Leadership Book List Resources

A curated collection of Leadership Books, recommend by current and former members of the Worcester State University community. Many of these books can be borrowed from the OSILD Leadership Library. Stop by OSILD on the second floor of the Student Center if any of these titles interest you!

Business

Give and Take
Adam Grant

For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. In Give and Take, Adam Grant, an award-winning researcher and Wharton’s highest-rated professor, examines the surprising forces that shape why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom. Praised by social scientists, business theorists, and corporate leaders, Give and Take opens up an approach to work, interactions, and productivity that is nothing short of revolutionary.
Recommended by Amma Marfo, Keynote Speaker

The 5 C’s: Common Sense Tips for Bringing Uncommon Success to Entrepreneurs and Leaders
Dr. Satya Mitra, PHD, EA, CFP

Running a prosperous, resilient company is the goal of every entrepreneur, but there are essential steps to success that most people miss. This step-by-step handbook will help you better serve your business, clients, employees, and community with a quintet of common-sense practices every business person should master. When you lead, inspire, and give back to others, you can reap unparalleled rewards. The 5 C’s are the tools you’ll need.

Start Something That Matters
Blake Mycoskie

In Start Something That Matters, Blake Mycoskie tells the story of TOMS, one of the fastest-growing shoe companies in the world, and combines it with lessons learned from such other innovative organizations such as Method Products, charity: water, FEED Projects, and TerraCycle. Blake presents the six simple keys for creating or transforming your own life and business, from discovering your core story to being resourceful without resources; from overcoming fear and doubt to incorporating giving into every aspect of your life.
Recommended by Adrian Gage, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs/Director of Residence Life and Housing

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements
Tom Rath

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements provides you with a holistic view of what contributes to your wellbeing over a lifetime. Written in a conversational style, this book is filled with fascinating research and innovative ideas for boosting your wellbeing in each of these five areas. By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes life worthwhile. This will enable you to enjoy each day and get more out of your life — while boosting the wellbeing of your friends, family members, colleagues and others in your community.
Recommended by Sarah Potrikus, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Simon Sinek

In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way—and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.
Recommended by Adrian Gage, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs/Director of Residence Life and Housing

Children

Miss Rumphius
Barbara Cooney

Barbara Cooney’s story of Alice Rumphius, who longed to travel the world, live in a house by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful, has a timeless quality that resonates with each new generation. The countless lupines that bloom along the coast of Maine are the legacy of the real Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady, who scattered lupine seeds everywhere she went.
Recommended by Dr. Linda Larrivee, Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences

Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem
Amanda Gorman & Loren Long

In this stirring, much-anticipated picture book by presidential inaugural poet and activist Amanda Gorman, anything is possible when our voices join together. As a young girl leads a cast of characters on a musical journey, they learn that they have the power to make changes—big or small—in the world, in their communities, and in most importantly, in themselves.
Recommended by Ari Giasson, Class of 2022

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything
Annette Bay Pimentel

Jennifer Keelan was determined to make a change—even if she was just a kid. She never thought her wheelchair could slow her down, but the way the world around her was built made it hard to do even simple things. Like going to school, or eating lunch in the cafeteria. Jennifer knew that everyone deserves a voice! Then the Americans with Disabilities Act, a law that would make public spaces much more accessible to people with disabilities, was proposed to Congress. And to make sure it passed, Jennifer went to the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC to convince them.
Recommended by Ari Giasson, Class of 2022

The Dot
Peter Reynolds

Art class is over, but Vashti is sitting glued to her chair in front of a blank piece of paper. The words of her teacher are a gentle invitation to express herself. But Vashti can’t draw – she’s no artist. To prove her point, Vashti jabs at a blank sheet of paper to make an unremarkable and angry mark. “There!” she says. That one little dot marks the beginning of Vashti’s journey of surprise and self-discovery. That special moment is the core of Peter H. Reynolds’s delicate fable about the creative spirit in all of us.
Recommended by Dr. Alex Briesacher, Associate Professor of Sociology

Oh, The Places You’ll Go
Dr. Seuss

From soaring to high heights and seeing great sights to being left in a lurch on a prickle-ly perch, Dr. Seuss addresses life’s ups and downs with his trademark humorous verse and illustrations, while encouraging readers to find the success that lies within. In a starred review, Booklist notes, “Seuss’s message is simple but never sappy: life may be a ‘Great Balancing Act,’ but through it all ‘There’s fun to be done.’” A perennial favorite and a perfect gift for anyone starting a new phase in their life!
Recommended by Dr. Linda Larrivee, Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences

