Summer reading lists arrive every year with an invitation to slow down and step outside the day-to-day grind and think a bit more expansively. At VentureWell, we value continuous learning, and this year’s summer reading list from the VentureWell executive team reflects that spirit. The selections span a wide range of ideas, disciplines, genres, and stories.
This year, we asked team members to share one work-related book that has shaped their thinking, and one they read simply for enjoyment. We hope you find something here that sparks curiosity and leaves room for fresh perspectives to settle in. Happy reading.
Chithra Adams, vice president of Data, Learning & Higher Education
Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation by Linda A. Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove, and Kent Lineback
I studied the team leadership paradoxes that often accompany innovation. Dr. Hill and her co-authors lay out a clear, elegant framework for navigating them. Innovative organizations hold space for creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution. The book provides an accessible exploration of how these organizations can unleash the full creative potential of all their employees.
Back After This by Linda Holmes
I love listening to podcasts, so this critically acclaimed novel about a podcast producer immediately drew me in! It follows Cecily, a producer navigating career shifts and the realities of life behind the mic. Bonus: The book also features a lovely dog. It is a fun, entertaining read.
Chris Desrosiers, chief financial and operations officer
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick
This book offers a balanced and thoughtful view of the usefulness (and risks) of large language models and generative AI. Mollick maintains appropriate skepticism in his approach and examines the technology with curiosity rather than naive or uncritical enthusiasm.
The Greatcoats series by Sebastien de Castell
This is a really fun, fast-paced fantasy series that delivers strong Three Musketeers vibes. The books follow a group of fallen magistrates as they try to uphold justice in a kingdom unraveling into political chaos. It’s full of great action, humor, and entertaining banter between the main characters. All four books in the series are highly engaging and well worth the read.
Mark Marino, chief growth and strategy officer
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green
This book by award-winning author John Green highlights that the world’s deadliest infectious crisis is no longer just a biological puzzle, but a failure of human systems and resource allocation. It provides a powerful call to design sustainable, scalable technologies that bridge the gap between scientific breakthrough and equitable global access.
Alchemised by SenLinYu
This magical, psychological, apocalyptic novel offers an escape into the fantasy world of corrupt necromancers and alchemists. Despite the dark themes, the characters, prose, and relationships will make you feel all the feels. It is a timely story about how prolonged conflict destroys traditional morality and what happens when scientific exploration is stripped of ethics.
Rebekah Neal, vice president, Commercialization
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
This book was a requested read-aloud in our house, and while I was focused on getting the characters’ voices right, I kept thinking about it long after the lights were out and the kids were asleep.
The Wild Robot follows Roz, a robot who washes ashore on a wild island and has to figure out how to survive, and eventually belong, in an ecosystem very different than the one she was designed to inhabit. She has no playbook or rules to guide her. Instead, she learns by observing, failing, and adapting, building unexpected alliances along the way.
It’s a children’s novel, but it’s a remarkably honest portrait of what early-stage innovation actually looks like—not the tidy, triumphant kind, but the slow, iterative, sometimes heartbreaking kind that will feel familiar to anyone building something new in an environment that wasn’t tailor-made for them. For those of us working to support innovators and entrepreneurs, Roz’s story is an unexpectedly apt reminder of how challenging and rewarding that work can be.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
This book is a collection of real letters exchanged over 20 years between a sharp-tongued New York writer and the staff of a London antiquarian bookshop—correspondence that traveled by ship and waited weeks for a reply.
What stayed with me most is how rich those relationships became precisely because of that slowness. Each letter was carefully crafted and complete. In a world of instant messages and send-before-you-think communication, I found myself charmed by the patience of it. It’s a short, funny, quietly moving book about what genuine connection can look like when you have to wait for it.
Christina Tamer, vice president, Ventures
Unapologetic Wealth: Rewrite Your Money Story From Any Beginning by Marcia Dawood
In her efforts to promote angel investing, my friend and colleague Marcia Dawood found that many people hold limiting beliefs around financial decision-making and confidence. The book highlights the stories and assumptions that shape how we think about money, investing, self-worth, and what it means to build financial agency.
To Kill a Unicorn by DC Palter
One of our longtime Aspire mentors wrote this mystery novel, which offers a satirical take on Silicon Valley startup culture, based on his many years of experience as both a founder and investor.
Phil Weilerstein, president and CEO
Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook
In a time of rapid and disruptive global change, this reflection on an earlier period of transformation in global trade and the exchange of culture, technology, and ideas feels highly relevant, and simultaneously alarming and comforting. The aperture for these insights is a series of paintings from the period—a kind of “social” medium of its time—revealing the diffusion of goods, values, and ideas, and how they shaped the thinking of individuals and society.
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Living in a fairly mossy place, I was drawn to this compact meditation on an often overlooked form of plant life. This natural and cultural history of mosses brings their beauty and value into sharp focus in a very personal and personable way. A light read about a topic most people rarely consider, it will leave you feeling satisfyingly enriched.