Book Mart’s Top 30 Books of 2020
By: Book Mart
Tags: Bibliophile, New Year Resolution, Books, Bookworm, Personal Development

It is that end of the year again where you start wondering what your 2021 reading list could look like. Worry no more as we are again sharing a list of 30 books that most customers bought from us this year. You could use the list as a new year resolution, for inspiration and a recommendation list for 2021. And most importantly, you could use the list as a source of that holiday gift you have been meaning to buy for someone. From Novels, to mental health, to improving your overall well-being, your business and to just laugh, we have got great reads that can accompany you in 2021. In no particular order, below is the list.

The things you can see only when you slow down by Haemin Sunim

Popular by Men and Women

The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to. In this best-selling mindfulness guide — it has sold more than three million copies in Korea, where it was a number-one best-seller for 41 weeks and received multiple best book of the year awards — Haemin Sunim (which means “spontaneous wisdom”), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.

By offering guideposts to well-being and happiness in eight areas — including relationships, love, and spirituality — Haemin Sunim emphasizes the importance of forging a deeper connection with others and being compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves.

2. Big little lies by Liane Moriarty

Popular by Women

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.

3. Ikigai by Albert Lieberman and Hector Garcia

Popular by Men and Women

The people of Japan believe that everyone has an ikigai — a reason to jump out of bed each morning. And according to the residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa — the world’s longest-living people — finding it is the key to a longer and more fulfilled life. Inspiring and comforting, this book will give you the life-changing tools to uncover your personal ikigai. It will show you how to leave urgency behind, find your purpose, nurture friendships and throw yourself into your passions.

4. Never split the difference by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz

Popular by Men

A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations — whether in the boardroom or at home.

After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues to succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles — counter-intuitive tactics and strategies — you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.

5. Dried Rose Petals and Lavender Buds by Salma Abdulatif

Popular by Women

Salma Abdulatif comes from a long line of radical Swahili intellectual tradition that stretches back to the 1800s. For decades that legacy was located primarily in the sacred sphere, in the religious world of Islam. As the release of her poetic collection amply demonstrates, however, while embracing that intellectual energy of her ancestors, Salma has also extended it to the secular domain. In spite of the generational progression of time, then, her poetry reveals not only a rupture with the ancestral intellectual tradition, but also a continuity that, in many ways connects the old and the new, the traditional and the modern, the religious and the secular. Salma gives herself to this work with generosity and patience. The poems are not only enriched with vulnerability and strength, but also prove that one cannot exist without the other. To experience this poetry book is to be in the room with a heart that is talking to itself.

6. A promised land by Barack Obama

Popular by Men and Women

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective — the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

7. Side hustle by Chris Gullibeau

Popular by Men

For some people, the thought of quitting their day job to pursue the entrepreneurial life is exhilarating. For many others, it’s terrifying. After all, a stable job that delivers a regular paycheck is a blessing. And not everyone has the means or the desire to take on the risks and responsibilities of working for themselves.

But what if we could quickly and easily create an additional stream of income without giving up the security of a full-time job? Enter the side hustle. Chris Gullibeau is no stranger to this world, having launched more than a dozen side hustles over his career. Here, he offers a step-by-step guide that takes you from idea to income in just 27 days.

8. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Popular by Men and Women

Paulo Coelho’s enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and soul-stirring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles in his path. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.

9. The Lost Diary by Adam Anthony

Popular by Women

A collection of experiences, personal, those of loved ones and close friends. The idea behind the book’s title is that, all experiences that were once a secret and living in a diary now gets to be read by everyone in form of a book.

10. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Popular by Women

Children of Blood and Bone is a West-African inspired fantasy set in the fictional land of Orïsha. It takes all the best bits of YA fantasy — princesses, tormented soldiers, the battle to restore magic vs suppress it — and does something completely new with these familiar elements. At its core, it’s an action-packed, fast-paced adventure to restore magic to the world and complete a ritual before the approaching solstice is over and magic is lost forever.

11. The Da Vinci Code

Popular by Men and Women

This is a very complex story, of reality, fiction, the test of character strength, the puzzles, the different viewpoints. It completely absorbs the reader.

A snipet to the story; While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci — clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

12. Julius Nyerere a Biography by Issa G. Shivji, Saida Yahya-Othman and Ng’wanza Kamata

Popular by Men

The most comprehensive and in-depth look at every aspect of the life of the man who became one of the greatest leaders and philosophers of the African Liberation, universally acclaimed as the Mwalimu of Africa.

