In 1903, two bicycle mechanics flew a thousand-dollar plane. Nine days earlier, a fifty-thousand-dollar government machine had sunk in the Potomac.

Wilbur and Orville Wright reduced flight to lift, control, and propulsion, then built only what those three demanded. That way of deciding has a name, First Principles Thinking, and it opens this book.

The Big Book of Mental Models gathers 165 thinking tools from economists, psychologists, military strategists, poker players, and philosophers, and rebuilds each one for creative work. Each chapter opens with a story, explains why the model works, gives numbered steps for your next project, and names the mistakes that break it.

• Second-Order Thinking follows Francis Ford Coppola as he holds out against Paramount to cast Al Pacino.
• The Sunk Cost Fallacy chapter opens on Howard Hughes, who paid a crew for twenty-nine years to keep a plane ready after its only flight.
• The 1,000 True Fans chapter starts with Amanda Palmer's 24,883 Kickstarter backers and works out how many fans a living takes.

The bundle holds the book and a bonus guide.

• The book arrives as a PDF, an EPUB, and a MOBI file, so it opens on a laptop, a phone, or an e-reader, and the EPUB also works with Amazon's Send to Kindle.
• The Model Maker's Manual comes free with this bundle, the only edition that includes it.
• The paperback sells on Amazon and leaves out the Manual.

The bundle costs $9, and buying here sends more of the price to the author. [Delivery: confirm how the files arrive, such as a download link by email.]

Get the bundle for $9.