In the spirit of the great variety of summer reading guides of all types, here are some of the most eye-catching of the year so far, with special emphasis on business, leadership, technology, personal finance and self-improvement:
What strikes me about so many of these suggestions is striving to become a better person, inside and outside the workplace. That particularly pertains to leadership, and is reflected in Two Books that Belong in Every CEO’s Beach Bag, a Forbes.com post by Christopher B. Nelson, President of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, a liberal arts school in which students engage in particularly challenging reading. So it’s no surprise that Nelson’s recommendations are The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli and Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
“I realize that most CEOs do not have long, empty summer days to fill up with reading paperbacks,” Nelson writes. “But I highly recommend taking a few hours during your vacation — if you take one — to reconsider these two books. You might find that they contain timeless wisdom you can use both in business and in life.”