Summertime, and the Reading Is Easy

Now that it's officially summer, certain time-honored conventions are in effect: Frappuccinos have replaced lattes as the caffeine of choice, MLB stats sub for NBA trash talk at the watercooler, and suddenly, a lot of out-of-office "client meetings" are scheduled for Friday afternoons.

One of our favorite traditions is the annual switch into summer-reading mode. For once, we put aside those analysts' reports and must-read industry tomes and head, guilt-free, for the pure-indulgence side of the bookstore.

Once there, however, we hit a problem: So many choices, so little advice! To help narrow the field, we turned to some of the best-read members of the Fast Company team for suggestions. We asked for tips in three categories: a fun beach read; a classic that they've always meant to read or want to reread; and a good, contemporary nonfiction book.

Read what they had to say, and then add your own suggestions in Sound Off.

Bill Taylor

As a Fast Company founding editor, Bill spends most of his time reading and rereading Goodnight Moon (HarperCollins Juvenile Books, 1991) to his little girls. Ten minutes before he hits the sack, he's likely to be reading one of these.

Beach Read:
Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw
by Mark Bowden
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001)

I spend most of my time thinking the best of people and organizations: their motives, their aspirations, how they work. So it was great fun to read this absolute page-turner about one of the worst people imaginable -- drug czar Pablo Escobar, his colleagues in the Medellin cartel, and the against-the-odds (but ultimately successful) campaign not just to find him, but to eliminate him. This bloodthirsty terrorist with a sense of style finally met his match in some amazing technology supplied by the United States and the courage of a father-son team from the Colombian government. I was sorry to see Pablo go -- not because he didn't deserve to die, but because it meant the book had to end.

Classic:
Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology
by George Gilder
(Touchstone Books, 1990)

Every so often as a reader, you are lucky enough to encounter a book that changes the way you interpret the world. For me, with respect to the impact of digital technologies on business, Microcosm was that book. Gilder embraces and explains the logic of the microchip, and then applies it to strategy, competition, and organization. Not every revolutionary idea that Gilder set out 11 years ago has worked out -- but this book is right a lot more than it is wrong, and the disruptive arguments that Gilder makes are as exciting and energizing today as they were more than a decade ago.

Contemporary Nonfiction:
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
by Joseph J. Ellis
(Knopf, 2000)

I've never been completely comfortable with the rhetoric of revolution -- even when we use it in the pages of Fast Company -- given how miserably most revolutions actually turn out. That's why the American Revolution remains such a miracle, and the collection of leaders behind it the true "greatest generation." Ellis recently had his 15 minutes of undesired fame, but his personal foibles should not detract from this superb book. The chapter on George Washington's farewell address is alone worth the book's price. Founding Brothers is a stunning reminder that the one indispensable trait of leadership is humility -- a trait that is in short supply these days.

Alan Webber

A Fast Company founding editor, Alan won a poetry prize as a senior at Amherst College.

Beach Read:
Life Is So Good
by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman
(Penguin USA, 2001)

George Dawson, a 103-year-old grandson of a slave, who learned to read at age 98, reflects on life. He's someone we can all learn from.

Classics:
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
by Joseph Conrad
(Oxford University Press, 1998)