Books on Investing, Building Businesses & Living Well
My favourite books, honest reviews and personal reading notes. I’m Carles Carrera, co-founder of AMS and founder of RSPro. I read to sharpen my judgment about business, money and how to spend my time.
Some books change how I think. Others disappoint me. Below, I explain what stayed with me, what did not, and which ones I return to.
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Choose your next read
A few starting points, depending on what you want to explore. The book titles below link to Amazon; scroll down for my full reviews and reading notes.
Investing and money
Richer, Wiser, Happier — William Green
Start here if you want investing wisdom that reaches beyond a portfolio. I value it as much for its lessons on living as for its interviews with great investors.
Quality Investing — the team at AKO Capital
For a deeper study of durable businesses, returns on capital and reinvestment. More textbook than light reading; I bought a physical copy to study it properly.
Building businesses and brands
The Messy Middle — Scott Belsky
For builders working through the difficult middle of a venture. One of my favourite books on products, product marketing and building companies, with notes I want to keep revisiting.
Building a StoryBrand — Donald Miller
For making your brand’s message clearer. I found its storytelling framework practical and actionable, especially for explaining why a customer should care.
Freedom and how to live
Four Thousand Weeks — Oliver Burkeman
For questioning what deserves your limited time. I read it as philosophy rather than a productivity manual: life is finite, so think carefully about how you spend it.
Essentialism — Greg McKeown
For doing less, more deliberately. Its approach increasingly resonates with me; this is an easy read I want to return to.
Curiosity and technology
The Thinking Machine — Stephen Witt
For the story of Jensen Huang and Nvidia, and the challenge of building for a technological future before the market fully sees it. I enjoyed the engineering mindset, while keeping some scepticism about its view of AI.
The Lessons of History — Will & Ariel Durant
For a short book worth rereading slowly. I have read it three times and keep finding connections with my own life and the world around me.
For how these ideas connect with my own decisions, explore my investing notebook and essays on business and independent thinking.
