Booklist 2015

Yeah, I admit it: this week I am out of time. Maybe I should have written something technical, but hey, here is my reading list from 2015. You may find some inspiration - and you if you have a reading tips for me, I am happy as well!

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Marketing: Star Brands

One of the best books I read in 2015 was “Star Brands” by Carolina Rogoll. She is an experienced brand marketer and worked for the biggest brands out there. What I learned was how brands work, and this book made me think different on brands and the strategies behind them.

It’s a recommended read for people who want to create brands on their product, even when “Star Brands” sometimes is not only for small brands.

Marketing: Connect

“Connect” from Josh Turner is the “secret LinkedIn” guide. It promises to show you how to build relationships and leads within LinkedIn. The book was a pretty “OK” read. I am not into all these social media things, except Twitter maybe. However, so messed up LinkedIn is, it’s a bit more useful than it’s competition.

This book didn’t get into details with the “premium tools” LinkedIn offers. It also didn’t help me to get tons of leads, but it certainly gave me some inspiration what I can do with LinkedIn.

If you need to get started quickly with LinkedIn, you might want to read it. Otherwise, you can find things out on your own.

Self Help: Choose yourself (+ guide to wealth)

I am actually a bit ashamed to tell you I read this. I am not that much interested in getting wealthy. The reason I read it was, James wrote a few very interesting posts on self-publishing. I stuck to the blog and finally bought two books of him. “Choose yourself” is the one, and this was the second part.

I didn’t like both books. Both are scratching the surface and are not in line with my personal thinking. In a way, James sells the American Dream. Maybe it’s better when you are from the US, but it’s no good for a European guy.

Also, it’s pretty repetitive and the “you need to do $x NOW” thing is getting boring after a time.

Would not recommend it.

Biography: The Zen Of Steve Jobs (Caleb Melby)

This book is a comic on Steve Jobs meeting with his Zen teacher Kôbun Roshi. It was an interesting read and a different aspect on Steves live. His official biography didn’t tell you that much on Kôbun.

It inspired me to write a few articles on Kôbuns life myself, who, to my surprise also taught Zen in Switzerland.

You can read more on the book in review.

Here is more on Kôbun himself, and finally here is a very funny story I found out when researched: Steve Jobs and the proof of enlightenment

A recommended read when you like comics.

Tech: Introduction to Apache Solr

This is a German book from O’Reilly, but worth to read if you want to start with the search framework. It gave me some real eye openers, and you should read it too if you need to add some search capabilities to your website.

It’s for beginners. If you are one of these groups, check it out.

The authors are Daniel Wrigley and Markus Klose, both working close to my place.

Zen: Ikkyu Sojun

The book from Ikkyu is also available in other languages, but I read it in German. Ikkyu is known as a poet and very eccentric Zen master. I was first thinking how this person only could be named a Zen master. But after reading the “poems from the crazy cloud.” I was convinced. Ikkyu was a true master, and this book was some epiphany for me.

It’s not for anyone and certainly not a good starter when you took your first glimpses into Zen. It also helps to have an experienced person around to explain some of the behaviors and things you will read.

And it’s not for young people - erotic poems included!

PS: I linked an english version and believe it’s similar to what I read.

Marketing: How to Write Seductive Web Copy

Henneke Duistermaat wrote on how to write Web copy. Am I a better writer? I don’t think so. However, this book was still worth reading it. I finally understood more on the structure and things.

While the full enlightenment was not kicking in, I was happy to read it.

For my upcoming new landing page over at launch.training I hired an expert copywriter just because I learned what copywriting means from this book.