The Monster at the End of This Book
Jon Stone & Michael Smollin

Lovable, furry old Grover is distressed to learn that there’s a monster at the end of this book! He begs readers not to turn the pages, but of course kids feel they just have to see this monster for themselves. Grover is astonished–and toddlers will be delighted–to discover who is really the monster at the end of the book!
Recommended by Dr. Erika Briesacher, Associate Professor of History

Classics

The Trial
Franz Kafka

The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

The Razor’s Edge
Somerset Maugham

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham’s most brilliant characters – his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Moby-Dick: or, The Whale
Herman Melville

Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author’s lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Recommended by Dr. Russ Pottle, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith

The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness — in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
Recommended by Dr. Linda Larrivee, Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences

Cultural Awareness

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
Austin Channing Brown

In a time when nearly every institution claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric—from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. For readers who have engaged with America’s legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I’m Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God’s ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness—if we let it—can save us all.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say: Surprising Things We Say That Widen the Diversity Gap
Maura Cullen

Even well-intended people can cause harm. Have you ever heard yourself or someone else say: “Some of my best friends are… (Black, White, Asian, etc.)”? “I don’t think of you as… (Gay, Disabled, Jewish, etc.)”? “I don’t see color, I’m colorblind”? These statements and dozens like them can build a divide between us and the people we interact with. Though well-intended, they often widen the diversity gap sometimes causing irreparable harm personally and professionally. If you’ve ever wanted to be more effective in your communication with others, or have been afraid of saying the wrong thing, then this concise guide is essential to becoming more inclusive and diversity-smart.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Robin DiAngelo

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
Recommended by Nathan Angelo, Assistant Professor of History & Political Science

Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire’s work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.
Recommended by Dr. Roberta Kyle, Associate Vice President/Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education

The Politics of Reality:  Essays in Feminist Theory
Marilyn Frye

Politics of Reality includes essays that examine sexism, the exploitation of women, the gay rights movement and other topics from a feminist perspective.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Mikki Kendall

Today’s feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

How to Be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

So You Want to Talk About Race
Ijeoma Olou

Protests against racial injustice and white supremacy have galvanized millions around the world. The stakes for transformative conversations about race could not be higher. Still, the task ahead seems daunting, and it’s hard to know where to start. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

Night
Elie Wiesel

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, ElieWiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.
Recommended by Dr. Linda Larrivee, Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences

History

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown

Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
Recommended by Sarah Potrikus, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

The History and Sociology of Genocide
Frank Chalk & Kurt Jonassohn

Genocide is not an invention of the twentieth-century, says Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn in this absorbing book, but has occurred throughout history in all parts of the world. This study—the first comprehensive survey of the history and sociology of genocide—presents over two dozen examples of the one-sided mass slaughter of peoples, spanning the centuries from antiquity to the present.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

The Wretched of the Earth
Frantz Fanon

The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and inter-tribal and interfaith animosities on the other.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.
Recommended by Dr. Lois Wims, Provost of Academic Affairs

The Muqaddimah:  An Introduction to History
Ibn Khaldun

The Muqaddimah, often translated as “Introduction” or “Prolegomenon,” is the most important Islamic history of the modern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including the philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Hamilton: The Revolution
Jeremy McCarter & Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hamilton: The Revolution gives readers an unprecedented view of both revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it. Miranda, along with Jeremy McCarter, a cultural critic and theater artist who was involved in the project from its earliest stages — “since before this was even a show,” according to Miranda — traces its development from an improbable performance at the White House to its landmark opening night on Broadway six years later. The book does more than tell the surprising story of how a Broadway musical became a national phenomenon: It demonstrates that America has always been renewed by the brash upstarts and brilliant outsiders, the men and women who don’t throw away their shot.
Recommended by Amma Marfo, Keynote Speaker

The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War
Michael Shaara

After 30 years and with three million copies in print, Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War classic, The Killer Angels, remains as vivid and powerful as the day it was originally published. July 1863. In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fight for two conflicting dreams. One dreams of freedom, the other of a way of life. More than rifles and bullets are carried into battle. The soldiers carry memories. Promises. Love. And more than men fall on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty are also the casualties of war.
Recommended by Dr. Lois Wims, Provost of Academic Affairs

