Here are 72 books that Death by Meeting fans have personally recommended if you like
Death by Meeting.
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I’ve spent a lot of my career teaching people to navigate the complex, often messy intersection of ethics, communication, and human behavior. As a behavior analyst, teacher, supervisor, and coauthor of Daily Ethics: Creating Intentional Practice for Behavior Analysts, I’ve seen firsthand how the ability to have honest, compassionate, and courageous conversations can make or break relationships, teams, and outcomes. I chose these five books because they’ve shaped how I show up in my work and life—and because I have seen their contents help others become more intentional, committed, and successful communicators.
I love this book because it gave me a roadmap for navigating the conversations I used to dread, many of which involve ethics.
As a supervisor and leader, I’ve faced moments where my voice was shaky, my palms were sweaty (think “Mom’s spaghetti”), and my brain was frantically trying to script the “perfect” thing to say. Crucial Conversations reminded me that it’s not about perfect—it’s about being present, showing up, and having the conversation even when it is difficult.
This book highlights the importance of inviting different perspectives into tricky conversations. I’ve used its tools to prepare for and navigate tricky conversations in a collaborative way, focused on shared goals, mutual respect, and safety—even when emotions run high. It’s my “conversation courage” handbook.
The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller that changed the way millions communicate
"[Crucial Conversations] draws our attention to those defining moments that literally shape our lives, our relationships, and our world. . . . This book deserves to take its place as one of the key thought leadership contributions of our time." -from the Foreword by Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
"The quality of your life comes out of the quality of your dialogues and conversations. Here's how to instantly uplift your crucial conversations." -Mark Victor Hansen, cocreator of the #1…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As an organizational psychologist, I am driven to study and work to improve work activities that are causing great frustration and not working effectively—meetings are the perfect fit. And, for 20 years I have been actively publishing in this space and have spoken to well over 100,000 leaders through my keynotes/events/videos. What excites me is that meeting science can truly help leaders, teams, and organizations. The books I recommend are well-aligned with the science, and can be difference makers. I hope you enjoy them and find them helpful.
There are many reasons to really like this book. It is certainly thoughtful, intriguing, and well-grounded. The advice and guidance around meetings are plentiful and meaningful. I particularly appreciated that it addresses meeting practices that high-performing organizations use to drive results and build an excellent meeting culture. Overall, I appreciate the systems-based approach to addressing meeting issues.
How well you meet determines what your group can achieve
When you ask leaders in a high performing organization about the key to their success, the answers are all over the place: failing fast, radical transparency, operational excellence, strong core values... so many different North Stars to follow.
Then, if you ask them for an example–to tell you what that looks like in practice–they will all describe a meeting. Leaders at these organizations have learned to design a sequence of tailored meetings that create a healthy organizational culture and drive forward momentum. They know that meetings are where the action…
In my 20s, after always doing what I was “supposed” to, I found myself trapped in a relationship I wanted out of, in a job that barely paid the bills, and in a mindset of scarcity. After my birth control almost killed me, I dove into the mind-body connection that’s often stifled by sexism and societal expectations, becoming fascinated with pushing against the status quo and living more adventurously. I realized I needed to sincerely take my life decisions into my own hands. Since then, I’ve run ultramarathons, become an entrepreneur, and taught countless menstruators how to listen to their own bodies so they can build a life they love.
Why do women feel like we need to invite everyone to every party, throw weddings that are closer to our parents’ style than our own, and show up to networking nights that we know we won’t get anything out of?
I know this book is meant to be about hosting gatherings, but I’ve applied the principles to nearly everything I do in work and hobbies to add more intention, impact, and fulfillment. I’ve changed the way I sit at restaurants to encourage deeper conversations with friends. I’ve started to purposefully not invite certain people to certain parties since I know it would change the dynamic negatively for others. I’ve embraced the idea of “pop-up rules” at every event I host and expect guests to follow them so that the event is transformative and not boring.
Since reading Priya’s incredible framework, I’ve led extremely successful monthly events for my community, started…
"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED
From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond.
In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As an organizational psychologist, I am driven to study and work to improve work activities that are causing great frustration and not working effectively—meetings are the perfect fit. And, for 20 years I have been actively publishing in this space and have spoken to well over 100,000 leaders through my keynotes/events/videos. What excites me is that meeting science can truly help leaders, teams, and organizations. The books I recommend are well-aligned with the science, and can be difference makers. I hope you enjoy them and find them helpful.
