A Dozen Good Reads for Better Decisions

From back-to-school through the winter holidays, the busy retail season is also a time to forecast sales, set budgets, and plan for the coming year. Here are 12 new and time-tested books to help make informed choices.

Could Should Might Don’t: How We Think About the Future

Could Should Might Don’t

by Nick Foster

Thinking seriously about the future is a must for those who hope to shape it. This just-released book guides readers in going beyond the usual “lazy certainties and fearful fantasies” to imagine and create what comes next.

Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions

Distancing

by L. David Marquet and Michael A. Gillespie

Asserting that we are our own biggest obstacle to making wiser decisions, the authors, a former U.S. Navy Captain and a professor of psychology, provide practical self-coaching methods for changing perspectives.

The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions

Missing Billionaires

by Victor Haghani, James White

There could be many more billionaires today if the wealthy families had made wiser investment and spending decisions. This Economist best book of the year in 2023 outlines a framework for optimal investing drawn from the authors’ extensive finance experience.

Start, Stay, or Leave: The Art of Decision-Making

Start, Stay, or Leave

by Trey Gowdy

Fox News host and former congressman Trey Gowdy shares with humor and practical advice the hard-earned lessons from great (and lousy) decisions that have shaped his life.

Probably Overthinking It

Probably Overthinking It

by Allen B. Downey

Statistics are everywhere, and so is the tendency to misinterpret them, with potentially disastrous consequences. Downey explains common statistical pitfalls, using copious illustrations, colorful storytelling, and clear prose.

Collective Illusions: Why We Make Bad Decisions

Collective Illusions

by Todd Rose

A feeling of belonging is a deep human need, but the desire to fit in can warp our perceptions and lead to decisions against our own best interest. Learn how to find clarity and authenticity from this national bestseller, named Amazon’s Best Book of the Year in Business, Leadership, and Science in 2022.

Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

Radical Uncertainty

by John Kay and Mervyn King

Some risks are easily quantified, but many are not from data alone. Two of Britain’s foremost economists explain strategies for resilience in facing the unknowable.

The Big Picture: How to Visualize Data to Make Better Decisions Faster

The Big Picture

by Steve Wexler

Understanding analytics is a crucial business skill; graphics alone can both enlighten and mislead. Wexler, who has taught and consulted for dozens of prominent organizations, distills his expertise into what one reviewer calls an “invaluable tool” for seeing patterns in data.

Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most

Farsighted

by Steven Johnson

A prolific bestselling author and television and podcast host reveals the powerful methods used by expert decision-makers to make once-in-a-lifetime choices.

Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions

Risk Savvy

by Gerd Gigerenzer

Gigerenzer, who directs the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and is an expert on risk, argues that expert analyses are often flawed or misinterpreted. He advocates going with the gut in the face of uncertainty. Readers hail it as both wise and easy to read.

Left Brain, Right Stuff: How Leaders Make Winning Decisions

Left Brain, Right Stuff

by Phil Rosenzweig

For business leaders and entrepreneurs, decision-making in the real world entails not just thoughtful analysis but following it with strategic action. Reviewers say Rosenzweig “delivers an invaluable framework for making good and timely decisions,” and laud his “fascinating storytelling.”

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition

Predictably Irrational

by Dan Ariely

One of the most influential books in behavioral economics, Ariely’s groundbreaking bestseller uses compelling, real-world examples to demonstrate how people consistently make the same predictable mistakes, and how we can avoid these damaging patterns to make more rational decisions.

New Books to Gear Up for Peak Season Selling

The end of summer signals the beginning of fall and peak season planning for merchants. From entrepreneurial inspiration to employee motivation, these recent titles can help start the process.

Catching Cheats: Everyday Forensics to Unmask Business Fraud

Catching Cheats

by Erik Lie

Lie is a finance professor whose research exposing manipulation of stock options by inside executives led to a series by The Wall Street Journal, earning a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2007. His forthcoming book uses the stories of fraudsters such as Bernie Madoff to show how data analysis can identify financial cheating. Reviewers call it “real-world ‘CSI’” and “eye-opening.”

You Already Know: The Science of Mastering Your Intuition

You Already Know

by Laura Huang

Knowing when to trust your gut is essential to success. Business professor and thought leader Huang provides practical, science-based exercises to help readers recognize and cultivate those eureka moments to make better decisions and achieve their goals.

Designing Momentum: A Blueprint for Transforming Everyday Moments into Massive Success

Designing Momentum

by Brant Menswar

Menswar, a top motivational speaker and consultant, aims to provide readers with “a practical blueprint for transforming ordinary moments into extraordinary opportunities for growth and success” using a systematic framework developed from his personal experience.

Pioneers: 8 Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Pioneers

by Neri Karra Sillaman

Many immigrants have built lasting, successful businesses despite starting with little money and no connections. The author combines in-depth research and real-world case studies to create an inspiring guide that has earned raves from luminaries such as authors Melanie Robbins and Adam Grant.

Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need before They Ask

Stakeholder Whispering

by Bill Shander

Starting from the premise that people don’t know what they need, Shander demonstrates how to see beyond what customers and others request to understand what they really need. The author is a business communications practitioner with decades of experience transforming data into compelling visual and interactive experiences for international companies and government agencies.

Sell to the Rich: The Insider’s Handbook to Selling Luxury

Sell to the Rich

by Jeffrey Shaw

If you’re looking to break into the luxury market, this book promises to help by offering strategies for cultivating brand loyalty and building trust with wealthy clients, drawing on the author’s experience serving these clients.

Employee Understanding: A Three-Pillar Framework

Employee Understanding

by Annette Franz

Most CEOs agree that engaging and retaining employees is a top challenge. For ecommerce businesses, employees are typically the key to a compelling customer experience. Franz reminds readers that providing an excellent experience for employees leads to stellar experiences for clients and customers.

Wild Courage: Go after What You Want and Get It

Wild Courage

by Jenny Wood

Best-selling authors Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, Tiago Forte, and Gretchen Rubin are raving about career coach and former Google executive Jenny Wood’s inspirational new guide to getting what you want in your personal and professional life.

Using AI for Marketing: How to Harness the Transformative Power of AI

Using AI for Marketing

by David Berkowitz

Digital marketer Berkowitz cuts through the hype about artificial intelligence to offer a practical guide to using this powerful new technology to boost marketing creativity, strategy, and results. As the founder of the AI Marketers Guild, he understands how marketers work and provides real-world examples of AI’s real-world possibilities.

The Experimentation Machine: Finding Product-Market Fit in the Age of AI

Experimentation Machine

by Jeffrey J. Bussgang

Bussgang is a Harvard Business School professor, venture capitalist, and author of two books on entrepreneurship and VC. His third title shows founders how to design and run experiments and scale operations with time-tested techniques and the latest technology.

Identity Marketing: How to Create Loyal, Lifelong Fans and a Legendary Brand

Identity Marketing

by Veronica Romney

Romney, an experienced marketer and host of the weekly Rainmaker podcast, argues that in today’s changing marketing environment, “be this” is a more powerful marketing message than “buy this.”

Q&A: Brad Feld, Author, Mentor, Investor

Brad Feld is a veteran tech entrepreneur, early-stage investor, and co-founder of Techstars, a venture fund and startup accelerator. He’s also a prolific author. I asked him how writing helps shape his ideas and what prompted his latest book, “Give First,” which focuses on the value of mentorship.

Jean Gazis: What’s the origin of “Give First“?

Brad Feld: The idea has been rattling around in my head for over a decade. Back in 2012, when I was writing “Startup Communities,” I realized one of the secrets to the success of Boulder, Colorado, was a philosophy I called “give before you get.” It’s a simple idea: be willing to help someone without a clear expectation of what’s in it for you.

It wasn’t altruism; it was a more effective, long-term way to build a healthy system. Around the same time, this ethos was becoming deeply baked into Techstars, which we described as a “mentor-driven accelerator.”

Then, in 2014, my friends at Techstars, led by David Cohen and Gregg Cochran, started using the hashtag #GiveFirst on Twitter. It was cleaner, stickier, and captured the essence of the idea. That’s when I knew it deserved its own book.

Gazis: Give us examples of how you’ve benefited from a giving-first mindset?

Brad Feld

Feld: My go-to example is the origin story of Techstars itself. I used to hold “random days,” where anyone could book a 15-minute meeting with me. It was an attempt to be open and accessible without destroying my calendar.

That’s how I met David Cohen. In 2006, he came in with a brochure for a mentorship and investment program for startups.

I loved the idea. Ten minutes into our 15-minute slot, I’d already committed to invest, and I stepped out to call my friend Jared Polis, then an entrepreneur and now the governor of Colorado, who agreed to join us on the spot. That unplanned gift of time and capital turned into Techstars, which has since funded over 4,000 companies. There was no way to predict that return.

Another is the evolution of Pledge 1%. The idea started when Ryan Martens of Rally Software, a web development platform, and I co-founded the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado in 2007, based on the Salesforce 1% model, wherein the founders committed 1% of the company’s equity, technology, and employees’ time to a better world.