13. Eat that frog by Brian Tracy

Popular by Men and Women

The legendary Eat That Frog! (more than 450,000 copies sold and translated into 23 languages) provides the 21 most effective methods for conquering procrastination and accomplishing more. The key premise is that if we ate a live frog first thing in the morning, everything else would be easy compared to that. It’s a good reminder to concentrate on the most important task instead of getting mired down in the smaller, unimportant ones.

14. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Popular by Men

Dale Carnegie’s first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

15. The 5 am Club by Robin Sharma

Popular by Men and Women

Legendary leadership and elite performance expert Robin Sharma introduced The 5am Club concept over twenty years ago, based on a revolutionary morning routine that has helped his clients maximize their productivity, activate their best health and bulletproof their serenity in this age of overwhelming complexity. The book has a step-by-step method to protect the quietest hours of daybreak so you have time for exercise, self-renewal and personal growth.

A neuroscience-based practice proven to help make it easy to rise while most people are sleeping, giving you precious time for yourself to think, express your creativity and begin the day peacefully instead of being rushed.

16. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Popular by Men and Women

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality

17. The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Popular by Men and Women

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love — that’s the challenge! How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?. In the #1 New York Times bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner — starting today.

18. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Popular by Men and Women

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream — along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.

19. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Popular by Men

Eckhart Tolle’s message is simple: living in the now is the truest path to happiness and enlightenment. And while this message may not seem stunningly original or fresh, Tolle’s clear writing, supportive voice and enthusiasm make this an excellent manual for anyone who’s ever wondered what exactly “living in the now” means. Foremost, Tolle is a world-class teacher, able to explain complicated concepts in concrete language. More importantly, within a chapter of reading this book, readers are already holding the world in a different container — more conscious of how thoughts and emotions get in the way of their ability to live in genuine peace and happiness.

20. Find Your Why by David Mead, Peter Docker and Simon Sinek

Popular by Men

With Start With Why, Simon Sinek inspired a movement to build a world in which the vast majority of us can feel safe while we are at work and fulfilled when we go home at night. However, many people have had trouble bringing the book’s message into their own career and company. Now, along with two of his colleagues, Peter Docker and David Mead, he has created a guide to the most important step any business can take: finding your why.

This easy-to-follow guide starts with the search for your personal why, and then expands to helping your colleagues find your organization’s why. With detailed instructions on every stage in the process, the book also answer common concerns, such as: What if my why sounds like my competitor’s? Can you have more than one why? And, if my work doesn’t match my why, what do I do?

21. My Life my Purpose by Benjamin Mkapa

Popular by Men and Women

His Excellency Benjamin William Mkapa was Tanzanian’s third president, elected under the first multi-party general election in Tanzania. His memoirs range from his childhood, time as president, and his continuing post-retirement involvement on the international stage of development and peace mediation. This book will appeal to readers interested in: an African’s personal experiences of colonialism in East Africa; the struggle for independence by the liberation movements of several African countries; how war helped unify the diverse citizens of a young nation; fostering nationalism and addressing ethnic and religious differences; the economic and social aspects of transition to socialism and then to a free market environment; the political transition from a single party state to multi-partyism; and relations with international organizations and development partners.

22. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Popular by Men

The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup.

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

23. Practical Leadership Guide by Ntangeki Nshala

Popular by Men and Women

Ntangeki Nshala brings forth the virtues of humility, prudence, courage and magnanimity in this book which are the cornerstone of authentic leadership especially in this time and age. The book has great content which is easy to appreciate and understand. It is built on direct, simple and practical cases with local context and applications.

24. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Popular by Men and Women

Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman’s brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our “two minds” — the rational and the emotional — and how they together shape our destiny.

Through vivid examples, Goleman delineates the five crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being. What emerges is an entirely new way to talk about being smart.

25. Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

Popular by Women

Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.

When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture that’s defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.

26. Atomic Habits by James Clear

Popular by Men and Women

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving — every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

27. Good to Great by Jim Collins

Popular by Men

Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world’s greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

28. Built to Last by James Collins

Popular by Men

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in this groundbreaking book that shatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance to those who would like to build landmark companies that stand the test of time.

Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies — they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 — and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day — as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: “What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?

29. Can you keep a secret? by Sophie Kinsella

Popular by Women

Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets: Secrets from her boyfriend: I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. Secrets from her mother: I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur. Secrets she wouldn’t share with anyone in the world: I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is. Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger.…Until Emma comes face-to-face with Jack Harper, the company’s elusive CEO, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her.

30. The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Popular by Men

A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.

In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don’t cover.

And that's a wrap. See anything you like? Have read or would like to read? share with us your inspirational books.