Reading List

I think people put things in artificial categories sometimes. Our health, our awareness, our management and leadership skills and styles are all intertwined. 

So while I am adding a few categories here to help you navigate by specific interest, just know that if something is listed on this page, it’s because it has applications in lots of ways. 

“Why is Managing [Up or Down] So Hard” Reads

• Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader by Hermania Ibarra 

• How to Become a More Well-Rounded Leader by Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project (article)

• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

• We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by adrienne maree brown

• On Becoming a Leader by Warren G. Bennis

• Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

• Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders by David Kantor

• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge

“I’M GONNA WORK IN THE WHITE HOUSE ONE DAY!!!!!!” or, Campaign Worker Reads

• [If you are looking at this category, do not pass go, do not collect $200, until you read this:] How to Become a More Well-Rounded Leader by Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project (article)

• They Said This Day Would Never Come: Chasing the Dream on Obama’s Improbably Campaign by Chris Liddell-Westefeld

• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics by Leah Daughtry, Yolanda Caraway, Minyon Moore, Donna Brazile, and Veronica Chambers

• Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women by Rebecca Traister

• Out For Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendenin and Adam Nagourney

• All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos

“What am I even doing with my life?” Reads

• Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

• Steering by Starlight: The Science and Magic of Finding Your Destiny by Martha Beck

• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Resilience Reads

• Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura Lipsky Van Dernoot

• It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn

• The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman

• Option B: Finding Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

• Notes from Your Therapist by Allyson Dinneen

• What Happens to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

• The Transcendent Child: Tales of Triumph Over the Past by Lillian B. Rubin

• Atomic Habits by James Clear

• Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh

“Our Bodies Are Not Subtle in the Signals They Send” Reads

• [See all recommendations in the Resilience section]

• The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey

• The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry

• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

“Structural Problems Are Not In Your Head” Reads

• The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die by Kenneth Payne

• The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich

• How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon

• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

“White People in America, Do the Self Education on Racism” Reads (just a start)

• James Baldwin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations by James Baldwin

• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper

• The Untold by Ruth King (article)

• Just Us by Claudia Rankine

Additional recs from me on things white people need to read on this topic here.