Best Books to Help Improve Your Life

Book Recommendations

Looking for books to read on your spare time? Here, we review and recommend certain books that may pique your fancy. We have sub-divided them into their genres, but we mostly concentrate on Non-Fiction Books (Business and Finance), with a lot of Graphic Novels, and Audiobooks thrown in for good measure.

If you want to see all the links to the book-related posts we have, this is a collective page for book reviews.

Book List Recommendations:

I want to read all the books in the world

When I was a little girl, I wanted to read all the books in the world. Little did I know that reading all the books in the world would be fairly impossible and a task that can never be done. It’s also good to say that I may not like reading all the topics of all the books in the world, so we’ve narrowed them down to a smaller niche.

Hopefully this post will try to address what you can read next. There’s plenty of blog posts out there that review and recommend books but I’m trying to put them all into nice little lists so you can easily bookmark this page and pick up your next book based on the below.

All of these books are what I’ve personally read myself. Keep coming back to this space to see more books being added on a monthly basis.

Book Reviews
Book Reviews

I don’t review all the books I’ve read on the blog, so you can also check out my Goodreads page if you are so inclined. You can even send me a friend request there to see all the books I’m currently reading and have finished.

Non-Fiction Book Recommendations:

Business & Finance:

Real Estate:

  •  How to Invest in Real Estate – Joshua Dorkin (great for beginners, but even if you’re more intermediate, you’ll definitely pick up some tips and lessons as well, we sure did)
  •  Guide to Managing Rental Properties – Brandon Turner (We still use this to this day as a basis for our rentals)
  • Loopholes of Real Estate – Garrett Sutton 
  • Investing in Income Properties – Kenneth Rosen (mostly about commercial real estate investing)
  • Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat – David Greene
  • Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate – Spencer Rascoff. This book helped me look for properties within our target area. Explains the ‘Starbucks/coffee shop effect’ and many others!

Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE):

  • Work Optional – Tanja Hester
  • Quit Like a Millionaire – Kristy Shen & Bryce Leung (The second best FIRE book I’ve read in 2019. The author is very relatable in terms of her writing)
  •  Financial Freedom – Grant Sabatier (This is the best FIRE book I’ve read in 2019, so far. It is so detailed and has a lot of actionable points)(
  • Playing with FIRE – Scott Rieckens
  •  The Millionaire Next Door – Thomas J. Stanley
  •  The Year of Less: Cait Flanders
  •  Meet the Frugalwoods – Elizabeth Willard Thames
  • The Automatic Millionaire – David Bach
  • How to Retire with Enough Money – Theresa Ghilarducci

Travel:

  •  Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World – Bob Sehlinger. Best travel guide book I’ve ever read. Try to pick up the latest travel guide books as you can. This book inspired me to go to the parks more and find more experiences to do! They also have a blog & website, TouringPlans
  • Unofficial Guide to Universal Orlando. Same as the above, but with a focus on Universal Studios Orlando.
  • Unofficial Guide to Disney Cruise Line. Again, same as above, written by the author’s perspective and their personal experiences about Disney Cruise Lines. Highly recommended, tons of information!

Parenting/Child-Rearing:

  • Cribsheet – Emily Oster (ideal if you’re expecting a baby or just had a newborn: debunks myths using data about kids!)
  • Bringing Up Bebe – Pamela Druckerman

Other Non-Fiction:

  • Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo & The Battle that Defined a Generation (excellent book if you’re into video games)
  • Felines of New York – Jim Tews. Cats. Lots and lots of cat photos. Need I say more?
  • Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Much – Tony Crabbe
  • Take One & Take Two – Take That. Because I’m a big fan of the band!
  • The Chancer – Shane Lynch. Because I’m a big fan of Boyzone. Enough said.
  •  Life is A Rollercoaster – Ronan Keating. Autobiography of Ronan Keating, published way back in the day but since I’m a fan of Boyzone, I’ll include that in the list too.

Fiction Book Recommendations:

I don’t regularly read fiction, but when I do and I like them, I’ll definitely recommend them here:

Novels

  •  The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood. Dystopian. Whoa. Now a TV series. The second book, The Testaments is even better than the first one.
  • The Testaments – Margaret Atwood. Amazing, amazing book at how everything ties together. It’s better if you read the first book, Handmaid’s Tale, before you pick up this book.
  •  To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before – Jenny Han (Young Adult)
  •  Crazy Rich Asians (series) – Kevin Kwan. Ever wonder what it’s like to be rich and living in high society? Well, look no further than this book!  Hilarious and amazing at the same time.
  • 12 Little Blue Envelopes – Maureen Johnson. Young Adult book but involves travel and it’s like a scavenger hunt across countries. Really loved it, so many countries!
  • One Day – David Nicholls. I first read this book while I was in the UK and ended up bawling like a baby.
  • Percy Jackson Series (5 books total) – Rick Riordan. Young adult but great if you want to learn more about Greek mythology.
  •  The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight – Jennifer E. Smith. Meeting a British guy and a whole day of coincidences lead to falling in love. Yes, please!
  • Harry Potter Series (7 books total + some others) – JK Rowling. Obviously.
  • The Hunger Games Series (3 books total) – Suzanne Collins. The book series are better than the movie, trust me.
  • The 39 Clues Series (10 books total). There’s a lot of books and multiple authors, but if you love history, and you love traveling across multiple countries and cities, then this book is for you. While marketed for children, adults can definitely read it too!
  • Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver. Think groundhog day. Repeating the same day over, and over, and over again, until you find out what you need to do and make right before you make peace with the world. Excellent storytelling.
  • Anna and the French Kiss – Stephenie Perkins. The best book I’ve read from 2011. Cute love story about an American girl and a Parisian boy. Takes you through different areas in Paris. Ooh.
  •  Lola and the Boy Next Door – Stephenie Perkins. Second book of the Anna series. While it’s not as good as the first book (Anna), it’s still enough to make you feel giddy about love.

Graphic Novels

*****




We only review books that we have read (or listened to) from cover to cover. Some of our reviews may be comprehensive, some may just be a few sentences about the book (as in the case for fiction or graphic novels), but the point is, we’re only going to review the books that we deem memorable and worth the time writing about.

*********

Want us to review your book?

If you want us to review your book, we will be happy to. However, we would only limit it to graphic novels, history or business and finance related.  We only accept books that have a physical copy, and not e-books. Apologies, but if after 30 pages, we are not engaged in your work, we will not be publishing a review for your book on the blog.

Note that we do not have a set turnaround time for book reviews. If you do have an urgent need, let us know and we can discuss it.

Still interested in letting us review your book and/or providing a blurb when you officially publish your book? Contact us below: