This article is adapted from Ted's Smart Thinking podcast episode 381: Your Improvement: Books for Summer & Life.
Here is something I want you to think about as we head into summer. Too often, we step away from the daily grind and use our downtime to continue consuming things for work, or worse yet, we find ourselves doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok. And look, I get it. Sometimes that is what you need. But what about reading things that actually make you better?
This episode, I decided to build a summer reading list around a theme: personal and life improvement. I am going to cover mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, and motivational wellbeing. I even brought in a couple of biographies, one that will inspire you and one that will probably make you feel like a Gen X-er all over again.
But before I get into the books, let me give you a few reasons why reading matters in the first place, because the research here is pretty remarkable.
A 30-minute reading session can significantly reduce stress by lowering heart rate and blood pressure. Think of it as an intervention in the middle of your day. Not a dramatic one. Just an intentional pause. A step away from whatever has been consuming you.
Research has also shown that book readers experience a 20% reduction in the risk of mortality. The more you read, the longer you live. And what you read matters. Books have an advantage over magazines or newspapers because of the sustained cognitive engagement they require. Following long-form plots, themes, and characters keeps your brain growing as you get older.
For individuals who are genetically predisposed to developing dementia, regular reading provides about three years of additional protection against the disease. For individuals without a genetic risk, lifetime reading provides more than seven years of protection. More than seven years.
And here is something from a University of Sussex study that I found genuinely surprising. Taking a walk reduces stress by 42%, and that takes 10 to 15 minutes. Slowly drinking a cup of tea or coffee reduces stress by 54% and takes five to ten minutes. Listening to music reduces stress by 61%. But reading a book for just six minutes reduces stress by 68%. Six minutes. Less time than any of the others, and the biggest reduction of all.
Leaders are readers. So let’s get into it.
I found this one in a bookstore in a little town in Michigan while I was waiting to head into a school district for professional development. I picked it up because I like poetry. Then I opened it and realized it is so much more than a poetry collection.
Each day in this book gives you a historical event or figure, a poem connected to that moment, and then a reflective prompt at the end to get you thinking. As a history teacher by training, this is exactly the kind of book that gets me going in the morning.
The first thing I always do with a new book like this is go straight to my birthday, May 12th. The entry for that day covered Florence Nightingale, born in Florence, Italy, and her work imposing basic standards of sanitation and nutrition among soldiers during wartime. Today that sounds obvious. Back then it was revolutionary. And the prompt for that day read: today I will try to be steadfast in all that I set out to do. I thought about that all day.
Starting your mind out each morning with a little exercise, something mindful and intentional, is a powerful way to move through your day. I bought copies for both of my kids and for four history teacher colleagues. That should tell you how much I love this one.
This book is about 2,000 years old. Written in 49 AD. And it is as relevant today as it has ever been, which I think is the entire point.
Seneca was a philosopher, poet, and thinker, and what draws so many people back to ancient texts like this is a simple but powerful premise: for thousands of years, people have struggled with the exact same things. Anxiety. Worry. Life purpose. None of this is new.
The book zeroes in on a few key ideas. First, stop treating time as a free commodity. Seneca points out that we spend enormous energy protecting our money and our property, but we steal time from ourselves constantly by simply not doing anything meaningful with it. Second, being busy is not a badge of honor. Whether you are chasing promotions, obsessing over status, or mindlessly scrolling, you are distracting yourself from your own existence. A frantic life feels short because before you know it, it is over.
The third big idea is mastering the three tenses of life. The present is crucial but incredibly brief. The future is uncertain and out of our control. The past is fixed, secure, and beyond the reach of fortune. Chapter two, “On the Happy Life,” is worth the price of the book alone. Two thousand year old words that still make you pause and think about your own day.
Find it at any bookstore or on Amazon. I think you will find yourself underlining a lot.
I cannot get enough of this book. I keep going back to it. If you do not have it, you need it. It is a manual. Not just a feel-good read, but an actual manual for helping yourself, helping others, and finding yourself in a position of empowerment when the day gets hard.
The chapters are organized into clusters with names like Confidence Catalysts, Attitude Adjusters, Insight Igniters, Happiness Hacks, Relaxation Remedies, Anxiety Alleviators, Dread Diffusers, and Tenacity Tricks. Within each cluster are specific plays you can run. Take a Nature Reset. Create a Reverse Worry List. Use the 10-Minute Rule. These are practical, actionable tools you can pick up and use the same day.
If you work with other people, or if you are simply trying to figure out how to get through your day-to-day with more intention and less overwhelm, this is the book to get. I have purchased it for at least ten people at this point and told each of them the same thing: I think this is something you need. Amy Morin is phenomenal, and this book delivers.
Yes, I am recommending a cookbook. Stay with me.
There is a region of the world where people are consistently happier, healthier, and longer-lived than almost anywhere else on earth. It is the island of Sardinia, off the coast of Italy. Researchers have traced this to two things: the terrain and the food. The terrain is hilly, which means people are walking up and down stairs and slopes constantly. And the food is exceptional, built around the principles of the Mediterranean diet that my doctor has recommended to me for years.
