At Infinite, we believe it’s our responsibility to own our growth, and reading is one of the ways we take ownership of our expertise and thought leadership. Reading resource-rich marketing books helps us learn valuable insights and emerging trends, challenges our perspectives with new ideas, and empowers us as we push ahead as underdogs in an industry of giants.
Whether reading fiction or nonfiction, self-help or magical realism, reading affects everything from idea generation and expansion to empathy and understanding. To give you a glimpse into our personal reading habits for cultivating thought leadership, we’ve cut through the clutter and compiled a booklist where every choice is a five-star favorite.
OUR TOP 20 BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
In no particular order, read along with our team at Infinite with these top 20 book recommendations for owning your growth and kickstarting creativity.
R.E.D. Marketing by Greg Creed and Ken Muench
We read this book as an agency with the goal of cultivating a common language for how we discuss both the science and the art behind what we do. Part case study, part handbook, it synthesizes in a simple way how relevance, ease, and distinctiveness are key ingredients of great marketing and advertising work. As an added bonus, there’s an extensive list of book recommendations included by a fellow agency team who loves to learn.
The Art of Client Service by Robert Solomon
A book specially tailored to the nuanced role our brand managers own in our agency, this agency handbook delivers wise and practical tips for how to run accounts day-to-day with excellence and a sharp, detailed eye. Whether exploring how to be great with clients and win new business, to how to write briefs that lead the way for great work, Robert Solomon lends a clear and expert voice to a role that involves a lot of learning on the job. This is a book that shows up again and again in our brand management book clubs.
Uptime by Laura Mae Martin
We usually have way too many tabs open in our browsers and brains. Tailored to Google Suite users, this book provides clear and clever processes for how to handle email inboxes and task management, how to find time to do what’s most important, and practical wisdom for life. Laura Mae Martin is focused on new takeaways–even for the already chronically organized–efficiency, and output, and our Gmail folders will never be the same.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
Although not overtly a marketing book, Ina Garten inspires creativity and gumption like an agency founder. We particularly loved listening to this audiobook, since it’s narrated by Ina Garten herself. Her debut memoir is an inside look at her beginner’s mindset, tenacity, grit, and willingness to take risks. Vulnerable, personally telling, and brave, this book is the whole package. If you listen while exercising, you’ll push that extra mile because you won’t want to stop listening.
You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
Better listeners ask better questions and get better results. Listening is a vital skill to hone, and this book helped us learn how to better serve our clients and team. From how expert focus group facilitators pick up on important threads to scholars who uncover important insights, this book is well-researched and interesting. In the chapter on audiology, we did realize that we’ve most likely lost some hearing at our fun and loud agency events—but now we’re equipped to be better listeners with the hearing we have left.
Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze
We always read the books our clients recommend, and this was a recent suggestion. It details the founding story of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, written by the founder himself, and offers an inspiring reminder of how delivering excellence with humility creates ripple effects across work and culture, and establishes a lasting legacy.
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
Emails, headlines, briefs, strategies, Slack messages—no matter our role, we’re all writers. And we’d be willing to bet that, regardless of what you do in your career, writing well is also vital for you. Thankfully, this powerful little book helps anyone become a better writer. Those pesky grammar rules that seemed impossible to commit to memory in school are made much more obvious, simple, and witty (like effect vs affect, and en dashes vs em dashes), and how stylistically to look smart on paper without appearing snooty.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Creating space for productive creative output can be challenging. We’ve all experienced what it feels like to hit a wall and feel stuck. How do we find our way back to inspiration and great work? Each of Twyla Tharp’s brief essays offers a thought or idea for how to add helpful and practical depth to the creative process. Whether she discusses how to “build a bridge” from one full day to the next, or ways to augment your studio or office space with what inspires you, Tharp shares wisdom that crosses career roles and fields.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
This was a team read in 2020, and is still one of the best books on the science behind habits and intentional habit formation. The simple, practical wisdom can be applied to every area of life to help hone skills and achieve goals. How to habit stack is a favorite takeaway from this book—whether it’s tracking your time after ending a Zoom call or reviewing your tasks for the day after opening your laptop, finding ways to alleviate mental load while achieving more is a win-win scenario.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Dare to be different—not simply for the sake of being unique, but because the outliers are those courageous and audacious enough to make waves, shift culture, and create great work. Malcolm Gladwell examines in Outliers what really makes for standout success, and how true achievement measures up against society biases. As with any of his books, it’s engagingly written with fascinating real-world examples and sparks of insight. Learn how to influence your output with lasting results in mind.
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
Ed Catmull makes us all want to be more creative and better thinkers. He’s proven through legendary success that underdogs are incognito powerhouses who push themselves and uncover new ideas. A fascinating and gripping read on everything from how to be creative and succeed as an underdog in an industry of superstars, to how to be a great leader and ways to take care of a team well, this book is phenomenal. It offers an inside scoop on the making of classic Disney-Pixar movies like Toy Story, while also detailing insights gleaned from a team who pioneered new projects and learned how best to have each others’ backs along the way.
Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
Communication is a key component of quite literally everything we do. How can we all get better at something so fundamental? Charles Duhigg writes openly about his personal and professional need to grow in communication and connection skills, and how that exploration led to him writing this fascinating and vulnerable book. Supercommunicators details how we can become more thoughtful communicators, and covers everything from how the most successful hostage negotiator gets people to dish on themselves, to how to read between the lines of nuances in speech in order to understand what’s really being said.
On Writing by Stephen King
While we may not be writing novels at Infinite, we are always working to create killer headlines and manifestos. Written by the King of suspenseful storytelling that pulls you in and grips you tightly, this gem of a book on writing well is part handbook, part memoir. It highlights process, input and output, how to be of service and how to hone your craft. Plus, his firsthand telling of his near-death experience reads like it’s straight out of one of his novels.
The Brand Flip by Marty Neumeier
Consumers drive culture shifts, and consumers care about being part of something bigger that matters. Marty Neumeier helps us “flip” our thinking from being products or sales driven, to being consumer and meaning focused. Knowing your target market isn’t enough anymore. Instead, helping people become who they aspire to be is how we find connection and brand loyalty. This book brings a new layer of intention and empowerment to how we think about marketing and advertising.
This is Marketing by Seth Godin
Effective marketing isn’t about us, it’s about who we serve. Prolific and full of wit, Seth Godin is an author not to be missed on any agency booklist. We enjoyed This is Marketing for its thought-provoking take on why marketing creates culture and drives change, and how to build brand loyalty with a tribe and your smallest viable market in mind. Godin’s blog is also worth subscribing to for daily and thought provoking content.
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
Are we overcomplicating the issues that arise in our work when actionable solutions are small and simple? This book on process and revisiting the classic checklist will encourage rethinking what feels like complicated problems, and inspire improving even small things done daily. We’re not quite sure how Atule Gawande manages to be a surgeon, professor, staff writer for The New Yorker, and award-winning author of bestselling books, but consider us awe-inspired fans.
Give and Take by Adam Grant
Is it possible to prioritize generosity and still get ahead in your career? Adam Grant argues that it’s not only doable, but that giving time, resources, and opportunities to others is a key ingredient to staggering personal success. This book thoughtfully explores how some whip-smart creatives achieved their stellar reputations by focusing more on the success of others, rather than their own wins. It encapsulates well our ethos for our own work: we win when our clients win.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
How can we deeply settle into our work with excellence and purpose? In our distracted, hyper-connected world, it can be difficult to cultivate undistracted times of focus and thoughtful output. This book offers practical solutions for how we can circumvent distraction and sustain creativity—and even inspired our meeting-free Friday afternoons as a way to carve out opportunities for deep work.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
This one may be unexpected for an agency booklist, but it’s an incredibly unique and thought-provoking novel. Historical fiction meets magical realism meets stylistic brilliance, the setting mostly takes place in a cemetery, where President Abraham Lincoln’s late son, Willie, is in a purgatory or transitional state (the bardo) and a fascinating, other-worldly struggle involving the other resident ghosts ensues. It explores the common themes of love and loss, alongside the timeless elements that lead to a life well lived.
Contagious by Jonah Berger
What is the secret sauce that makes ideas go viral, whereas other ideas barely get a passing nod? Jonah Berger walks us through what the key ingredients are for virality and spreadability with interesting case studies and profound insights. From baby names to $100 sandwiches, surprising stats and thoughtful examples illuminate what the key ingredients to popularity actually are, and how you can make your next idea more compelling and shareable by igniting word-of-mouth.
What are you reading?
Are there any vital, top-tier books we missed including? What do you plan to read next, and what should be next on our TBR (to be read) list? We are always looking to grow ourselves and our team of thought leaders. If you’re an avid reader who loves to learn, you’ll probably fit in well at Infinite. Connect with us at hello@theinfiniteagency.com!
