1. One book only? Dave Meier’s The Accelerated Learning Handbook (2000) is the best. Practical, useful, with just enough of the history of Accelerated Learning, and the brain research behind it, to make you a lifelong believer. Additionally, the book offers a “smorgasbord” of imminently useful ideas, strategies, activities, and suggestions to make you an effective Accelerated Learning practitioner. It also gives you another way of looking at the four-step instructional design and delivery model I call the 4 Cs. I can’t say enough good things about this book. Notwithstanding the fact that Dave has been my mentor and friend for decades, his book is a great example of Accelerated Learning in written form—and a very practical resource for anyone who teaches or trains for a living.

2. If you like what you learned from Training from the BACK of the Room!, then you’ll love its prequel, The Ten-Minute Trainer: 150 Ways to Teach It Quick and Make It Stick (Bowman, 2005). Yes, it’s my own book. Yes, it’s one of my top five. Why? Because I wish a book like this had been available when I began teaching and training for a living. This book gives you a collection of 150 short, quick instructional activities that you can use with any topic and any group of learners. It also offers important brain research that has high impact on how we train. And it includes another way of looking at the 4 Cs instructional design and delivery process. A timely tome, if you don’t mind the alliteration.

3. Informal Learning (2007) by Jay Cross is a delightfully surprising gem of a book. Rather than writing a how-to book, Jay reintroduces you to a world you are already familiar with—that of informal learning—meaning all the powerful ways you learn, apart from formal classrooms. His book is a fast ride to a very different way of looking at teaching and training, with some great ideas for getting there once you realize how right he is.

4. Harold Stolovitch’s Telling Ain’t Training (2002) makes my top five list as well, perhaps even more for the way it is written: an interactive book that engages you even as you learn about learning. I don’t know whether, in real life, Mr. Stolovitch practices what he preaches when he presents and trains, but he preaches it well in his book. The short, reader-friendly exercises make the concepts both personal and relevant, as well as useful.

5. Because I am an avid reader of books on cognitive neuroscience, it was difficult to choose just one brain research book from the many excellent ones available. So I’m going to cheat and give you three that are all equally good. I’ll offer them with a caveat: They are aimed at an audience of educators in schools and colleges. This should not lessen their helpfulness; any corporate trainer should realize that there is no difference (at least as far as how the human brain learns) between “teaching” and “training.” The same brain-based principles apply. David Sousa’s How the Brain Learns (2006) is the most recent and contains a “Practitioner’s Corner” of practical application for the concepts in each chapter. Patricia Wolfe’s Brain Matters: Translating Research into Classroom Practice (2001) is very informative, with a toolkit of brain-compatible strategies. And Eric Jensen’s Brain-Based Learning (2000) is an excellent synthesis of both brain research and practical application of that research. Ah, I’ll add a fourth to this list—just to further confuse the confounded mind! Learning and Memory: The Brain in Action (1999) by Marilee Sprenger is a small volume with rich information on neuroscience that she brings up close and personal with her stories about teaching.