The book takes on a very tricky meeting type, hybrid
meetings. It is easy to read and has a
nice set of evidence-based practices to elevate these meetings. As we move past
Covid, this is a helpful resource to managers as they meet in our new normal. I really enjoyed the discussion of challenges
and best practices from research to overcome.
Discover the challenges and opportunities of hybrid meetings with this science-based guide from an Emmy-award winning communications expert and renowned organizational psychologist
As remote work becomes less of an unusual exception and more of an everyday necessity, hybrid meetings-meetings in which some attendees are physically present while others are virtually present-are becoming the norm.
In Suddenly Hybrid: Managing the Modern Meeting, Emmy award-winning communications expert Karin Reed and veteran industrial and organizational psychologist Dr. Joseph A. Allen deliver a practical and actionable framework for attending, hosting, and managing hybrid meetings. The authors draw from their extensive experience in research and…
I’m a Filipino illustrator who draws children’s books for both publishers and for private commissions. I also have been reading children’s books as part of my job. My go-to children's stories are often about animals and nature. I hope you'll like the books on this list as much as I do!
I like reading a lot of animal stories and Aesop’s Fables is definitely on top of my list. The Town Mouse and Country Mouse fable is my favorite. When I was young, I never got to appreciate it but reading it as a grown-up, I can totally relate to how Town Mouse and Country Mouse felt about their hometowns. For me, no matter what place I travel to, I will still always prefer to live in my hometown. I recommend this version in particular because it’s geared towards younger readers. The morals are indicated at the start of every story to guide the readers on what lesson is being taught. I love the aesthetic of this book as well. It has a beautiful painterly and cartoony style to it.
A delightful collection of six stories, with lively retellings and colourful artwork by Columbian illustrator, John Joven. A perfect first introduction to Aesop for little children. Stories include well-known classics The Lion and the Mouse, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse and The Ant and the Grasshopper.
After reading The Enormous Egg as a child, I’ve been devoted to stories where the strange, the uncanny, and the magical are all elements of the worlds characters must negotiate. I’m most drawn to fiction containing seemingly unreal elements because, in my experience, that is reality. Those moments when the past suddenly feels present, or when you glimpse something at the edge of your vision that feels significant, but you can’t quite catch it. Moments when anything is possible. No surprise that I write fiction that explores those moments of uncertainty and leaves the reader unmoored, thinking about the people and their experiences long after they’ve left the book.
One of my favorite fiction collections, it contains everything from selkies to homework assignments to imagined histories.
I’m drawn to stories that illuminate hidden literature, imagine landscapes, or unearth a secret history. Stories with footnotes, poems, and epistolaries. Tender is all these things, and in the best fabulist tradition, these elements are not the point. They heighten the stakes and experiences.
I love books where the unreal and uncanny don’t distract from reality but create a focus to make a fictional reality more real. In Tender, even stories that appear to be straight science fiction become something bigger and stranger.
Samatar is a masterful stylist, and her prose is outrageously good.
World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus award finalist
Divided into "Tender Bodies" and "Tender Landscapes," the stories collected here in this first collection of short fiction from a rising star travel from the commonplace to the edges of reality. Some of Samatar's weird and compassionate fabulations spring from her life and literary studies; some spring from the world, some from the void. Tender explores the fragility of bodies, emotions, and landscapes, in settings that range from medieval Egypt to colonial Kenya to the stars, and the voices of those who question: children, students, servants, researchers, writers.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
After more than two decades of practice in the “corporate divorce” arena, I understand the challenges that arise from internal dissension within the management, operations, and ownership of a closely held business. Business is about relationships; relationships with customers, vendors, lenders, landlords, and often, relationships with business partners. Sometimes, business relationships stop being productive and start to impede business growth and success. That’s where I come in. I work with business owners to bring a successful resolution to disputes concerning the management and control of the business.
This book, written in a fable format, tells the story of the aging co-founders of a successful technology company. Although they’ve worked well together for decades, their goals become incompatible when one wishes to sell and the other wishes to bring on a family member as a partner and eventual successor.
This book offers an insightful guide to the financial and psychological challenges and opportunities associated with bringing productive closure to a business relationship.
