our 5 top reads from 2022
If you’re on the hunt for Christmas gift inspiration, look no further! After canvassing the eg team, we have collated our top 5 reads of the year for you, all chosen to help you effect change – business or personal – in 2023.
Most of us are too busy most of the time. If this is you, or a colleague/friend/significant other on your Christmas list, then we recommend delving into Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. This book will help you to reflect on your relationship with time and what you choose to do with your life. Are you worried that you haven’t got time to visit all the relatives, clean the house, put on the best street Christmas lights display and put up your feet to read over the holidays? We have the answer for you: embrace JOMO over FOMO. Read the book (or our article on Time to be you to find out more)
Our next recommendation has been around a while, but the insights are as relevant as ever. Conscious Business by Fred Kofman will help you to explore how to do business mindfully, be open to learning, take agency and be a player not a victim and collaborate for the best results – because, ‘A conscious business fosters personal fulfilment in the individuals, mutual respect in the community, and success in the organisation.’ Exploring mini case studies and killer questions like ‘Why do you want what you want?’ this is a provocative and rewarding read.
It's often been said that innovation flourishes where experts come together from different backgrounds and contexts to collaborate. Well, consider what the world of business could learn from the world of secret intelligence. In an age where we're bombarded with information and yet have limited time to make sense of it and pressing needs to make decisions, David Omand in How Spies Think shows us how the frameworks used by British intelligence can help make sense of data and lead to sharper decision making.
If there’s someone on your Christmas list who is suffering from climate anxiety, give them The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrahams. Reflecting on her life's work as an evolutionary biologist and philanthropist, Jane shares stories that illustrate why she is hopeful that humanity will be able to rise to the greatest challenge we have collectively ever faced - Climate Change. It’s a message we’ll be taking to heart in our sustainability work.
Jane’s four reasons for hope
The amazing human intellect
The resilience of nature
The power of young people
The indominatable human spirit
Moving on from hope to living our best lives, Matt Haig’s beautifully written novel, The Midnight Library is about the choices we have in our lives and the paths we might have chosen. Without giving too much away, our reviewer finished this book thinking about the folly of regrets.
Happy holiday reading!
