open-bookI’m a huge reader and always have been. When I was a kid, my nose was pretty always stuck in a book. I read everywhere I could I would climb a tree and settle in to read for hours. Before dinner at the table, and always while riding in the back seat of cars. I had a book with me at all times, and now, even as an adult that’s true.

Though it pains me a bit to admit it, I’ve become a Kindle Convert. For years I swore I would never give up my paper books…I enjoyed the earthy smell and tactile feeling of being able to flip through the pages. But 2015 found me giving in to the convenience of digital. While it’s handy to be able to “carry” hundreds of books with me, the #1 reason I now love Kindle on the ipad is the ability to pull the highlighted bits from a book directly into a word document.

You see, I’ve been a highlighter addict since high school. The thrill of highlighting the most important passages, or favorite quotes, or new ideas has never gone away. As I became an adult, I always swore that I would go back through books I’d read before and copy the highlighted bits into a notebooks, so that I’d always have the most helpful information at hand. But of course, that was just a dream and could never find time to read through everything twice.

So now, with the ability to “highlight” the best parts of every book and put them directly into Evernote where I can actually use them, it means that I’ll be getting back to some heavy reading this year. Below is my top 9 books to conquer in 2016.

  1. Presence by Amy Cuddy
  2. Rising Strong by Brene Brown
  3. The Confidence Code by Katty Kay & Claire Shipman
  4. Men Explain Things TO me by Rebecca Solnit
  5. The Success Principle by Jack Canfield
  6. Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath (again)
  7. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
  8. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg & Justine Mares
  9. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson