Reading great books has become easier than ever before. With Amazon, the Kindle, the iPad and great iPhone apps like Audible, you can carry dozens of books in your pocket every day.

The question becomes what to read? Where should I invest my time?

As I travel across the country, I frequently find myself having conversations with colleagues about the books they are reading. These referrals and recommendations are often how I determine which authors are worthy of my time and attention.

Here are the last three books I’ve read:

1) Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried. These are the 37 signals guys who have brought to life some great technology stuff like Ruby on Rails. This is a quick read with some good points. I only wish I was able to bring to reality some of the principles they suggest about work-life balance and project execution.

2) Come to Win by Venus Williams. This book features interviews of dozens of athletes who have gone on to be successful business leaders. They share how the principles and disciplines they learned as athletes apply to their professional success.

3) On Writing by Stephen King. Now I’m not really a fan on the genre of writing Stephen King is famous for, but I am a fan of the skill it takes to be a great writer. Those skills are what Stephen discusses in this book. If you write, this is worth a read.

I’m currently reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. It’s all about creating and managing change. They start off with a great analogy about how our emotional minds are elephants and our logical minds are the rider. It’s no easy task riding an elephant and keeping it going in the right direction. Ever since starting the book, I can’t get the image out of my mind of the contrast  between the powerful elephant that represents our emotions and the tiny rider that represents our logic. The rider spends most of its day struggling with the elephant to keep it on course. Sounds reasonable!

What are you reading? Got any good recommendations to share?