Smart and Meaningful Reads

Lead image courtesy of Anusorn P nachol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’ve been preparing for a work offsite event that is taking place this week. If you’ve ever been to one, you know these things tend to happen away from the regular office environment and can sometimes involve one or more overnights.

If you’ve ever planned one of these events, you’d also know that the organizing end can feel like simultaneously having a party and a performance review: it’s exciting, you want everyone to have a good time and you personally want to have chance to enjoy and get the most out of it.

During the planning process, you can bet dollars to donuts that the topic of reading material is going to come up at some point. What genre–management books, leadership books, books about change, growth, creativity–can get quite broad which can also be a really fun conversation. There’s never enough time/room/context to list or talk about all the amazing books that have inspired me. It’s also lovely when you’re working in a group that’s open to books outside the “traditional” business arena (which happens to be the type of group I am in); so more than a few nights I left the office…my brain filled with my favorite texts. Alas, no where to discuss further…

And then I remembered… I have a blog! I can post about all my favorite books there. So here goes, here are ten books that have inspired me, taught or shown me something I needed to see and has left a lasting imprint.

The Artist Way by Julia Cameron