Summer Reads!
OK, summer holidays are upon us and it's again time to switch the office attire and attitude to a more relaxed recharging mindset and mode. To wish you a great summer and help you to feed your brain also on those lazy days we wanted to share you our favorite summer reads.
Yes, it's a classic list. Below are eight favorite books of ours that we have recently read, are currently reading or that still are waiting on the virtual shelves the start of the well-deserved vacation.
Have a good one on the hammock!
1. The Late American Novel - Writers on the Future of Books
This insightful and inspiring anthology by Jeff Martin and C. Max Magee explores through 18 essays by finest scholars, journalists, and publishers what lies ahead on the future of the book. This one helps your body to enjoy the beach while your mind travels to the future.
2. Everything is Obvious - When You Know the Answer
Duncan Watts, sociologist and network scientist, argues that only by understanding how our common sense and intuition often fails us with larger, complex issues—like business or politics—can we improve how we plan for the future and understand the present. Truly fascinating! (for sociology and futurist geeks, that is)
Frank Rose explores how a new form of narrative that’s native to the Internet is trumping linear storytelling and changing the way we engage into stories. He makes a case for renegotiating the roles of the author and the audience, how great stories are becoming more like games, and how the line between fiction and reality is increasingly blurring. To be read digitally while surfing the web, please.
Peter Sims shows how big breakthroughs start by little bets. He nicely rides the wave of agile development and innovation, and gives guidance for us to solve the right problems and avoid getting stuck in our creative process. Perfect read for our uncertain and rapidly changing (summer) times.
5. The New Capitalist Manifesto
Umair Haque uncovers the dramatic shortcomings of our current economic system and advocates a new set of economic ideals, the cornerstones of prosperity in the 21st Century: Renewal, Democracy, Peace, Equity, and Meaning. He’s wittier on Twitter, for sure, but don’t let that fool you—this manifesto will help you to become the change you want to see!
James Gleick brings us ‘a revelatory chronicle that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.’ What more can you say? This is a book where information turns to knowledge and eventually to wisdom. For the long nights when you have time to think.
Jane McGonical, a game designer and director at the Institute for the Future, is one of the original masterminds behind ‘gamification’ of everything. On Reality is Broken, she shows how games can help us to become happier and the businesses better while giving us tools and skills to collaboratively save the world at the same time. So game on, all summer long, and be proud of your muscular thumbs on the beach.
8. An Optimist's Tour of the Future
Techno-utopias, anyone? Mark Stevenson has trekked on the frontiers of science to deliver these 300 witty pages of optimistic technological marvels that might well help us to create a better future. This one makes a perfect date for those hazy afternoons of blue sky gazing and thinking.