Pledge 1% has generated nearly $3 billion for communities globally and spawned a powerful network of founders helping each other. The financial return was for the community, but the network and relationship returns have been immeasurable.

Gazis: What’s your goal of “Give First,” the book?

Feld: I hope readers break out of a transactional mindset. We live in a “what’s in it for me?” world. “Give First” is a different philosophy. It’s not about being a martyr or working for free. It’s about putting energy into a relationship or a system without defining the parameters of the return up front. You still expect to get something back, but you don’t know when, from whom, or in what form.

The result is a positive-sum, long-term game. The ensuing knowledge, trust, and opportunities are often far greater than anything you could have engineered with a quid-pro-quo approach. My goal is for people to see that it’s a powerful and sustainable way to build a career, a company, and a community.

Gazis: Why do you write books? Are they relevant in our digital world?

Feld: Absolutely. In an age of infinite distraction, a book is an anchor. It’s a technology for focused, deep thinking that a tweet, a post, or a podcast can’t replicate. Long-form writing forces both the writer and the reader to slow down and grapple with nuance. A book is a durable artifact. In a world of fleeting digital content, a well-argued, 250-page narrative is a powerful signal that an idea is worth spending time with.

Writing debugs my own thinking. I have ideas and stories swirling around from decades of investing and mentoring. The process of putting them into a coherent narrative forces me to clarify what I believe. It’s how I find the signal in the noise.

The second reason is scale. I can only mentor so many founders one-on-one. A book allows me to share the lessons — and the scar tissue — with anyone, anywhere. I explored the give-first philosophy on my blog and in practice at Techstars for 15 years. Putting it all in a book makes the framework accessible to anyone.

Gazis: You’ve written about mentorship in business. Do you have a mentor?

Feld: My most important mentor, in business and life, was Len Fassler. I dedicated “Give First” to him. He taught me how to behave in business relationships and how to show up for people, especially when things are hard. I’ll never forget being at his house in 2001, completely crushed by the dot-com bust. He put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Suit up. They can’t kill you, and they can’t eat you. We’ll get through it.” That’s a story, not a spreadsheet. It’s guided me ever since.

As for writing, Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take” provided a framework for the ideas I had explored intuitively for years. And Dov Seidman’s book “How” emphasized that our manner of doing things matters more than what they are. Both write with a clarity and moral conviction that I aspire to.

Gazis: What books do you read?

Feld: I’m a voracious reader. My wife Amy and I take a week off the grid every quarter, and I usually get through a book a day. That sustained immersion is where I do some of my best thinking and pattern recognition.

My reading is all over the place, and I track every book on Goodreads. My infinite pile of books has a lot of fiction, biography, history, philosophy, and some business, especially by friends. I love discovering how different systems work, whether it’s a company, a brain, or a fictional universe. The variety is essential and feeds my curiosity, which is the fuel for everything I do, including writing.

Favorite Books of Ecommerce Pros Q3 2025

Summer is a time to step away from ecommerce and focus on family and fun. It’s also an opportunity to catch up on reading, thinking, and planning. I asked ecommerce owners what books shaped their careers and outlook.

Here’s their response.

The Everything Store

by Brad Stone

The Everything Store

The rise of Amazon and Jeff Bezos inspires Ben Bouman, owner of HeavyLift Direct, a family-run seller of car lifts, jacks, and similar equipment, who says, “‘The Everything Store‘ by Brad Stone is a book I revisit every year. It shows exactly what relentless focus looks like, and it keeps me sharp. Every time I read it, I walk away with fresh ideas on staying agile, protecting my brand, and thinking several steps ahead. If you sell on marketplaces, the book is essential reading for staying competitive and aware.”

The E-Myth Revisited

by Michael Gerber

The E-Myth Revisited

Mark Nelson, CEO of Foodie Box Love, a provider of artisan food gifts by subscription, recommends “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. Nelson says, “It explains how to grow your business and avoid common mistakes, whether it’s ecommerce or any business.”

Nelson also raves about “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick, because it “addresses and helps solve a fundamental issue in starting a new business… getting ‘real’ and ‘honest’ feedback on your idea. Most people will not give their real opinion, will tell you what they think you want to hear, or lack the domain expertise to evaluate the business idea. ‘The Mom Test’ spurs meaningful dialogue with real customers to get honest and critical feedback.”

Made to Stick

by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Made to Stick

Eric Turney is the sales and marketing director for The Monterey Company, a promotional products manufacturer founded in 1989 and fully online since 2003. He values books that offer real-world insights, leadership clarity, and marketing wisdom.

