Books we recommend
A curated library of books that have shaped our thinking and practice. Great leadership is built on great reading.
Our reading recommendations
Here is a selection of thought-provoking reads that have sparked insight, challenged assumptions, and deepened our understanding of leadership, change, and human potential. These are books we have found insightful and believe others may also find valuable. Each title is available through all the usual bookstores, inviting readers to explore what resonates and add a few to their own shelf of inspiration. Click on the subject area below to see the list of books.
The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self
by Michael Easter
The Comfort Crisis is a lively mix of science, storytelling and practical insight that encourages readers to rethink how comfort shapes modern life. …
Never Settle
by John Richardson Attia Qureshi
Never Settle is a practical, research informed guide to mastering everyday persuasion and negotiation. …
The Balancing Act
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The Balancing Act is Nedra Glover Tawwab’s research‑grounded guide to navigating the spectrum between hyper‑independence and hyper‑dependence, offering readers a practical path toward healthy interdependence. …
Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection
by Ben Rein PhD
Why Brains Need Friends offers a clear, research rich explanation of why social connection is not optional for human wellbeing but a biological requirement. …
Fair Share: How Men and Women Can Create a More Equitable Workplace Together
by W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith
Fair Share: How Men and Women Can Create a More Equitable Workplace Together by W. …
Artificial Intelligence: Rethinking Business Strategy
by Teresa Martín-Retortillo
This book examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping business strategy beyond simple automation and productivity gains. …
How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most
by Harry Reis & Sonja Lyubomirsky
This book explores a simple but powerful idea: being loved and feeling loved are not the same thing. …
The Intuition Toolkit: The New Science of Knowing What without Knowing Why
by Joel Pearson
The Intuition Toolkit: The New Science of Knowing What without Knowing Why explores the fascinating science behind intuition and explains when it deserves our trust and when it does not. …
How We Think: Ten Thinker-Types to Understand Ourselves and Those Around Us
by Marius Ostrowski
How We Think: Ten Thinker-Types to Understand Ourselves and Those Around Us by Marius Ostrowski explores why intelligent people can see the same situation so differently. …
Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It
by Claude M. Steele
Claude M. …
The Power of Us
by Jay Van Bavel & Dominic Packer
The Power of Us by Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer is a sharp, eye-opening look at one of the most powerful forces shaping human behaviour: identity. …
Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know®
by Erica Chenoweth
Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know® by Erica Chenoweth is a clear, compelling guide to one of the most powerful forces in modern politics: ordinary people acting together to change the world. …
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
by Erica Chenoweth, Maria Stephan
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict is a powerful, data-driven book that makes a surprising case: when ordinary people resist without weapons, they are often more effective than armed movements. …
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
by Max Bennett
A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett is a fascinating, big-ideas book that connects the evolution of the human brain with the rise of artificial intelligence. …
Everything is Tuberculosis
by John Green
Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green is a quietly devastating, deeply human book that reframes one of the world’s deadliest infections as a mirror for our choices, values, and global inequalities. …
Deep Purpose
by Ranjay Gulati
Deep Purpose by Ranjay Gulati is a powerful, highly practical guide to the one thing that can transform both business performance and the world: a genuinely lived corporate purpose. …
How to be Bold
by Ranjay Gulati
How to Be Bold by Ranjay Gulati is a fresh, science‑driven take on courage that reframes boldness not as a rare heroic trait, but as a skill anyone can build. …
The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy
by Josh Ireland
The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy by Josh Ireland is a pulse‑pounding blend of history and espionage that reads like a Cold‑War spy thriller. …
Am I Normal
by Dr Alex George
Am I Normal by Dr Alex George is an honest, warm, and deeply relatable book about what it means to feel “normal” in a world that rarely feels safe for difference. …
How to Hide an Empire: A History of The Greater United States
by Daniel Immerwahr, Luis Moreno
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr is a revelatory look at the United States not as a democracy that “does not do empire” but as a global power built on vast territories, islands, and militarized outposts long excluded from the popular imagination. …
Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better
by David Epstein
Inside the Box presents David Epstein’s persuasive case that the limits we often try to escape are the very conditions that help us think more clearly and create more boldly. …
How Change Really Works: Seven Science-Based Principles for Transforming Your Organization
by Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer, Philip Jameson
How Change Really Works offers a practical and deeply human guide to organisational transformation. …
The Last Human Job
by Alison Pugh
Alison Pugh explores the vital but often invisible work of “connective labour" - the empathetic, relational effort people put into building genuine human connections in professions like healthcare, education, and caregiving. …
A Thousand Brains
by Jeff Hawkins
Jeff Hawkins presents the “Thousand Brains Theory,” arguing that intelligence emerges from thousands of cortical columns in the neocortex, each learning its own model of the world. …
Co-Intelligence
by Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick reframes AI, especially large language models, as collaborators rather than replacements, “co-intelligences” that expand human capability. …
The Alignment Problem
by Brian Christian
Brian Christian explores the central challenge of AI: ensuring powerful systems act in line with human values. …
The Dawn of Everything
by David Graeber & David Wengrow
Graeber and Wengrow challenge the linear narrative of social evolution from egalitarian bands to hierarchical states. …
The Horde
by Marie Favereau
Favereau reinterprets the Mongol Empire, emphasizing its sophisticated governance and global influence rather than its brutality. …
Drunk
by Edward Slingerland
Slingerland challenges modern scepticism about alcohol, arguing intoxication has long served useful evolutionary and social purposes. …
Covering
by Kenji Yoshino
Kenji Yoshino introduces “covering,” the pressure individuals face to downplay aspects of their identity to fit dominant norms. …
Blueprint
by Nicholas A. Christakis
Christakis argues that humans are biologically predisposed toward building cooperative, good societies, guided by what he calls a universal “social suite.” This includes love, friendship, cooperation, mild hierarchy, and learning, which appear across cultures and even in survival situations. …
Mindful Work
by David Gelles
David Gelles explores the growing intersection of mindfulness meditation and the modern workplace, examining how contemplative practices are being integrated into corporate America. …
Dirtbag Billionaire
by David Gelles
David Gelles profiles an unconventional billionaire whose lifestyle and values challenge traditional expectations of extreme wealth. …
The Man Who Broke Capitalism
by David Gelles
In this critical examination, David Gelles argues that one individual, likely Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric, fundamentally transformed American business in ways that have proven deeply damaging to workers, communities, and long-term economic health. …
The Nvidia Way
by Tae Kim
This book traces Nvidia’s evolution from a graphics card maker into a company at the forefront of AI. …
Seeing Around Corners
by Rita McGrath
Rita McGrath shows how businesses can spot “inflection points”, major shifts in markets and technology, before they disrupt entire industries. …
Being You
by Anil Seth
Neuroscientist Anil Seth redefines consciousness as the product of the brain’s predictions, not an ineffable mystery. …
Blueprint
by Blueprint
Robert Plomin argues that DNA is the single most important factor shaping our intelligence, personality, and life paths—accounting for about half of psychological differences. …
The Knowledge Machine
by Michael Strevens
Michael Strevens explains that science’s success stems not from superior rationality among scientists, but from a strict rule he calls the “iron rule of explanation.” According to this rule, only empirical evidence can settle scientific disputes, personal beliefs and philosophies must be left out. …
The Knowledge Illusion
by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach
Sloman and Fernbach argue that we systematically overestimate what we know, falling into the “illusion of explanatory depth” when pressed to explain everyday objects or concepts. …
What We Value
by Emily Falk
Emily Falk, a neuroscientist and communication researcher, explores the science behind human values and how they shape our decisions, behaviours, and social interactions. …
Negotiation
by Roy J. Lewicki
Negotiation, by Roy J. …
Talk
by Alison Wood Brooks
In "Talk," Alison Wood Brooks explores the science and art of conversation, blending psychology, behavioural science, and communication theory. …
Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember
by Claire Greene
Claire Greene takes readers on a fascinating journey through the quirks and complexities of human memory. …
You Already Know: The Science of Mastering Your Intuition
by Laura Huang
Laura Huang, a Harvard Business School professor, makes a compelling case that intuition isn't mystical but rather a sophisticated form of pattern recognition that can be developed and refined. …
Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life
by Jim Murphy
Jim Murphy presents a comprehensive approach to mental training that integrates performance psychology with deeper questions of purpose and meaning. …
Is your work worth it
by Christopher Wong Michaelson and Jennifer Tosti-Kharas
This book examines the fundamental question of whether our professional efforts align with our personal values and life goals. …
The Perfection Trap
by Thomas Curran
Thomas Curran’s The Perfection Trap examines the sharp rise in societal perfectionism and its damaging effects on mental health, including anxiety, depression, and burnout. …
The Righteous Mind
by Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan Haidt explores why morality is such a divisive force, both politically and socially. …
Get Better at Anything
by Scott H. Young
Scott Young offers an evidence-based roadmap for mastering skills and driving self-improvement. …
The Certainty Trap
by Ilan Samson
Ilan Samson examines our deep psychological craving for certainty and the dangers it poses. …
Forgive for Good
by Fred Luskin
Dr. …
Rewire
by Richard O’Connor
Psychotherapist Richard O’Connor explores why bad habits and self-sabotage are so difficult to overcome. …
The Sweet Spot
by Paul Bloom
Paul Bloom challenges the common belief that happiness simply means maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. …
The Fear Factor
by Abigail Marsh
Neuroscientist Abigail Marsh investigates why some people act with extraordinary kindness while others show little empathy. …
Human Compatible
by Stuart Russell
Distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. …
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
Dr. …
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
by Richard Rumelt
Rumelt cuts through the noise around strategy with refreshing clarity. …
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn
In this book, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. …
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert Cialdini
Cialdini identifies six universal principles of influence - reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity and shows how they shape human behaviour in profound ways. …
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman's landmark work introduces us to System 1 and System 2. …