Amanda Palmer: Die Kunst des Bittens

Fellow TED speaker Larry Lessig delves deep into the intricacies of piracy and intellectual property. Added bonus, it’s available for free online as a PDF.

This is an absolutely incredible meditation (with academic underpinnings) about the nature of creativity and what "gift" actually means. Hyde looks at the value and meaning of the gift-giving gesture throughout time and cultures and finds out what we emotionally suspected all along: a gift is only truly a gift when it stays in motion.

I wrote an introduction to this book, and expanded on some of the themes of "The Art of Asking". Cory writes here about the state of copyright and creativity in the new wold west of the digital age.

Not directly related to my talk … but actually, it is. This book changed my life when I read it in my twenties, and it informed everything I created as a performer, a businessperson and a speaker.