Marshall is an avid reader and keeps a stack of all-time favorite reads on the top shelf of his bookcase. He profiles the three best books he reads in any given year in an annual letter, archived below. Send Marshall a note if you would like to hear about a recent favorite selection.

Previous Best Books Lists

• 2021 Download PDF

• 2020 Download PDF

• Summer 2020 Download PDF

We often think that our daily actions are a result of intentional decisions and planning when, for the most part, they are driven by automatic behaviors – otherwise known as habits. Charles Duhigg has written a fascinating and fun to read book on habits and how they reign supreme in shaping our behavior.

He explains that all habits follow a step-by-step pattern of cue, routine, and reward, and that identifying these three component parts is the key to unlocking change.

While the book shares some of the neuroscience that explains habitual activity, the wide variety of anecdotes it uses to make its points make for a fast-paced read. These include how stacking certain daily habits aided Michael Phelps’s success, including a world record win in Beijing despite his goggles filling with water and blinding him early in the race; how linking a craving to a habit enabled Procter & Gamble to build Febreze into a billion dollar brand; and how certain individuals broke addictions to smoking, alcohol, or that afternoon cookie that was causing weight gain.

I found the book useful since habits play such a central role in both successes and shortcomings. Duhigg provides a roadmap to identifying and changing a habit, but also offers the hopeful and empowering assertion that all habits can be changed. An afterword and appendix share real reader stories of using the book’s techniques to effect change and a reader’s guide to using the ideas.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Charles Duhigg

2012

When all is said and done, I think Charlie Munger, who is Warren Buffett’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway, will be remembered as a wide-ranging polymath whose wit and wisdom is as much worth memorializing as Benjamin Franklin’s (who just happens to be one of Charlie’s heroes). It is this depth of wisdom that makes David Clark’s compilation of quotes, and accompanying commentary, so valuable.

Clark pulls content from a wide variety of speeches, articles, and company meetings where Munger has presided, and arranges the book into four primary sections. He has much to say on successful investing and business philosophy, of course, but the broadly applicable gems lay in the final section called, “Charlie’s Advice on Life, Education, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In this section, we get his unfiltered views on personal development (“spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up”) and relationships (“the best way to get a good spouse is to deserve a good spouse”).

For another take on this book, check out David Senra’s awesome Founders podcast episode on it (Episode #78), where he reviews his favorite portions of the book. To go deep on Munger, there is no substitute for Poor Charlie’s Almanack, which contains full texts of many of his speeches and contributions from many friends and family members that know him best. He is an individual worth studying and The Tao of Charlie Munger is an excellent synopsis of his thinking and ideas.

The Tao of Charlie Munger

Quotes by Charlie Munger, Commentary by David Clark 

2017

This book tells the remarkable story of Corrie Ten Boom and her family from the late 1930s through the conclusion of World War II. The Ten Boom’s were a Dutch family that committed themselves to do all in their power to help and protect Jews living in Holland during the Nazi occupation. Driven by her family’s faith, Corrie became a leader in the Dutch underground, her home a key waypoint and hiding place for Jews, which included a literal hiding place – a covert compartment behind a bedroom wall on the top floor of their modest home.

Corrie was 52 when she was arrested by the Germans, along with her father, sister and numerous others living in the house. As a recognized leader of the Dutch underground she was imprisoned, including some time in solitary confinement, before she and her sister are ultimately relocated to Ravensbruck, a horrific concentration camp for women in Germany. The conditions, circumstances, and experiences there are as awful as you can imagine.

While Corrie and her family’s acts were remarkable and daring before her arrest, their capacity to love, hope, and endure through the months at Ravensbruck are absolutely extraordinary. Much like Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, this book expresses how great the human capacity to persevere is when supported by faith and hope in something greater.

The Hiding Place 

Corrie Ten Boom

1971