Reading is central to our growth as individuals and as a company at Artium. We seek inspiration from other’s ideas and are endlessly fascinated by an author’s ability to challenge our views, affirm and build upon held beliefs, or introduce us to something entirely novel. 

In an effort to share this with others, we put together the 20 books loved by our team to make up Artium’s Summer Reading List. 

We hope they bring you as much joy and insight as they have brought us!

‍1. Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

Teresa Torres

If you want to discover products that customers love-that also deliver business results-this book is for you.

2. The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

Scott Berkun

A behind-the-scenes look at the firm behind WordPress.com and the unique work culture that contributes to its phenomenal success.‍

3. Edge: Value-Driven Digital Transformation

David Robinson, Jim Highsmith, and Linda Luu

EDGE is a set of fast, iterative, adaptive, lightweight, and value-driven tools to achieve digital transformation. It is your guide to using this operating model for innovation.‍

4. A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

Cal Newport

A bold vision for liberating workers front the tyranny of the inbox and unleashing a new era of productivity. ‍‍

5. Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO

Satoru Iwata

In this motivational collection, Satoru Iwata addresses diverse subjects such as locating bottlenecks, how success breeds resistance to change, and why programmers should never say no.

6. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

Alex Pang

Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.‍

7. The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age

Reid Hoffman

This bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today’s world of constant innovation and fast-paced change.‍

8. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

‍Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler

Crucial Conversations explores the way people communicate when stakes are high and gives you the tools to: prepare for high-stakes situations, transform anger and hurt feelings into powerful dialogue, make it safe to talk about almost anything, and be persuasive, not abrasive.‍

9. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind ‍Geert Hofstede

Based on research conducted in more than seventy countries over a forty-year span, Cultures and Organizations examines what drives people apart—when cooperation is so clearly in everyone’s interest.

10. Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action‍Simon Sinek

Start With Why shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way -- and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. 

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11. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business ‍Charles Duhigg

The Power of Habit takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. 

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12. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Angela Duckworth 

Pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.”

13. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Annie Duke

Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result.

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14. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

David M. Kelley, Tom Kelley

IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us.

15. INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

Marty Cagan

In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love―and that will work for your business.

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16. EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products

Marty Cagan

EMPOWERED puts decades of lessons learned from the best leaders of the top technology companies in your hand as a guide. It shows you how to become the leader your team and company needs to not only survive but thrive.

17. Team Human

Douglas Rushkoff

Team Human is a manifesto―a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature.

18. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet & Why It Matters

Priya Parker

The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue—and how you host and attend them.

19. How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

Mia Birdsong

Through research, interviews, and stories of lived experience, How We Show Up returns us to our inherent connectedness where we find strength, safety, and support in vulnerability and generosity, in asking for help, and in being accountable.‍

20. Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.‍