Good morning. About 40 percent of Americans didn’t read a single book last year, despite Oprah’s Book Club, Bill Gates’ reading list and ominous missives about declining literacy. Many of us own books we’ve never read or, at best, skimmed. When Chris Matthews asked me during a Hardball interview about my book Fraternity, having apparently not read it, I turned it over to show him he’d written a blurb to praise it on the back.
My summer reading list includes speculative fiction, true crime and a divisive book about trad wife time travel. But let’s talk about the value of a good business book. Many are written by people seeking fame on the speaker circuit or a chance to rewrite their own history. But I speak to many leaders who were deeply influenced by a good book that shifted their thinking. Here are three recent reads I think are worth a look this summer.
My former colleague Josh Tyrangiel has written a book called AI For Good: How Real People are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things that Matter. Tyrangiel’s book is a deeply reported and nuanced look at the real potential of AI. As he told me recently, the goal was to cut past the euphoria and existential panic around AI to find promising examples of how people are using it to create solutions for challenges like sepsis, vaccine distribution, and personalized tutoring at scale. If you want to learn about use cases for AI from entrepreneurs who don’t aspire to live on Mars or predict the elimination of 80% of jobs, read his book.
