BLT (3/6/21): Book Club!

Book Club. Well, not Book Club per se – we usually have a Business Book Club a couple of times a year, where we talk about the Business Book we’re reading / have read / which has influenced us the most.

However, this year in lockdown, we’ve expanded the list to those books which we’ve enjoyed reading (or re-reading).

I’ve picked five of the BLT group’s choices from the Business (non-fiction) section, and five from the fiction section. No Mark, I’m sorry, but The 50 Best Toilets in the World didn’t make it into either of the lists!

Non-fiction

 The Goal: Eli Goldratt. A manager has 90 days to save his plant. “Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal, a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world.”

Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Patrick Lencioni. A modern day fable of a struggling Silicon Valley CEO. “Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results).”

Stories of the law and How it’s broken: The secret barrister. A real-life barrister uncovers the murkier goings-on in his profession. “I’m a barrister. I work in the criminal justice system, and every day I see how fairness is not guaranteed. Too often the system fails those it is meant to protect. The innocent are wronged and the guilty allowed to walk free. I want to share some stories from my daily life to show you how the system is broken, who broke it and why we should start caring before it s too late.”

A promised land: Barack Obama. This only covers Obama’s first presidency, so you’ll probably have to fork out again for his second (to be published) book, oh and Michelle’s whilst you’re at it! “A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective-the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. “

Elon Musk biography: Robert Hanson. I think this was the right biography…there appear to be a few! “A self-made billionaire, Musk has not simply strived to make money. What makes him most unique, is that in all of his ventures, his ultimate goal is to create a better future for humankind.”

Fiction

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: Rachel Joyce. One of my favourite books from lockdown; beautifully written, and packs an emotional punch with a huge ‘didn’t-quite-see-that-coming’ twist. “When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.”

War and Peace: Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy said War and Peace is “not a novel, even les is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle”, but at almost 1,300 pages and 560,00 words, it has become the official byword for a lengthy piece of work. However, it’s only 1/3rd of the length of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu at around 1.5m words…just that doesn’t sound quite as impressive!

 Middlemarch George Eliot. “The greatest ‘state of the nation’ novel in English, Middlemarch addresses ordinary life at a moment of great social change, in the years leading to the Reform Act of 1832.”

Les Miserables: Victor Hugo. You’ve heard the songs, you’ve seen the musical…but have you read the book? ‘All human life is here’ Cameron Mackintosh, producer of the musical Les Misérables.

Circe: Madeline Miller. Greek fables & myths bound up in a novel. “Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE.”

About BLT

Business Let’s Talk (BLT) is a small but perfectly formed networking group. Pre-pandemic, we used to meet fortnightly for breakfast at 7:15am on Thursday mornings at The George & Dragon in Marlow.

Now, like everything else for the time-being, we meet online. If you would like to join in for free (there’s no fee), please drop either myself, Matt Wright, or Helen Isacke a line – we’d love to have you along!