Holiday reading recommendations from 10,002
Our pick of page turners, business books, non-business-books-that-are-actually-business-books and more to feed your curiosity
Hey there! We’re on summer break at the moment. Summer holidays are for getting out of the routine, and getting into a good book or three so as we take a break from our regular format, here’s our recommendations for some alternative books to feed your curiosity and break your routine this summer.
Best summer holiday page turner
TOBY: Unequivocally it’s The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It is all thrills and spills, high adventure and low skullduggery, an absolute ripping yarn adventure story that keeps you riveted! If Dumas were born today this would be some badass TV series, such is the richness of plot, the fullness of the characters and the relentless pace
TOM: A page turner should suck you right into a different world, have you walking in different shoes, looking at the world through different eyes, and it should do it in a way that makes you never want to shed them. The last book that did that for me was His Bloody Project. It’s gripping from the get go, it’s inventive in its construction and yes, it’s a little bit dark. I couldn’t put it down.
Best business book that isn’t a business book
TOBY: Weirdly most great books about business aren’t written about business, some tangentially relate and some have nothing to do with it, but instead write about complexity theory (Stuart Kaufmann At home in the Universe, or Robert McKee’s Story. Robert Mckee has written an excellent book about how to write a great screenplay. If you substitute “screenplay” for “strategy”, it talks about quality of narrative, harmony through the story, plausibility and zero waste, so no part of the film should be redundant, but in some way contribute to enriching the experience. Every strategy should be judged by these elements, and should, like a great film, be able to blend complex themes with rich motivations in a way that is exciting and plausible.
The second half goes into a dissection of Casablanca, if Boggie, Bergie and war contraband are your thing, play it again Sam. Who knows, you may find it in you to write a screen play.
TOM: It contains significantly fewer movie anecdotes than Toby’s choice, but nevertheless I strongly recommend reading Doing Good Better by William Macaskill. On the surface it’s a book about effective altruism - it bumps do-gooders from high income countries firmly out of their assumptions about what good looks like (spoiler alert: it ain’t taking a holiday to go and build a school, nor is it sponsoring a goat). But it goes further than exploding many of your preconceptions: it’s also really smart on measurement, models of return and strategy. If you’re interested in impact, or simply think you might want to make a difference beyond the bottom line, read this.
Best business book
TOBY: The sad truth is about 90% (conservative estimate) of business books are a bit of a waste of space, typically a reasonable article stretched so thin it has become translucent. As some wise person once said, the only money made from business books is writing them. That said, there are some thoughtful and revealing books that give you a rethink.
This might sort of fit in the previous category, but would definitely recommend Mervyn King and John Kay’s Radical Uncertainty. It is a really interesting take on what uncertainty is in the economy (and business) and how this is not risk, thereby pulling the rug on a lot of economic and financial theory! I found it human, reflective, really well considered, and a great antidote to the tendency to model everything, as well as write off people as irrational vs what they should do in a rational world (some digs at Kahneman there). The book asks you to think about how to deal with uncertainty, how to make complex choices and living with an unknowable future. As the authors describe, it is a “book about how real people make choices in a radically uncertain world”.
TOM: I hardly ever re-read books, but I have read Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt three times, and each time reminded myself of what a great book it is - and discovered something new, something applicable to what I’m working on right now. I think what lifts it above the run-of-the-mill business book is three things: firstly it’s extremely practical - designed to be applied in real life, secondly it’s applicable at many different levels of business and many different types of strategy - not just ‘Capital S’ Strategy. Finally, the clue’s in the title: in the same way that strategy is as much about what you choose NOT to do, so this book doesn’t just show you what good looks like, but equally importantly, what BAD looks like - how to recognise and rectify.
Best children’s book that adults should read
TOBY: I never got my kids to read this, parenting fail maybe. But a book I absolutely loved was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It is hugely creative - a boy, Milo, transported to the Kingdom of Wisdom where he has to find the princesses, Rhyme and Reason. It is a book about an early teenager’s resentment of learning, and how his journey with the Watch Dog, Tock, takes him through a world of puns, wordplay and maths. At one point Milo suddenly finds himself on the land of Conclusions; when asking how he got there, he is told he jumped, obviously….
TOM: If you have kids, then chances are you’ve come across the Gruffalo already (in fact, like me, you can probably recite much of it by heart!) but if you haven’t, I’d commend it to you as life advice for our times: it inspires bravery, imagination and chutzpah in equal measure.
Thanks for reading this summer special edition of 10,002 - we’ll be back in two weeks with more business model innovation, strategy and general curiosity.