There are well over a hundred I have read over the course of my business life, but these are currently my top picks, selected because they are either unique or represent the first of their kind:
• The Art of War, Sun Tzu
• Book of Five Rings, Musashi
• Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great, The Arts of Leadership and War, Larry Hedrick
• The Social Contract, Robert Ardrey
• Territorial Imperative, Robert Ardrey
• Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M. Rogers (THE Seminal Work on which much of the rest is based)
• The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt (The foundation for the Whole Product concept developed by the Partners at Regis McKenna)
• Relationship Marketing, Regis McKenna
• Marketing High Technology, William Davidow
• Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
• Inside the Tornado, Geoffrey Moore
• The Gorilla Game, Geofrey Moore
• Guerilla Marketing, Jay Levinson
• TechnoBrands, Chuck Pettis
• The Origin of Brands, Reis and Reis
• The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, Trout & Trout
• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Trout & Reis
• The New Positioning: The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy, Trout
• Building Strong Brands, David Aaker
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy
• Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson