Looking for a good book to read this summer? I have a few to recommend. I’ve read sixty-one books in 2012 and can weed out a lot of bad ones for you. Most importantly I can point you to the good ones! There are some gems in the list below.
The book I’ve talked the most about is, ironically, Quiet, by Susan Cain. Loved this book and I’ve recommended it to dozens of people. Best business book would be Great by Choice, by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, though Good Strategy Bad Strategy, by Richard Rumelt is a close second. Best religious book is Culture Making, by Andy Crouch; it’s simply excellent. Best biography or autobiography is Eisenhower in War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith. The book that was the most fun to read was Turn Right at Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams, and my favorite fiction was the hard boiled detective book Taken, by Robert Crais.
Here’s the full list:
What Every Body Is Saying, by Joe Navarro
Great by Choice, by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen
Dressed for Death, by Donna Leon
Culture Making, by Andy Crouch
Engines of Change, by Paul Ingrassia
All Things Shining, by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly
Until Tuesday, by Luis Carlos Montalvan
The Dictators Handbook, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
When Helping Hurts, by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett
From Foreign to Familiar, by Sarah Lanier
The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, by James Martin
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
Turn Right at Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams
On the Shortness of Life, by Seneca
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli
Momentum, by Eric and Bill Johnson
Why I Am So Wise, by Friedrich Nietzsche
Shiloh, 1862, by Winston Groom
The Mighty and the Almighty, by Madeleine Albright
The Next Convergence, by Michael Spence
Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla by Marc Seifer
The End of Illness, by David Agus
Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency, by Mark Updegrove
On Pilgrimage, by Jennifer Lash
Start With Why, by Simon Sinek
Good Strategy Bad Strategy, by Richard Rumelt
The Barbarian Conversion, by Richard Fletcher
The Price of Civilization, by Jeffrey Sachs
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney
The Arab-Israeli Conflict, by Ian J. Bickerton
Eisenhower in War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith
Longitude, by Dava Sobel and William Andrewes
You Are Not So Smart, by David McRaney
Coming Apart, by Charles Murray
Istanbul: Memories and the City, by Orhan Pamuk
Code Talker, by Judith Avila and Chester Nez
What Matters Now, by Gary Hamel
Don’t Get Me Wrong!, by Judith Reker and Julia Grosse
Jerusalem: The Biography, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Strategic Vision, by Zbigniew Brezezinski
The Shaping of an Effective Leader, by Gayle Beebe
Poustinia, by Catherine Doherty
Explorers of the Nile, by Tim Jeal
Keynes Hayek, by Nicholas Wapshott
The Next Decade, by George Friedman
Lost Kingdom, by Julia Flynn Siler
Loving Our Religious Neighbors, by Josh Daneshforooz