10 Books to Add to Your Reading List This Summer  

Summer is the perfect time to catch-up on your reading list. Whether you’re looking for leadership inspiration or want to be entertained by the latest fiction, we’ve pulled together a list of business books and poolside delights to dive into this summer.

Non-Fiction – Business & Inspiration

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
By: Stephen R. Covey
If you haven’t read this book, then it’s time to. Covey, a renowned leadership authority, talks readers through how to balance personal and professional effectiveness for success in business and in life with 7 Habits: Be Proactive, Begin With The End In Mind, Put First Things First, Think Win-Win, Seek First To Understand Then Be Understood, Synergize, and Sharpen The Saw. Get your highlighter and notebook ready and learn critical lessons about the habits of successful people and how to apply them to your life.

The Power of Habit
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
By: Charles Duhigg
In The Power of Habit uses scientific discoveries to explain why habits exist and how they can be changed and transformed. You’ll also learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. And discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. and see how implementing keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success. Duhigg argues that the key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

The Coaching Habit
Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
By Michael Bungay Stanier
If you’re a manager, this book is a great read for you. Learn how to unlock your team’s potential by saying less and asking more. This book discusses essentials to good leadership by asking seven types of questions: Get straight to the point in any conversation with The Kickstart Question, Stay on track during any interaction with The Awe Question, Save hours of time for yourself with The Lazy Question, Save hours of time for others with The Strategic Question, Get to the heart of any interpersonal or external challenge with The Focus Question, and The Foundation Question, Ensure others find your coaching as beneficial as you do with The Learning Question. The book combines insider information with research based in neuroscience and behavioral economics, together with interactive training tools to turn practical advice into practiced habits.

Never Split the Difference
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
By Chris Voss
A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI, Chris Voss, offers readers a field-tested approach to negotiations, whether you’re buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, or deliberating with your partner, this book tries to give you a competitive edge in negotiating. To get the most out of the book, be sure to practice the lessons on your family, your colleagues and your friends along the way.

Crushing It!
How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too
By Gary Vaynerchuk
This book is filled with lessons, tips and inspiration from dozens of influencers and entrepreneurs who rejected the predictable corporate path in favor of pursuing their dreams by building thriving businesses and extraordinary personal brands. Learn to amplify your personal brand on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, iTunes and other platforms.

Factfulness
We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
By Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling
Hans Rosling, along with his two colleagues, explains how unconscious and predictable biases, media bias, and ideological preconceptions makes people believe in a gloomy and wrong worldview. The book carefully explains by data and examples how positive developments are systematically underreported, while disaster news are vastly over-reported. Rosling categorizes the 10 most important sources of bias and misconceptions as well as explaining strategies on how to avoid them.

Fiction – Business Book Break

The Handmaid’s Tale
By: Margaret Atwood
The book behind the award winning Hulu produced series of The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the near future and describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead. The new regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population. The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order, she reveals to the readers the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm façade.

The Tuscan Child
By Rhys Bowen
Nearly thirty years after British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his plane in 1944, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, returns home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia, a woman her father found refuge with during the war. In it is a startling revelation, so Joanna embarks on a journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history. The story is engrossing, the characters are well drawn and believable and the description of the scenery and the food are wonderful.

The Butterfly Garden (The Collector Series Book 1)
By Dot Hutchison
Near an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden. In this garden is a collection of precious “butterflies”, young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens. When the garden is discovered, a survivor, Maya, is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers.

Matchmaking for Beginners
By Maddie Dawson
Marnie MacGraw wants an ordinary life—a husband, kids, and a minivan in the suburbs, and when she marries the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. But, when her marriage only lasts two weeks, her life is thrown into a new direction. An inheritance from her husband’s matchmaking great-aunt, Blix Holliday, takes her to a Brownstone in Brooklyn. A smart and witty read, perfect for the pool.