Kevin Kelly Book Recommendations

It's All Too Much

An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff

by Peter Walsh

"I actually gave it a whole page [in my book 'Cool Tools'] because I thought the message was so profound." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Sound of the One Hand

281 Zen Koans with Answers

by Yoel Hoffman

Kevin Kelly recommended this book in the "Tools of Titans" book. (Source)

Gödel, Escher, Bach

An Eternal Golden Braid

by Douglas R. Hofstadter

"Over the years, I kept finding myself returning to its insights, and each time I would arrive at them at a deeper level." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Finite and Infinite Games

by James Carse

"Gave me a mathematical framework for my own spirituality." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Ultimate Resource

by Julian Lincoln Simon

"[The author]’s clarifying insight—that mind and intelligence can overcome any physical limitations, and are therefore the only scarce resource—has become a big idea that colors much of what I look at today." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Essential Rumi

by Jalal Al-Din Rumi

"There is nothing that I enjoy more than at night reading Rumi." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Fountainhead

by Ayn Rand

"By the end of the book, I decided to drop out of school. I never returned. It was the best decision of my life." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

by Daniel Pink

"It's a cartoon, basically, and it's aimed at young people as trying to teach them how to become indispensable." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Regional Advantage

Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128

by AnnaLee Saxenian

"A really good book." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Peopleware

Productive Projects and Teams

by Tom DeMarco

"A hugely underappreciated book. I remember all kinds of things from it." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Childhood's End

by Arthur C. Clarke

"This story of a singularity always stuck with me as something to prepare for." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

The Qur'an

"Read it through. It’s an amazing book." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Shantaram

by Gregory David Roberts

"You get an incredibly vivid, immersive, deep, and in some ways uplifting view of India and the underworld in India, into that part of Asia." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

by Cal Newport

"What you really want to do is to master something and to use your mastering of something as a way to get to your passion." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Gandhi

An Autobiography - The Story of My Experiments With Truth

by Mahatma Gandhi

"[This book] curiously led me to Jesus. [The author]'s stance of radical honesty prompted me to attempt the same. It started my spiritual awakening." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Future Shock

by Alvin Toffler

"[The author] was the one who introduced the term 'future shock' which was that people would actually have like a resistance or a reaction to the future." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Leaves of Grass

The Original 1855 Edition

by Walt Whitman

"While reading this classic poetic ode to America and possibilities ('I am multitude!') my gasket blew, and I became seized with an unstoppable urge to travel." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

Holy Bible

"Probably the most amazing thing you haven’t read yet." - Kevin Kelly (Source)

What the Dormouse Said

How the Sixties Counter culture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry

by John Markoff

"About the hippy origins of the personal computer industry." - Kevin Kelly (Source)