The Essential Summer Reading List

Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success
Matthew Syed (2015)
Category: For the Self-Improver

We’ve all experienced the sharp pain of failure and the subsequent pain of admitting to that failure. We’ve also all experienced an ache for success, yet we continuously underappreciate the best guide to success we will ever have: failure. It offers us objective, valuable, and constructive feedback – and it is up to us to accept, admit and improve our mistakes. In this book, Matthew Syed reveals the surprising truth about success: that it is guided by failure.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell (2006)
Category: For the Self-Improver

We make thousands of decisions every day, most in the blink of an eye. These snap judgements are a powerful tool; they allow us to go about our lives without the burden of constant deliberation. We get it right more often than not, but in stressful situations our instinctive snap judgements can be biased and lead us astray. Gladwell advocates the art of “thin-slicing”. With this method, quick decisions can be as good as those deliberately thought out – if we first learn which instincts to trust and which to dismiss.

Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior
Erez Yoeli and Moshe Hoffman (2022)
Category: For the Academic

Is human behavior irrational or are we just looking at it through the wrong lens? MIT economists Yoeli and Hoffman offer a number of scenarios in which game theory explains our most puzzling behavior. From Stockholm syndrome to internalized misogyny, the mathematical concept of game theory has a surprising power to explain our innately human irrationality.

How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
Katy Milkman (2021)
Category: For the Self-Improver

What obstacles stand in the way of where you are and where you want to be? What drives the inability to start that task you know you need to do? Impulsivity, procrastination, forgetfulness, laziness or a lack of confidence? If any of these behavior change traps sound familiar, then a trip to your favorite virtual or physical bookstore might be overdue. In this book, Professor Katy Milkman reveals how we can leverage the benefits of a fresh start, how commitment devices can support our long-term goals, and the importance of our social group in achieving those goals. She draws on her academic background within the field of behavior change to offer various practical tools to overcome the most common hurdles on the path to becoming the person you want to be.

Inside The Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference
Dr. David Halpern (2016)
Category: For the Academic

Inside The Nudge Unit illuminates some of the most interesting and unexpected behavioral insights learned at No.10 Downing Street during David Cameron’s administration. Author David Halpern is a behavioral scientist and chief executive of the Behavioral Insights Team, or colloquially known Nudge Unit, which has been operating since 2010, using behavioral insights to make simple yet powerful changes to public policy. Halpern advocates the use of experimental methods in finding the best solution to governmental and corporate problems. This is an essential guidebook for both policy makers and business leaders keen to reap the rewards of behavioral insights.

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
Sunstein, Kahneman and Sibony (2021)
Category: For the Academic

Much has been written about human bias and its effect on decision-making – this book looks at the even larger offender: noise. Noise is the variability in decisions that should remain identical due to an array of random, exogenous factors. Though arguably most applicable to fields such as law, public health, forensic science, medicine, hiring and child protection, Noise has important implications for investment teams, too – Noise shows the cost of our own inconsistencies, and offers solutions for reducing it.

Outliers: The Story Of Success
Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
Category: For the Self-Improver

What is the recipe for success? Grit, hard work and determination you might say. But what other ingredients are mixed in? In Outliers, Gladwell brings our attention to the role of our origins, date of birth and sheer luck in our ability to reach acclamation. He emphasizes the importance of practice and introduces the now famous 10,000 hour rule to becoming a master of your field. However, practice alone is insufficient as who we are, where we are from and luck are also important driving factors of success.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
Adam Grant (2021)
Category: For the Self-Improver

Why did everyone’s taste for Blackberries suddenly change to Apples in 2007, following the release of the first iPhone? Put simply, Blackberry creator Mike Lazaridis was unable to rethink and unlearn. In this book, Adam Grant teaches us how to Think Again and provides us with the tools to help others do the same. He reminds us that it is often easier to stand steadfast in our beliefs than to grapple with new ones. In doing so, however, we often stand steadfast in the past.

Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want
Dr. Grace Lordan (2021)
Category: For the Self-Improver

Think Big is a comprehensive guide to achieving your biggest goals and overcoming the behavioral biases and blind spots we face along the journey. This book is lined with interactive questionnaires that help break down seemingly insurmountable obstacles into easy and actionable steps. Think Big is the type of book you keep on your desk and continuously refer to whenever life throws you a curveball, or if you just need some motivation to get back on track.