With summer here, it’s time to get a fix on those books you really want to read this summer. As I said when I served up my first summer reading list back in 2007, if you want to multitask and combine your reading with an opportunity to glean some great management wisdom, here are five books on my summer reading list you might want to add to yours:

• The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, by Alain de Botton. You might not believe it based on this blog, but I have a soft spot in my heart for anything that is philosophical in nature. That’s why I’m intrigued by the premise of this new book by Alain De Bottom: that despite the fact that we spend most of our waking lives at work—in occupations that we often chose at a young age without a great deal of thought—we rarely spend much time asking what our occupations really mean to us. “With a philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom,“ says the description on Amazon.com, “Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacture, accountancy to art—in search of what make jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying.” Given our current economic condition, this is a great time to reflect on the nature of work and career, and this seems like a good book to help do that with.
• Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. I’ve heard Gladwell speak several times, and I really enjoyed his earlier books like The Tipping Point and Blink. That’s why I want to make some time to finally get to his latest book with a very strong workforce component to it: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? That’s certainly a question I want to get the answer to, and Gladwell’s notion about the myth of the “self-made man” and his premise that superstars “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot” is one that ANYONE who manages people should think about.
• The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It, by Christine Pearson and Christine Porath. I must say, this looks like a worthy follow-up to Bob Sutton’s The No-Asshole Rule (another book you need to read if you haven’t already). The two Christines examine the toll that bad behavior can have on otherwise well-functioning companies, and they reveal strategies that successful organizations are using to stop incivility before it takes hold. I’m not sure if they have all the answers to this eternal problem, but I’m going to take a read and see what they say.
• Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City, by Michael A. Lerner I’m fascinated by Prohibition, mainly because it is an object lesson in how an overzealous minority can push through a law that no one really wants and just about everyone tries to ignore. There are some good workplace issues that come out of that, and how New York coped with Prohibition has got to be fascinating. This is a book that’s been one my nightstand for a year. This summer, I vow to get to it.
• The Last Editor, by Jim Bellows. It’s not often you get to read a book about or by someone you worked closely with, and that’s my connection to this autobiography by Jim Bellows. He hired me and was my first editor back at the late, great Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. I learned a lot about life and journalism from watching Jim, and I’m sorry I missed his funeral this spring when he passed away at age 86. A consummate street fighter who loved the challenge of being at the No. 2 operation in town, Bellows developed superstar journalists like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin as well as generations of guys like me. Plus, Jim was a great editor and sharp businessman who knew how to battle a bigger and better-funded competitor to a standstill—lessons we could all use today.

Got a good workforce book worth reading this summer? Let me know what it is—I’ll list the best suggestions I receive here in a future blog post.

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