Spring 2022 Reading List

We are in another COVID dip. Things almost seem normal two years later.

Well, except for the war in Ukraine and a return to nuclear alert levels not seen since I was in my teens, but I digress. And my unhealthy OSINT addiction.

This past weekend, my parents came over for a belated birthday party indoors, the first since 2019. Our kitchen is ruins. Let’s hope the contractors will be done by Easter. I dare not look in my drafts because there are a hand full of blogs, most written last year when I was attempting to write a book review of three of the management books released in 2021.

The last time I blogged the deluge of recruiter inquiries was in full force after I hit my 2 year anniversary at T Rowe. A lot has changed but this is not the time or place. As usual, many of the books below are still in progress.

I’m continuing to plod through The British are Coming and Island Infernos, as Atkinson and McManus are among my favorite historians. With the war in Ukraine, I have paused Midnight in Chernobyl which I picked up after re-watching Chernobyl on HBO in December. Too real. Too soon.

The three management books by Varney, Ikonne, and the Nightingales are interesting in that they all confront life in organizations over the last two years. All were written during the Pandemic and treat what we have lived and worked through in different ways. Becoming a Leader in Product Development is one of the most expensive Kindle books I purchased (still around $30), but it is worth it. I also finished Sharon Varney’s book and found it interesting in a more academic and theoretical way — especially if you are into complexity theory. Lastly, Unmanageable is the most confessional and the quickest read of the three. It is under $10 and if you liked their previous book, it is probably worth it. It will trigger memories of the Trump era. You were warned.

Business, Tech, and Management

• Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World by
  John Chambers and Diane Brady.
• Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together by Adam Kahane.
• Leadership in Complexity and Change: For a World in Constant Motion (De Gruyter Transformative Thinking and Practice of Leadership and Its Development Book 1) by Sharon Varney.
• Becoming a Leader in Product Development: An Evidence-Based Guide to the Essentials by Ebenezer C. Ikonne.
• Unmanageable: Leadership Lessons from an Impossible Year by Johnathan Nightingale, Melissa Nightingale.

History

• The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley by Wesley Morgan.
• The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1) by Rick Atkinson.
• Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944
  by John C. McManus.
• Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham.

Oh how things change.

We can only hope the next time I provide an update the tragic situation in Ukraine has been resolved and that NATO is not fighting a ground war in Europe.

Or worse. Stay safe and sane.