His favorites are “Made to Stick” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, which he calls “a must-read for anyone who wants to make their brand messaging resonate,” “The Cold Start Problem” by Andrew Chen on growth strategy and network effects that’s especially relevant for ecommerce platforms trying to scale and keep users engaged, and “The One Thing” by Gary Keller, “A classic I revisit often. It’s a grounding reminder to focus on what truly matters, especially when you’re simultaneously juggling product, marketing, operations, and growth.”

7 Powers

by Hamilton Helmer

7 Powers

Val Brusylovsky, founder and managing director of Boutique Retailer, an Australia-based home-goods merchant, recommends “7 Powers” by Hamilton Helmer. She says, “It offers a sharp, strategic framework for building enduring business advantage. I’ve found myself referring back to it multiple times.”

Delivering Happiness

by Tony Hsieh

Delivering Happiness

“Delivering Happiness,” a memoir by the late Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, is the top pick of Ann Bertholf, chief strategist at Flower Leis in Hawaii. She says Hsieh’s memoir “includes great lessons on creating world-class customer service and cultivating a company culture where employees are happy to come to work.” Bertholf also recommends “Positioning” by Al Ries and Jack Trout, which she calls a “short and simple classic” and “a primer on branding that every new marketer should read.”

Building a StoryBrand 2.0

by Donald Miller

Building a StoryBrand 2.0

Serial entrepreneur Jake Munday, CEO and co-founder of Custom Neon, which manufactures custom-designed neon signs, recommends “Building a StoryBrand 2.0” by Donald Miller. “The book highlights that if customers don’t understand what you are offering within the first few seconds, they’ll move on,” Munday says. “By following its easily digestible and actionable steps around the topic of powerful storytelling, we simplified our messaging and clarified our values, which has led to higher engagement and conversions.”

Let My People Go Surfing

by Yvon Chouinard

Let My People Go Surfing

Kass Lazerow, co-founder of Golf.com and Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce), and co-author of “Shoveling Sh$t,” which I featured in our spring books roundup, seconds the recommendation for “The Everything Store” and adds “Let My People Go Surfing” by Yvon Chouinard, the legendary founder of Patagonia, “Alchemy: Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life” by advertising guru Rory Sutherland, and “Generation AI” by Matt Britton, an expert in consumer trends and new media tactics.

Books on Tariffs and Trade Wars

These 10 books by academics, regulators, journalists, and business practitioners can help ecommerce merchants understand contradictory news stories about international trade and how it affects their businesses.

Why Politicians Lie About Trade . . . And What You Need to Know About It

Why Politicians Lie About Trade

by Dmitry Grozoubinksi

The Financial Times states, “Despite being an entertaining read, his book is no joke,” and includes it on its list of “Five books to boost your understanding of tariffs and trade wars.” Avoiding technical and academic language and adding a generous dose of humor, Grozoubinski uses engaging case studies to explain how global trade works and how trade policy affects what most people care about. The author is a former Australia trade negotiator and executive director of the Geneva Trade Platform, a nonprofit policy hub.

No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America’s Workers

No Trade Is Free

by Robert Lighthizer

“No one gives up anything valuable for nothing,” asserts the author, who served as U.S. Trade Representative in President Trump’s first administration and as deputy under President Reagan. He provides an insider’s account for merchants and business managers looking to understand how trade negotiations work and how the current administration’s policy views developed. The book is another entry in the Financial Times’ tariffs and trade wars list.

The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources

The World for Sale

by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy

Trade in commodities such as fuels, foods, and metals plays a crucial role in global finance, yet often occurs far from the public eye. Two Bloomberg journalists provide a well-written, well-researched, and eye-opening account of how commodities traders operate and how they influence global politics. Reviewers agree that it reads like a thriller.

International Trade: What Everyone Needs to Know®

International Trade

by Anne O. Krueger

Krueger has been the World Bank’s chief economist, a top executive at the International Monetary Fund, and a senior professor at Stanford and Johns Hopkins. In the book, she uses a non-technical, question-and-answer format to address the fundamentals of trade and global economics.

International Trade and FDI: An Advanced Introduction to Regulation and Facilitation

International Trade and FDI

by Warnock Davies and Clive G. Chen

The authors combine their academic, consulting, and operational expertise to create a reference handbook for business owners, managers, executives, consultants, and others involved in international trade or investment. The book covers tariffs and other barriers to trade; global entities such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization; and more — with plenty of examples.

The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter

The Globalization Myth

by Shannon K. O’Neil

O’Neil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, contends that the biggest economic trend of the last half-century isn’t globalization, but a shift towards regionalization that centers on three hubs: Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She advocates for change in American economic policy.