A Tale of Two Owners is the fable of Al Beaman and Robert Gilmore, co-owners of a high successful IT service company. As is the case with so many business co-owners, they eventually realize their exit goals are incompatible. Al reaches a point where he wishes to sell the company for top dollar, while Robert not only does not want to sell, but desires to pass his ownership to his daughter Jessica. For the first time in their seventeen-year partnership, Al and Robert find themselves butting heads on the direction of their business. In the second part of this book,…
Much of my writing is influenced by Fairy Stories. Sometimes I retell the stories in my own words, sometimes I create my own, and sometimes, as in Rose Doran Dreams, I weave them into the narrative so that they shape the central character in a way that affects or explains her development. There is a darkness about Fairy Stories that fascinates me, that gives psychological depth to a character or a narrative as I write. I am dizzy with the notion that Fairy Stories don’t belong to the teller or the writer, the listener or the reader; they transcend time and place.
I was given this book thirty years ago by an Indian poet, who promised me I would love it. It is a feast of stories, told to the central character Devi throughout her life. Through her grandmother’s ancient stories, she learns about love, beauty, riches, and womanhood. Her father-in-law tells her stories that teach her about life, how to survive her lonely marriage, how to belong. Stories and dreams give her wealth and power, but they evaporate and still she is there, empty, alone, and desperate for the love that the old stories are about.
Two other women’s stories weave through the narrative. Her mother Seta, and her husband’s old retainer, Mayamma share exotic tales of ancient India, Gods, mysteries, magic, and rituals.
The Thousand Faces of Night is trancelike and beautiful.
A debut novel which interweaves the fabled myths and legends of India with a young woman's search for self, exploring such universal themes as freedom, independence and desire.
After reading The Enormous Egg as a child, I’ve been devoted to stories where the strange, the uncanny, and the magical are all elements of the worlds characters must negotiate. I’m most drawn to fiction containing seemingly unreal elements because, in my experience, that is reality. Those moments when the past suddenly feels present, or when you glimpse something at the edge of your vision that feels significant, but you can’t quite catch it. Moments when anything is possible. No surprise that I write fiction that explores those moments of uncertainty and leaves the reader unmoored, thinking about the people and their experiences long after they’ve left the book.
I wish publishers translated more fantastical fiction from around the world. This collection by Mexican authors offers a buffet of the weird, fabulist, and otherworldly.
The translated prose is masterful. Many stories draw the distant, decaying realm lying between life and death, directly and viscerally, into the homes and lives of the characters.
Anthologies can often suffer from an unevenness between authors, but this collection is consistently surprising and offers something for any reader of fabulist fiction.
A huge, energetic, and ambitious groundbreaking anthology from emerging and established Mexican authors which showcases all-new supernatural folktales, alien incursions, ghost stories, apocalyptic narratives, and more. Stereotypes of Mexican identities and fictions are identified and transcended. Traditional tales rub shoulders with mindbending new worlds. Welcome to the new Mexican fantastic. Eduardo Jimenez Mayo's translations include books by Bruno Estanol, Rafael Perez Gay, and Jose Maria Perez Gay. Chris N. Brown lives in Austin, Texas. He is a contributor to the blog No Fear of the Future. Bruce Sterling lives in Turin, Italy, and blogs at Wired's Beyond the Beyond.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I am an author, illustrator, and book designer. I never lost my childhood wonder at the printed page. When I write my own books, I create stories for both adults and children with deep meaning weaved into seemingly naive text and images. I enjoy creating worlds in which stories are told for children's and adults' imaginations to coexist. I think being dyslexic led me to enjoy aspects of visual storytelling so much. I have worked in publishing for many years and I am well known for my work on the Penguin clothbound classics where I use my visual illustration style to entice readers new and old to read classic stories and escape into new worlds.
As soon as I opened this book, I could see the inspiration from all the things that I personally love had been weaved into this beautiful visual story. I enjoy how illuminated manuscripts and ancient books inspire the pages with tiny detail. This book adds to its rich storytelling by playing with these elements. So beautifully designed and such wonderful integration of text and image. A stunning tale for young and old, with a message that makes my heart happy.
Wolf is a hunter, feared by every creature. But he has a secret: in the middle of the forest lives a girl whose beautiful voice has entranced him . . .
The Wolf longs for friendship. But is he prepared to sacrifice his own true nature in order for his wish to come true?
A beautiful and lyrical contemporary fairy tale about difference, trust and the power of friendship to overcome any obstacle.
This sumptuous hardback gift book, with gold foil detail, is perfect for lovers of fairy tales and fables, new and old. It is gloriously illustrated by acclaimed…
