Katana o motanai samurai
The title sounds like a paradox: a samurai without a sword. Masao Kitami explains this image as follows: a person’s true strength lies not in weapons or formal authority, but in their inner state, character, and ability to influence others without coercion.
Self-Development
Business
The Road to Financial Freedom
"The Road to Financial Freedom" was published in Germany in 1998 and became a bestseller that most readers in the post-Soviet space have known since the 2000s. For its time and its audience, the book played a role similar to the one Hill played for Americans in the 1930s—it offered the first structured look at personal finance for people who had grown up in a system where private capital was not encouraged and financial literacy was not taught.
Business
Self-Development
The Psychology of Money
"The Psychology of Money" was published in 2020 and has become perhaps the most widely read book on personal finance and investing in the last ten years. Morgan Housel didn’t write it as a textbook or a step-by-step plan for building wealth. He wrote a collection of essays—twenty short chapters, each of which explores a single idea about how people actually think about money and why that mindset often undermines their financial well-being.
Psychology
Business
Think and Grow Rich
"Think and Grow Rich" was published in 1937 and, over the course of more than eighty years, has become one of the best-selling books in the history of the self-help genre. According to various estimates, over 100 million copies have been sold. It has been read, quoted, and recommended by Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, and hundreds of well-known entrepreneurs. To understand the culture of motivational literature, reading this book is practically a must.
Self-Development
Business
Principles: Life and Work
"Principles" is an autobiography, a management guide, and a philosophical manifesto all in one. Dalio describes how he built Bridgewater Associates from scratch in his apartment in 1975 and turned it into a fund with over $150 billion in assets. At the same time, he explains the system of thinking and decision-making that made this possible.
Business
Self-Development
The 48 Laws of Power
"The 48 Laws of Power" is one of the most controversial books in the business and psychology genres. Robert Greene spent three years studying biographies and texts ranging from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu to Bismarck and Talleyrand, and used this material to compile a catalog of principles governing how power is gained, maintained, and lost.
Psychology
Business
The Black Swan
"The Black Swan" was published in April 2007. A year later, in September 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression began. What Taleb had described as a theoretical possibility—a catastrophic event that no one had foreseen and that changed everything—became a reality before readers’ very eyes.
Psychology
Business
Fooled by Randomness
"Fooled by Randomness" is Nassim Taleb’s first and most personal book, written before he became a global intellectual star. Taleb is a former options trader who spent years on the trading floors of New York and London. His key observation, which he turned into a book, is that most people considered successful have actually just flipped a coin and gotten lucky. Both they themselves and those around them have confused chance with skill.
Psychology
Business