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton Ph.D.

As humans, we can be really quite poor at taking stock of ourselves and discovering what we’re actually good at.

We have an idea of what people have told us we’re good at and things we like to do, but rarely will we systematically dig into understanding what our strengths and weaknesses are – Now, Discover Your Strengths, helps us do just that.

Giving you the ownership to really invest in your strong suits and start living your best life.

32. Ego Is The Enemy: The Fight To Master Our Greatest Opponent

Almost all of us, at some stage of life, are the victims of our own ego.

Leading us to strive too far, expect too much, assume that we’re deserving and if we achieve success our ego makes us do things that lead us to failure. 

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday aims to help you suppress ego before bad habits take hold and to switch these temptations to humility and discipline.

This book will help us be humble in your aspirations, gracious in your success, and resilient in your failure.

33. Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion

Cialdini lays out 6 key Principles of Persuasion – Reciprocity, scarcity, authority, commitment and consistency, liking and consensus.

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

Broken down into their attitudes and behaviors, by understanding these rules, you can use them to persuade and influence others, helping you to set about driving the change you strive for.

34. Essentialism; The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less

Author: Greg Mckeown

Being an essentialist is about a disciplined way of thinking.

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

By applying a more selective criteria for what is essential, the pursuit of less allows you to regain control of your own choices so you can channel your time, energy and effort into making the highest possible contribution toward the goals and activities that matter.

35. Awaken The Giant Within: How To Take Immediate Control Of Your Mental, Emotional And Financial Destiny

This outstanding book by Tony Robbins includes effective and proven strategies for improving your performance in the four crucial areas of life: mental, emotional, physical, and financial. 

A self-help book that’s all about helping you get into your ‘peak state’ and helps you harness your self-awareness and self-mastery, in order to live your best life.

36. Year Of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun And Be Your Own Person

Written by the creator of Grey’s Anatomy and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder and Catch, Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed her life – and how it can change yours too.

Profound and genuinely funny, this best seller reveals how saying YES changed – and saved – her life.

And inspires readers everywhere to change their own lives with one little word: YES.

37. Misery

In this classic fiction novel, the deranged Annie Wilkes kidnaps her favorite author and forces him to write a sequel to her favorite book series.

When the author fights back, Wilkes takes out an axe and starts chopping away at him.

Life Changing Books
Life Changing Books

Years later, Stephen King realized the entire outline was an elaborate metaphor for his cocaine habit

Misery is a book about cocaine, Annie Wilkes is cocaine. She was my number-one fan.”