Introduction July 13th, 2015

Update December 30th, 2016

Two Books a Month November 28th, 2019


Social Enterprise - Summer 2015

  1. Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus
  2. Mastering the Machine Revisited: Poverty, Aid and Technology by Ian Smillie
  3. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher
  4. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day by Daryl Collins
  5. The Reluctant Innovator by Ken Banks

Nature & Environmental Ethics - Summer 2016

  1. My Story as Told by Water by David James Duncan
  2. Gardeners of Eden by Dan Dagget
  3. The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
  4. The Open Space of Democracy by Terry Tempest Williams
  5. The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram

Assorted Variety - Summer 2017

  1. Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky
  2. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon
  3. The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
  4. The Two Cultures by CP Snow
  5. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
  6. The Ability to Love by Dr. Alan Fromme
  7. Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr
  8. I Heard God Laughing by Hafiz
  9. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Materials, Urbanization, and India - Summer 2018

  1. Why You Don’t Fall Through the Floor by J.E. Gordon
  2. The Affluent Society by Kenneth Galbraith
  3. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
  4. In Indian Culture: Why do we… by Swamini Vimalananda
  5. How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz

Uncategorized

  1. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright
  2. 1984 by George Orwell
  3. On Writing Well by William Zinsser
  4. The Creator’s Code by Amy Wilkinson
  5. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
  6. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! By Richard Feynman
  7. It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd
  8. Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World by David Solnit
  9. Catching Homelessness by Josephine Ensign
  10. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

AIF Fellowship Year - 2019 to 2020

  1. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben
  2. The Green Belt Movement by Wangari Maathai
  3. Divine Beauty by John O’Donahue
  4. Disruptive Design by Leyla Acaroglu
  5. Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
  6. Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey
  7. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  8. Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
  9. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
  10. The Field Study Handbook by Jan Chipchase
  11. The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving Our Most Complex Challenges by Zaid Hassan
  12. The Carbon Farming Solution by Eric Toensmeier
  13. Creative Confidence by Tom & David Kelley
  14. Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows
  15. Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan M.D.
  16. Designing Regenerative Cultures by Daniel Wahl
  17. Growing Wings On the Way by Rosalind Armson
  18. Transformative Scenario Planning: Working Together to Change the Future by Adam Kahane
  19. The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Creative Potential of Social Design by Cheryl Heller
  20. The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley
  21. The Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand
  22. The Circular Economy – A User’s Guide by Walter R. Stahel
  23. Manifesto for a Moral Revolution by Jacqueline Novogratz

Summer of Design Prep 2020

  1. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
  2. Essentials by David Whyte
  3. Get Together by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, and Kai Elmer Sotto
  4. Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
  5. Long Story Short by Margot Leitman
  6. Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges by Otto Scharmer
  7. thoughtless acts? by Jane Fulton Suri
  8. Rethinking Design Thinking by GK VanPatter
  9. sticky wisdom by Dave Allan, Matt Kingdon, Kris Murrin, & Daz Rudkin
  10. Lo-Tek by Julia Watson

Time at Stanford

  1. The Universal Traveler by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall
  2. Edible Forest Gardens Vol 1 by Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier
  3. West Coast Food Forestry: A Permaculture Guide by Rain Tenaqiya
  4. Lectures on Urban Economics by Jan Brueckner
  5. Undercurrents: Channeling Outrage to Spark Practical Activism by Steve Davis
  6. The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier
  7. Geometry of Design by Kimberly Elam
  8. Elements of Design by Gail Greet Hannah

Currently Reading

  1. Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research By Tomer Sharon
  2. Build Better Products by Laura Klein
  3. Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas

Reading List

  1. Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work by Indi Young
  2. Interviewing Users by Steve Portigal
  3. Why We Fail: Learning from Experience Design Failures by Victor Lombardi
  4. Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss
  5. Edible Forest Gardens Vol 2 by Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier
  6. The Circular Economy Handbook by Jessica Long, Peter Lacy, & Wesley Spindler (24%)
  7. Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (16%)
  8. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1: Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat by Richard Feynman
  9. The Story of my Experiments with Truth by M.K. Gandhi
  10. The Wounding and Healing of Desire: Weaving Heaven and Earth by Wendy Farlay
  11. Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems by Barry Johnson
  12. The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly by Alan Briskin, Sheryl Erickson, John Ott, and Tom Callanan
  13. The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter by Juanita Brown
  14. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander
  15. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
  16. toast by Nigel Slater
  17. The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
  18. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  19. A Fortune-Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani
  20. The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail
  21. The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille
  22. The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo
  23. Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (30%)
  24. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  25. Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein (8%)
  26. How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand (8%)
  27. On China by Henry Kissinger (20%)
  28. मंटो - पंद्रह कहानियाँ selected by नंदिता दास