As consultants, we are required to constantly stay up to speed on industry trends and the latest news. But summer always proves to be a good time to find out what our consultants read for fun – whether it’s a beach read while on vacation or something to further their professional career. Therefore, every year we conduct an informal poll asking Propheteers across the globe what they are reading and which books they would recommend to others. This list often provides others enough quality reading material to get to next summer. From history to mystery and a bit of everything in between; there were some clear topics that are trending among the Prophet team and we are happy to share them with you below:
Books for Summer Sorrow:
A Dog’s Purpose
By: W. Bruce Cameron
The book chronicles a dog’s journey through four lives via reincarnation and how he looks for his purpose through each of his lives.
The Underground Railroad
By: Colson Whitehead
The alternate history novel tells the story of Cora and Caesar, two slaves in the southeastern United States during the 1800s who make a bid for freedom.
The Beautiful Struggle
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
An exceptional father-son story about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us and the love that saves us.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
By: Khaled Hosseini
Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born an generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect.
A Blast From the Past:
Behold the Dreamers
By: Imbolo Mbue
A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
By: Mark Sulivan
The triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.
The Looming Tower
By: Lawrence Wright
A historical look at the way in which the militant organization Al-Qaeda came into being, the background for various terrorist attacks and how they were investigated and the events that led to the September 11 attacks.
Grant
By: Ron Chernow
Grant, a Union general during the Civil War, served two terms as president, from 1869 to 1877. Chernow asserts that Grant’s presidency has been seen in an undeservedly negative light.
Books for Lifelong Learning:
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
By: Adam Grant
It examines how people can champion new ideas—and how leaders can fight groupthink.
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
By: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
A fascinating, illuminating and witty look at what the vast amount of information, now instantly available to us, reveals about ourselves and our world— provided we ask the right questions.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
By: Angela Duckworth
Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.”
That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together
By: Joanne Lipman
Filled with illuminating anecdotes, data from the most recent studies and stories from Joanne Lipman’s own journey to the top of a male-dominated industry, it shows how we can win by reaching across the gender divide.
Summer Reading with Suspense:
Emma in the Night
By: Wendy Walker
One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: fifteen-year-old Cass and seventeen-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held.
The Snowman
By: Jo Nesbo
With brilliantly realized characters and hair-raising suspense, international bestselling author Jo Nesbø presents his most chilling case yet—one that will test Harry Hole to the very limits of his sanity.
In a dark, dark wood
By: Ruth Ware
What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.
Prey
By: Michael Crichton
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles— micro-robots—has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.
Light Reading for the Summer:
Conversations with Friends
By: Sally Rooney
Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth and the messy edges of female friendship.
Little Fires Everywhere
By: Celeste Ng
A riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.
American Marriage
By: Tayari Jones
An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.
Burning Girls
By: Claire Messud
The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality―crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence.
Shareworthy Books:
Speak, Memory
By: Vladimir Nabokov
An elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and The Defense.
Shoe Dog
By: by Phil Knight
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing and profitable brands.
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
By: Brad Stone
The Everything Store will be the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
By: J. D. Vance
A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Books to Read for Fun:
Crazy Rich Asians
By: Kevin Kwan
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season.
Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One
By: Terry Crews
From NFL player turned film and TV star Terry Crews comes a wise and warmhearted memoir chronicling his lifelong quest to become a good man, loving husband and responsible father.
Here at Prophet we do more than read to stay active in the summer, we write. Many of our Propheteers are authors too, check out some of their best-selling publications:
In addition to being intriguing, authentic and involving, most strong signature stories are indeed stories instead of facts, have a strategic message, and link back to the brand. Beyond that they pop on one or more key story elements such as empathetic characters, emotion, tension, surprise, or a challenge to be overcome and are presented with flare and professionalism.
The Shift: The Transformation of Today’s Marketers Into Tomorrow’s Growth Leaders
By: Scott M. Davis
The Shift charts a dramatic new role for marketing. A challenge every firm should embrace.
X: The Experience When Business Meets Design
By: Brian Solis
Brian Solis shares why great products are no longer good enough to win with customers and why creative marketing and delightful customer service too are not enough to succeed.
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (10-Year Anniversary!)
By: Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
When consumers you’ve never met are rating your company’s products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence over, your company is vulnerable. In Groundswell, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity.
Stay tuned in the coming months for more information on an upcoming book, “The Healthcare Shift” by Scott Davis and Jeff Gourdji due for release in early 2019!