Reading Time: 3 minutes

I thought it would be a nice idea to share with all you lovely people books that I have read and found useful. Some I have devoured and become ambassadors for the cause in the book, others I’ve taken something useful from but might wonder about the relevancy of some of it or plain disagree with the ideas. There are many other books that I have read that I didn’t get anything out of, stood against my values or were just pain wrong – I won’t list those! But all these books have part of the journey of my self-discovery and self-development since the start of 2019. I hope you are also inspired by something you read in them too – let me know!

Part of my library
  • Start With Why – Simon Sinek
  • Leaders Eat Last – Simon Sinek
    • I love Simon Sinek and what he says. He may not be the originator of a lot of what he teaches but he puts it all together in a package that is easy to understand and is inspirational. I thoroughly recommend these two books explaining his ideas on the psychology behind leadership.
  • Quiet – Susan Cain
    • A book about the power of introverts but it is way more detailed than that. The biggest questions that reading this book posed to me was ‘how do we prevent only extroverts becoming leaders?’
  • Bounce – Matthew Syed
    • The talent myth and that it takes lots of practice on the bits you find challenging to be truly good at something (the ‘10,000 hours’).
  • This Is Going To Hurt – Adam Kay
    • A lot of parallels with the vet profession.
  • Being Mortal – Atual Gwande
    • Examination of the attitudes to death and how we should be having more open discussions about it.
  • Complications – Atual Gwande
    • This particular book is about surgical checklists and quality improvements in general.
  • The Art of Happiness – Dalai Lama and Howard C. Carter
  • Invisible Women – Caroline Criado Perez
    • I read this is the summer of 2020 at the height of the pandemic and it brought home to me the institutional gender bias that pervades all of our lives through male default bias. The pandemic highlighted the differences even more. Unfortunately this book doesn’t really offer any solutions beyond collecting gender data.
  • We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    • A short read but should be essential reading for men and women.
  • The Virgin Way – Richard Branson
  • The Chimp Paradox – Dr Steve Peters
    • About how are brains are hard-wired to act in certain ways in certain circumstances, but also how to overcome this.
  • Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goldman
  • Not a book , but the leadership stream at BSAVA 2018 by Katherine Eitel, available as podcasts to BSAVA members
  • Generation Me – Jean M. Twenge

Books on mindfulness, mental wellness and related

  • The Wild Remedy – Emma Mitchell. I found out recently that Emma has a sister who is a vet.
  • Sane New World, A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled and How to be Human by Ruby Wax
  • Sunny Side Up by Susan Calman

Perspectives on life and living

  • Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
  • An astronaut’s guide to life on earth – Chris Hadfield

On my ‘to read’ pile

  • Atomic Habits by James Clear
  • Mindset by Dr Carol Dweck
  • Dare to Lead by Rene Brown – I love her TED talks
  • Lean in by Sheryl Sandberg
  • Black box thinking by Matthew Syed
  • Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker – read 2020, interesting though hardly surprising that the biggest take away is that we all need to sleep more and treat it more seriously!
  • Be a free range human by Marianne Cantwell
  • The Values Factor by Dr John Demartini
  • Your best year yet by Jinny Ditzler
  • The death of expertise by Tom Nichols