If you admire the real estate investment acumen of private equity giant the Blackstone Group and would like some tips on how to run a successful business, you may want to pick up this book of memories and advice by Blackstone’s current chairman and CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman.

Another prominent player in the commercial real estate industry, A. Alfred Taubman wrote this memoir of how he went from being the dyslexic son of first generation immigrants in Detroit to a successful real estate developer with a billion-dollar fortune (with a few detours along the way—in the 2000s, Taubman was convicted of and served time for price fixing involving Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses.)

This book by Herb Auerbach and Ira Nadel looks at the world history of real estate development, including some figures you may not immediately think of as real estate entrepreneurs, including Alexander the Great and France’s Cardinal Richelieu.

The Big Short, which entered the popular consciousness through the 2015 movie starring Steve Carrell, looks at the causes of the subprime mortgage boom and subsequent financial crisis of 2008.

This is an autobiography of a man who helped develop the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, the Place Ville Marie in Montreal and the Mile High Center in Denver. At one point in his career, Zeckendorf also owned New York’s Chrysler Building and Hotel Astor. He was also instrumental in turning a former slaughterhouse on the East Side of Manhattan into the site of the United Nations complex.

In another book that takes a close look at the dynamics of the 2008 housing and mortgage crisis, New York Times reporter Charles V. Bagli examines Tishman Speyer’s and BlackRock’s ill-timed deal to buy New York’s multifamily complexes Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village and its consequences (most of which Tishman Speyer itself managed to escape).

This book by Christopher Knowlton looks at the 1920s migration boom to Florida cities, including Coral Gables, Boca Raton and Miami Beach, and its unintended environmental and financial aftermath.

If you’ve been looking at the stock market lately and wondering what has been driving its momentum amidst a pandemic, Nobel Prize-winning economist Shiller might have some answers for you. His book looks at how the “irrational exuberance” among stock and bond investors has not been tempered by the tech bubble of the early 2000s or the housing bubble of 2007. Instead, it seems to have only gotten stronger in the years since.

In this book, William C. Rempel tracks the story of this often-forgotten dealmaker who played a pivotal role in the development of both Hollywood and Las Vegas.

Known for his off-the-cuff-remarks that sometimes land his in trouble, Zell writes about his business successes, mistakes and what he learned through the experiences.

Adrienne Brown’s book examines how the emergence of mega-buildings in the late 19th and 20th century influenced Americans’ perception of race.

Mark Seal’s biography looks at the life of a man who built many of Houston’s iconic buildings, including The Galleria, and launched a global real estate investment company.

Robert A. Caro’s book is a biography of Robert Moses, the public official who forever reshaped New York City and the surrounding region with his construction projects, both for the better and for the worse.

No list of books about commercial real estate would be complete without mentioning this 1987 memoir by the outgoing U.S. president, written in collaboration with journalist Tony Schwartz. The book follows Trump from his Queens childhood through his development projects and taking over control of The Trump Organization. It also includes an 11-step formula for running a successful business.

This book by activist Jane Jacobs, which came out in 1961, examined the dangers of poor urban planning decisions and the dark side of gentrification long before the term became commonplace. If you have trouble placing Jacobs, she was briefly portrayed in the popular TV show The Wonderful Mrs. Maisel at a rally protesting plans to build new expressways by Robert Moses.

The newest entry into the “how on earth did they get away with this?” genre, Billion Dollar Loser examines the rise and fall of WeWork and its founder Adam Neumann, including his relationship with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and WeWork’s notoriously unorthodox culture.

In this book set in New York City in 2003, writer Vicky Ward looks at the bidding war for midtown Manhattan’s storied General Motors building and features the who’s who of commercial real estate, including Harry Macklowe, Sam Zell, David Simon and Donald Trump.