Summer Reading 2016

What are you reading now?
The new Harlan Coben book, “Fool Me Once.” I love mysteries, and Coben is one of my favorites, up there with Michael Connelly and John Sandford. It doesn’t hurt that most of Coben’s stories take place near where I live.

Tell us about a recent favorite.
I liked the Maze Runner books. The books themselves were good, but what really made them enjoyable was that my kids are at the age where they can read those books as well, so we were able to read them together. Any book that lets me get more “engaged” with my kids will be a recent favorite.
 

What’s a business book you would recommend to everyone?
I don’t read a lot of classic business books. “Getting to Yes” was a good base for negotiations in helping both to formulate strategies and identify strategies being used against you. But I tend to like the “biographical” business books more like “DisneyWar” or “The Informant.” Not exactly classic business books, but you can learn a lot from them nonetheless.

What’s next on your list?
Don’t really decide until I finish what I’m reading. Probably the new Michael Connelly or John Sandford. It is time for summer reading after all.

Paper or digital? Or both?
Prefer digital, but either is fine.

What are you reading now?
Re-reading “Team of Rivals,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Tell us about a recent favorite.
“The Score Takes Care of Itself,” by Bill Walsh
It reaffirmed things I already believed: Get the right people in place, the right process and standard of performance in place — and the results take care of themselves.

What book that you read as a young person has stuck with you?
“The Road Less Traveled,” by M. Scott Peck

What’s a business book you would recommend to everyone?
“Mindset,” by Carol Dweck

Paper or digital? Or both?
Both

What’s next on your list?
“In the Light of What We Know,” by Zia Haider Rahman

What are you reading now?
I have just started “The Road to Little Dribbling,” which follows the hilarious adventures of one Bill Bryson after his return to England. He so succinctly encapsulates our fascination with eccentric name places such as “Little Puking,” along with our eager participation in equally eccentric pastimes such as the Roundabout Appreciation Society :)
 
Tell us about a recent favorite.
I recently spent a month in India and was advised to read “Shantaram,” by David Roberts. It’s based on a real story of an Australian convict who escapes prison and finds his way to India with nothing but the shirt on his back. He ends up in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai and is befriended by a local. I spent a day or two in the slum while I was there and I have to say the book provides a remarkable insight into the world of the people who inhabit one of the poorest places on earth. It is a truly incredible culture that reflects the very best of humanity, perhaps best summed up as “the kindness of strangers.”

What’s a business book you would recommend to everyone?
“Creativity, Inc.,” by Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and the Walt Disney Animation Studios
Ed tells how he, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter created a culture at Pixar of fail fast, fail often and fail fearlessly. It describes the creative process at Pixar such as the “Brain Trust,” where anyone can bring in something they are working on and get completely honest feedback that they can choose to accept or ignore. This type of an environment has led to an incredibly collaborative culture, all in search of big innovative ideas.
 
Paper or digital? Or both?
Paper. I love to visit bookstores, especially those that, by design, invite you to search by deliberately not being overly organized. My favorites are Strand Books on Broadway in New York, Hatchards on Piccadilly in London and Shakespeare and Company, opposite Notre Dame, on the Seine in Paris. If you love bookstores and, in particular, secondhand bookstores, then you must visit Hay-on-Wye in England. It’s a small village made up entirely of secondhand bookstores.
 
What’s next on your list?
A visit to Hay-on-Wye :)