Good Economics for Hard Times

Good Economics for Hard Times

by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

The winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics offer “a treasure trove of insight” (The Economist) into today’s critical economic issues, including growth, globalization, disruptive technologies, trade, migration, inequality, employment, and more. According to The Wall Street Journal, the book is “a masterly tour of the current evidence on critical policy questions.”

Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word: How Six Everyday Products Make the Case for Trade

Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word

by Fred P. Hochberg

What do a taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, a banana, an iPhone, a college degree, and the HBO series Game of Thrones have in common? They are six products Hochberg uses to illustrate how trade and economic policies affect everyday life. The author’s bona fides include leading the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration, and his stewardship of Lillian Vernon, his family’s iconic direct-marketing business, where he increased revenue fortyfold.

Trade Wars Are Class Wars

Trade Wars Are Class Wars

by Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis

The subtitle, “How rising inequality distorts the global economy and threatens international peace,” hints at the authors’ point of view. The fact that the book made several prestigious best lists and snagged the Lionel Gelber Prize, which honors “the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs,” suggests it’s an opinion worth reading. It’s also in the Financial Times’ “five books” list. Pettis is a noted economist and China expert, whose previous book, “The Great Rebalancing,” was published in 2014. Klein writes on economics for Barron’s.

Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy

Clashing Over Commerce

by Douglas A. Irwin

As long as the U.S. has existed, politicians have debated whether the U.S. should be open to commerce with other nations or try to protect its domestic industries from foreign competition. Irwin, a professor of economics whose research is popular, provides a thorough (860-page) history of U.S. trade policy. Reviewers call it “definitive,” “scholarly,” “readable,” “timely,” “useful,” “magisterial,” a “magnum opus,” and an instant classic. Irwin also wrote “Free Trade Under Fire,” which one critic asserted “successfully parries nearly all arguments leveled against free trade by its critics in an engaging style,” in a more manageable 366 pages.

Spring Books on B2B, Nvidia, Bill Gates, More

Seven new and upcoming books offer practical advice on bold marketing, global branding, and growing from a startup to a multi-million-dollar company, including honest portrayals of lessons learned by brilliant business leaders.

Courageous Marketing: The B2B Marketer’s Playbook for Career Success

Courageous Marketing

by Udi Ledergor

Author Udi Ledergor is the chief evangelist and former CMO at Gong, an AI SaaS platform to monitor sales decisions that has grown to a $7 billion valuation in just 10 years. His just-published book advocates making bold and risky moves to grab attention and create loyal fans. It garnered blurbs from prominent authors Daniel Pink, Robert Cialdini, and Nir Eyal. It is already in the top 10 for three Amazon book categories.

Build a Business You Love

Build a Business You Love

by Dave Ramsey

Ramsey built a one-man consulting business into a $250 million empire and authored eight books, notably the New York Times bestseller “Total Money Makeover.” This new title aims to be a “road map that takes the guesswork out of growth for business owners.” Ramsey breaks growth into five stages — Treadmill Operator, Pathfinder, Trailblazer, Peak Performer, and Legacy Builder — and advises on the unique challenges of each.

How Not to Invest

How Not to Invest

by Barry Ritholz

Asserting that “avoiding errors is much more important than scoring wins,” Ritholz, co-founder of a prominent wealth management firm, aims to help readers evade the most common mistakes people make with their money. “Shark Tank” host Mark Cuban and Nobel-winning economist Richard Thaler call it a fun read.

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

The Thinking Machine

by Stephen Witt

Hot on the heels of February’s “The Nvidia Way” comes a new biography of Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, “a determined entrepreneur who defied Wall Street to push his radical vision for computing.” Read it to learn how the company morphed from video games to a leader in AI.

Source Code: My Beginnings

Source Code

by Bill Gates

With its black and white youth cover image, this memoir by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates isn’t the usual portrait of an entrepreneur’s path to success. Instead, it recounts the early life experiences that shaped his character before starting that journey.

Shoveling $h!t: A Love Story About the Entrepreneur’s Messy Path to Success

Shoveling $h!t

by Kass and Mike Lazerow

As the irreverent title suggests, the serial entrepreneur power couple who founded Golf.com and Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce) promise a “brutally honest take” in their forthcoming book. Admitting that entrepreneurship is hard, they share personal stories and the strategies they’ve learned.

Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures

Brand Global, Adapt Local

by Katherine Melchior Ray and Nataly Kelly

Two experts share their global experiences with Nestlé, Nike, and others on how to build an international marketing and localization mindset. They explore how companies balance preserving brand identity with exploring new markets.