Harvard Business School Releases 2022 Summer Reading List

With summer in full swing, Harvard Business School (HBS) staff shared some of their favorite books to read. From mystery novels to classic memoirs, here are the HBS staff favorites of 2022.

SAY NOTHING: A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND MEMORY IN NORTHERN IRELAND
BY PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

Say Nothing is a nonfiction narrative that traces the disappearance of Jean McConville, a woman from Northern Ireland, who was kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

“The decades-long account that Keefe lays out following McConville’s abduction winds through the streets of Belfast to the halls of power in London and Dublin and across the Atlantic to the archives of Boston College without missing a beat,” Steve Church, Senior Communications & Change Management Specialist, Information Technology at HBS, says.

THE METHOD: HOW THE TWENTIETH CENTURY LEARNED TO ACT
BY ISAAC BUTLER

Butler’s The Method follows the cultural history of Method acting—a linear journey from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, and a foundational idea in the art of acting.

“The book is worth the price of admission just for the description of the second staging of The Seagull by the Moscow Art Theatre,” Bryan Fletcher, Senior Director of Content Production, HBS Online, says. “It charts the process of modernizing acting all the way to Frances McDormand. Totally engrossing and perfect for summer.”

BLEAK HOUSE
BY CHARLES DICKENS

From classic novelist Charles Dickens, Bleak House tells the story of the Jarndyce family as they wait to inherit money from a disputed fortune.

“It’s not as well-known as some of his other works, but it has all the hallmarks of a great Dickens novel: vivid, colorful characters; insightful portraits of London society, from the tippity-top down to the dirtiest gutter; a convoluted plot, in this case involving a generations-long lawsuit called Jarndyce v. Jarndyce; and, of course, orphans,” Amram Migdal, Senior Case Researcher, Case Research & Writing Group at HBS, says. “It’s been a surprisingly fun and rewarding read so far.”

See the full HBS Staff 2022 Summer Reading List here.

Sources: Harvard Business School