Last-Minute Book Buying Recommendations
IF YOU ARE AT ALL LIKE ME, you've still got some holiday shopping to do. Maybe you've been slammed at work or maybe you love a firm deadline and work best under pressure.
Whatever your story is, below are 7 of my favorite books from 2022. Hopefully this can help in some small way to make your Christmas merry and bright.
Book #1 Barça by Simon Kuper
Capitalize on the momentum of the World Cup with this fantastic book about the club that made Lionel Messi who he is.
FC Barcelona is one of the most popular teams on the planet. While they've revolutionized the sport (and branding), FCB nearly went bankrupt earlier this year.
In addition to learning about Messi's career path to greatness, you'll also meet the eccentric, hilarious, and legendary Dutch footballer named Johan Cruyff.
The links between sports excellence and business management and leadership are everywhere in this book.
Book #2 Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
We'll start with this little nugget: The Mongol army, led by Genghis Khan, dominated more lands and more people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred.
Romans = 400 years
Mongols, Genghis Khan = 25 years
This book explains how. The Mongols—in the 12th century, no less—instituted a series of practical business, leadership, management, and structural institutions that survive to this day.
While the Mongols racked up their kills—their offer was fairly direct: surrender and assimilate or die—they also abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and swiftly destroyed the aristocratic classes and feudal systems common of the era.
Book #3 The Arsenal Of Democracy: FDR, Detroit and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A.J. Baime
I have no idea how this is not a movie yet.
Such an incredible story.
(Hat tip to Tony Stewart of Skanska for the recommendation.)
Initiating World War II, Germany had a 5-year head start amassing equipment (tanks, trucks, and airplanes) and artillery on the rest of the world. More concerning was the fact that Nazis were blowing Allied planes out of the sky faster than they could be built.
Without more planes, Hitler wins the war.
So, desperate for more planes—better planes—produced faster than ever before, American leadership turned to . . . Ford, an automobile manufacturer.
Edsel Ford promised to build the largest airplane factory in the world and produce a "bomber an hour."
And he delivered.
Book #4 No Beast So Fierce by Dane Huckelbridge
On the surface, this is a story about the deadliest animal of all-time and the legendary hunter called in to halt the carnage.
Below the surface, however, it's a story of British colonialism, unintended consequences, inept management, poor leadership, and the predictable results of the collapse of a fragile, interconnected ecosystem.
Business and management lessons abound in this thriller.
No Beast So Fierce was gifted to me by El Tigre himself, TJ Shaheen of Builders' General. (Thank you!)
Book #5 The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
It's next-to-impossible for me to share how much I love this book without sounding like a complete nerd . . . or without making you not want to read this book.
I'll try though (briefly).
Substitute a voracious, human-hunting Bengalese tiger with a cholera epidemic (arguably more frightening), and you've got the basic plot here.
London in 1854 has more than 2 million people crammed into ten square miles. City planners and the sanitation department are slow to thoughtfully consider sufficient waste removal protocols beyond "Ummm, can we just dump it in the Thames?"
(Answer: You can, but you shouldn't.)
This is another example of how insights learned decades and centuries earlier are forgotten—with terrifying and heart-breaking results that ushered in modern epidemiology and analytics.
Book #6 Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The Osage Indians owned more than one hundred million acres in Americas's heartland for centuries, until they met the post-Civil War western expansion known as Manifest Destiny.
Shunted aside to a fraction of that acreage—with no buffalo in sight, residing on rocky terrain that's impossible to farm—the Osage Indians were desperate.
Until they learned they were living on one of the most valuable oil reserves in the country—and their agreement with the government included mineral rights.
Seemingly overnight, the Osage Indians were some of the wealthiest Americans.
And then the killings began . . .
True story.
Devastating in a number of ways.
Book #7 The Perfect Pass by S.C. Gwynne
One of my Top 10 favorite books of all-time.
I re-read it after the recent passing of Mike Leach, a key character—hilarious, intellectual, somewhat unbelievable—alongside Hal Mumme as they introduced the world to the Air Raid offense.
If you like football, this is a no-brainer.
Buy 10 copies and give them away.
People will love you for it.
If you don't like football, this is a management and leadership book in disguise. It's about the predictable human response to innovation and change (see my rant about unicorn/freak Shohei Ohtani not winning this year's MVP in baseball—in print and as a podcast):
- we ignore it
- we ridicule it
- we explain it away
Then years or decades later, we adopt it.
The Perfect Pass is about intellectual misfits who change the game of football forever by simplifying it down to a few first principles, relentlessly practicing a small handful of plays, and then trusting their players enough to simply play the game and have fun.
Thank you for reading.
Merry Christmas.
If you have book recommendations to share, do not hesitate to email me directly at bradley@bradleyhartmannandco.com.