This book is filled with historical context, gorgeous imagery, and some genuinely great recipes. I have already made three things from it since picking it up a week ago. My favorite so far is a puffed pastry pizza called Pizzette Sfogliata. You cut puff pastry into circles, fill them, fold them over, hit them with olive oil, sea salt, and a little rosemary, and bake them. Incredibly simple. Genuinely delicious. And healthy.
Here is the other thing I love about cooking that does not get talked about enough. It is a cognitive workout. Cooking forces you to balance multiple timelines simultaneously. You are prepping vegetables while watching a pan, while timing the rice, while remembering what comes next. That kind of cognitive flexibility keeps your neural pathways sharp. It is sequencing. It is executive function. And it tastes great.
If your diet could use some attention, or if you just want a fun and engaging summer project, this is a beautiful book to spend time with.
This one was a birthday gift from colleagues at CESA 6, and it is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time.
Galen Lee is a violinist who won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016 and later composed the Broadway score for Macbeth. She was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic condition that causes brittle bones and shortened limbs. Her childhood in Duluth, Minnesota was shaped by loving and creative parents who gave her an early determination to play music. When standard classical training did not accommodate her body, she engineered her own approach, holding her violin upright like a tiny cello and developing custom looping techniques to play the way she needed to play.
This memoir is candid, warm, funny, and genuinely inspiring. You can hear her voice on every page. Her humor, her drive, and what I can only describe as a gentle defiance toward anyone who underestimated what she could do. If you work with children, if you work with people with disabilities, or if you just love music and want to read about someone who refused to let expectations define her, this book is fuel for your soul. Go find her Tiny Desk Concert on YouTube first. Then come back and read the book.
This one is just fun. And if you are a Gen X-er, you are going to love every page.
Tom Freston was a hippie hitchhiker who dropped out of corporate America in the 1970s to run an export business in Afghanistan. He somehow ended up becoming the CEO of Viacom, building MTV into a multibillion dollar empire, and overseeing companies like Paramount Pictures. This is a business memoir that reads like a rock and roll adventure, and it is full of questions you will not be able to stop asking yourself, like how do you end up in a room with Mick Jagger, Run DMC, Paul McCartney, and George Michael?
The book covers how MTV was built, how it shaped culture, why Michael Jackson ended up there, how Nirvana got there, how Beyonce got there, and then what happened when it all changed. But underneath all of it is a leadership story about taking risks, staying curious, and building a culture through radical empathy.
Read it with a pen in hand because there is a lot to pull out from a leadership perspective. But also just read it because it is a really great story told by someone who lived a non-linear, remarkable life and is honest about all of it.
When I first saw the title, I almost put it back on the shelf. Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness did not exactly sound like light summer reading. But I picked it up anyway while I was standing in Barnes and Noble in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood with my daughter Gracie. By the time she came to find me, I was halfway through chapter one, still standing in the aisle.
Arthur Brooks is a professor who works with young people constantly, and his research and observations fill this book in ways that are hard to put down. His core argument is that the anxiety crisis we are seeing across the United States and the world is not just about stress. It is about a lack of meaning. People are leaving work, dropping out of school, and disconnecting from their passions not because life is too hard, but because they cannot see their own meaning in it. And meaning, he argues, is not something that shows up on its own. It is something we are personally responsible for finding.
This is a Buffalo leader’s book. It is about charging into the storm and not stopping until you find what you are actually running toward.
I would recommend reading this one right before the school year starts, or right before you begin a new job, a new project, or a new season of life. You will pause often. You will reflect. And you will come back to it again.
If you only get one book this summer, get Amy Morin’s playbook. If you get three, add Francesco Mattina’s cookbook and Arthur Brooks’ book on meaning. That is a strong three.
But here is my real challenge for you. Find three other people to read one of these books with. Plan a meal together from the cookbook. Sit down and talk about what you are reading, what you are learning, and what it is making you think about. Build a small group of people you can learn with, argue with, debate with, and grow alongside. That is the kind of enrichment that compounds over time.
Take the time to read for purposeful distraction. Take the time to grow yourself and challenge yourself. Reflect on what you are experiencing. Practice self-empathy. And then end it all by sitting with the question Arthur Brooks is asking: what is the meaning of my life, and am I building toward it?
These books are an investment in you, one at a time. And when you share them with others, that investment multiplies. That is how we keep getting better. Not all at once, but one forward-facing day at a time.
List the books from this episode that you are going to read this summer. Be specific. Commit to at least one.
Then list the people in your life who need to read more, and which book you would put in their hands. You probably already know who they are.
And finally, describe how you can create opportunities for the people around you to read and lead together, so that you are not growing alone but growing as a group.
Read to lead. Invest in yourself. And get a little bit better today than you were yesterday. That is the only goal.