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
Recommended by Sarah Valois, LICSW, Counselor/Sexual Violence Response and Prevention

Leadership

Dare to Lead
Brene Brown

Brené Brown teaches us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong and brave the wilderness. Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.
Recommended by Linzy Martinez, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t
Simon Sinek

How do you inspire deep trust and commitment to the company and one another? He cites the Marine Corps for having found a way to build a culture in which men and women are willing to risk their lives, because they know others would do the same for them. It’s not brainwashing; it’s actually based on the biology of how and when people are naturally at their best. If businesses could adopt this supportive mentality, employees would be more motivated to take bigger risks, because they’d know their colleagues and company would back them up, no matter what. Drawing on powerful and inspiring stories, Sinek shows how to sustain an organization’s WHY while continually adding people to the mix.
Recommended by Sarah Potrikus, Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development

Memoir

Anchor & Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service
Kate Braestrup

Kate Braestrup’s life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son. As Kate examines the twinned emotions of faith and fear – inspired by the families she meets as a chaplain and by her son’s journey towards purpose and family hood – she learns that the threats we can’t predict will rip us apart and knit us together.
Recommended by Brittany Rende, Intramural Program Manager/Assistant Sports Information Coordinator

Untamed
Glennon Doyle

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Recommended by Ari Giasson, Class of 2022

The Diary of Anne Frank
Anne Frank

Thirteen-year-old Anne Frank, with her parents and sister and four other people, went into hiding in the sealed-off back rooms of an Amsterdam office building in 1942, when the Nazi invaders intensified their persecution of Jews. Anne’s astonishingly intimate diary was found by accident. With a touch of genius it records the strains of her unusual life, the problems of her unfolding womanhood, her falling in love, her unswerving faith in her religion. And it reveals the shining nobility of her spirit.
Recommended by Dr. Linda Larrivee, Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences

Wings of Fire: An Autobiography
APJ Abdul Kalam

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, the son of a little-educated boat-owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, had an unparalleled career as a defense scientist, culminating in the highest civilian award of India, the Bharat Ratna. As chief of the country’s defense research and development program, Kalam demonstrated the great potential for dynamism and innovation that existed in seemingly moribund research establishments. This is the story of Kalam’s rise from obscurity and his personal and professional struggles, as well as the story of Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul and Nag-missiles that have become household names in India and that have raised the nation to the level of a missile power of international reckoning.
Recommended by Dr. Satya Mitra, Keynote Speaker

Becoming
Michelle Obama

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, former First Lad Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Recommended by Emily Reith, Adjunct Faculty, Urban Studies

Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke

Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, still a fresh source of inspiration and insight, are accompanied here by a chronicle of Rilke’s life that shows what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote them.
Recommended by Julie Glovin, Counselor

Philosophy

Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord 

Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and everyday life in the late twentieth century.
Recommended by Nathan Angelo, Assistant Professor of History & Political Science

How to Think:  A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
Alan Jacobs

How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why we’re not as good at thinking as we assume – but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life. In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking–forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, “alternative facts,” and information overload–and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well.
Recommended by Barry Maloney, Worcester State University President

On the Genealogy of Morality
Friedrich Nietzsche

The Genealogy of Morality consists of three essays exploring morality and its origins where Nietzsche makes ample use of his training as a philologist. These works contain Nietzsche’s most thorough and clear expression of his psychological philosophy.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation
Jacques Ranciere

This is a  story of Joseph Jacotot, an exiled French schoolteacher who discovered in 1818 an unconventional teaching method that spread panic throughout the learned community of Europe. Jacotot found himself able to teach in French to Flemish students who knew no French; knowledge, Jacotot concluded, was not necessary to teach, nor explication necessary to learn. The results of this unusual experiment in pedagogy led him to announce that all people were equally intelligent.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre develops a philosophical account in support of his existentialism, dealing with topics such as consciousness, perception, social philosophy, self-deception, the existence of nothingness”, psychoanalysis, and the question of free will. While a prisoner of war in 1940 and 1941, Sartre read Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927), which uses the method of Husserlian phenomenology as a lens for examining ontology. Sartre attributed the course of his own philosophical inquiries to his exposure to this work.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

Psychology

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Susan Cain

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts. Passionately argued, impeccably researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.
Recommended by Amma Marfo, Keynote Speaker

Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges
Amy Cuddy

Have you ever left a nerve-racking challenge and immediately wished for a do over? Maybe after a job interview, a performance, or a difficult conversation? The very moments that require us to be genuine and commanding can instead cause us to feel phony and powerless. Too often we approach our lives’ biggest hurdles with dread, execute them with anxiety, and leave them with regret. By accessing our personal power, we can achieve “presence,” the state in which we stop worrying about the impression we’re making on others and instead adjust the impression we’ve been making on ourselves.
Recommended by Brittany Rende, Intramural Program Manager/Assistant Sports Information Coordinator

What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All American Teen
Kate Fagan

From noted ESPN commentator and journalist Kate Fagan, the heartbreaking and vital story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose death by suicide rocked the University of Pennsylvania campus and whose life reveals with haunting detail and uncommon understanding the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today.
Recommended by Brittany Rende, Intramural Program Manager/Assistant Sports Information Coordinator

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
Judith Harris

Combining insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary biology, she explains how and why the tendency of children to take cues from their peers works to their evolutionary advantage. This electrifying book explodes many of our unquestioned beliefs about children and parents and gives us a radically new view of childhood.
Dr. Colleen Sullivan, Associate Professor of Psychology

Cultivating Creativity: How to Create on Campuses, In Corporations, and Beyond
Amma Marfo

Cultivating Creativity aims to bust the myth of the self-defeating belief, “I’m not creative.” Through examples across disciplines, lessons from everyday creators, and a reframe of common skills and traits that you use every day, Cultivating Creativity will help you uncover your own creative potential. You’ll get your chance to flex your developing muscles as well, with exercises and prompts to help you put these lessons to work right away. By the end of Cultivating Creativity, you’ll look at your creative potential in a whole new light- and be itching to make your mark on the world!

Self Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness
Richard Ryan & Edward Deci

Self-determination theory (SDT) provides a framework for understanding the factors that promote motivation and healthy psychological and behavioral functioning. In this authoritative work, the co developers of the theory comprehensively examine SDT’s conceptual underpinnings (including its six mini-theories), empirical evidence base, and practical applications across the lifespan. The volume synthesizes a vast body of research on how supporting–or thwarting–people’s basic needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy affects their development and well-being.
Recommended by Jacquelyn Raftery-Helmer, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Self Help

The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter-And How to Make the Most of Them Now
Meg Jay

Drawing from a decade of work with hundreds of twenty-something clients and students, The Defining Decade weaves the latest science of the twenty-something years with behind-closed-doors stories from twenty-somethings themselves. The result is a provocative read that provides the tools necessary to make the most of your twenties, and shows us how work, relationships, personality, social networks, identity, and even the brain can change more during this decade than at any other time in adulthood-if we use the time wisely.
Recommended by Brittany Rende, Intramural Program Manager/Assistant Sports Information Coordinator

Being Perfect
Anna Quindlen

In Being Perfect, Quindlen shares wisdom that, perhaps without knowing it, you have longed to hear: about “the perfection trap,” the price you pay when you become ensnared in it, and the key to setting yourself free. She believes that when your success looks good to the world but doesn’t feel good in your heart, it isn’t success at all.
Recommended by Adrian Gage, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs/Director of Residence LIfe and Housing

The Purpose Driven Life:  What on Earth Am I Here For
Rick Warren

Rick Warren will guide you through a personal forty-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life’s most important question: What on earth am I here for? Knowing God’s purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and most important, prepare you for eternity.
Recommended by Stacey Luster, Assistant Vice President for Human Resources, Payroll, and Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity

Sociology

The Prodigal God
Timothy Keller

Renowned minister Timothy Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the prodigal son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation. Within that parable Jesus reveals God’s prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way.
Recommended by Kevin Cox, Campus Minister

The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled ‘The Last Lecture’. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave, ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’, wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
Recommended by Patrick Hare, Assistant for Governmental & Community Affairs

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Don Miguel Ruiz

In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
Recommended by Olivia Wright, Class of 2023

The Marx-Engels Reader
Robert Tucker

This edition of the leading anthology provides the essential writings of Marx and Engels—those works necessary for an introduction to Marxist thought and ideology. The volume is arranged to show both the chronological and the thematic development of the two great thinkers. Selections range in coverage from history, society, and economics, to politics, philosophy, and the strategy and tactics of social revolution.
Recommended by Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs