Here are 100 books that How Good People Make Tough Choices fans have personally recommended if you like
How Good People Make Tough Choices.
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I’ve spent over three decades as a therapist and professor, with ethics at the heart of everything I do. Many clients come to therapy feeling at odds with their moral compass, and I’m passionate about helping them navigate those gray areas with compassion and clarity. As a professor, I live what I teach—engaging in real-world ethical decision-making, mentoring new professionals, and writing books that bring complex concepts to life. I love books that challenge us to think deeply, sit with ambiguity, and reconnect with our moral center. This list reflects that journey—these are the books that stay with you long after the last page.
I’ll admit it—Jodi Picoult gets me in the feels every single time. But this was the one that hooked me. I thought I knew what I’d do if faced with the choice to conceive a child to save another. Simple, right? You save your kid.
But this story unraveled all my assumptions. It made me pause and really consider the perspective of the child conceived for a purpose. Then it threw the whole family into court—and suddenly, I was questioning everything again. I found myself discovering new values I didn’t even know I held.
Sara and Brian Fitzgerald's life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter, Kate, is forever altered when they learn that Kate has leukemia. The parents' only hope is to conceive another child, specifically intended to save Kate's life. For some, such genetic engineering would raise both moral and ethical questions; for the Fitzgeralds, Sara in particular, there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive. And what it takes is Anna. Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and Anna (Abigail Breslin) share a bond closer than most sisters: though Kate is older, she relies on her little…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’ve spent over three decades as a therapist and professor, with ethics at the heart of everything I do. Many clients come to therapy feeling at odds with their moral compass, and I’m passionate about helping them navigate those gray areas with compassion and clarity. As a professor, I live what I teach—engaging in real-world ethical decision-making, mentoring new professionals, and writing books that bring complex concepts to life. I love books that challenge us to think deeply, sit with ambiguity, and reconnect with our moral center. This list reflects that journey—these are the books that stay with you long after the last page.
I was a young mom when I first read this book, and abortion, death with dignity, and orphaned children weren’t exactly topics I was seeking out. But Irving pulled me in with a story so human, so layered, I couldn’t look away.
What struck me most was how these enormous ethical conflicts—ones that still ignite fierce debate—were explored through a quiet, powerful relationship between a boy and his mentor. Watching that relationship evolve helped me understand that ethics aren’t fixed; they shift with time, context, and lived experience.
This book made me sit with discomfort, question certainty, and lean into compassion. And that’s why I still think about it.
'The reason Homer Wells kept his name was that he came back to St Cloud's so many times, after so many failed foster homes, that the orphanage was forced to acknowledge Homer's intention to make St Cloud's his home.'
Homer Wells' odyssey begins among the apple orchards of rural Maine. As the oldest unadopted child at St Cloud's orphanage, he strikes up a profound and unusual friendship with Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder - a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether. What he learns from Wilbur takes him from his early apprenticeship in the orphanage surgery, to…
I’ve spent over three decades as a therapist and professor, with ethics at the heart of everything I do. Many clients come to therapy feeling at odds with their moral compass, and I’m passionate about helping them navigate those gray areas with compassion and clarity. As a professor, I live what I teach—engaging in real-world ethical decision-making, mentoring new professionals, and writing books that bring complex concepts to life. I love books that challenge us to think deeply, sit with ambiguity, and reconnect with our moral center. This list reflects that journey—these are the books that stay with you long after the last page.
I loved this book because it doesn’t pretend that ethical decision-making is clean or easy—it acknowledges the mess and dives right in. I’ve always found myself frustrated by how people talk about ethics like it’s obvious or binary: “I would always do this” or “I’d never do that.” But real life isn’t like that, and this book knows it.
Reading it felt strangely comforting, like someone finally said out loud that these choices are hard—and that it’s okay to struggle with them. It reads like self-help in the best way. I didn’t just come away feeling smarter; I came away knowing myself better. It helped me clarify my values and gave me language for the quiet tug-of-war that happens inside when I’m facing a tough call.
The essential guide for ethical decision-making in the 21st century, The Power of Ethics depicts “ethical decision-making not in a nebulous philosophical space, but at the point where the rubber meets the road” (Michael Schur, producer and creator of The Good Place).
It's not your imagination: we're living in a time of moral decline. Publicly, we're bombarded with reports of government leaders acting against the welfare of their constituents; companies prioritizing profits over health, safety, and our best interests; and technology posing risks to society with few or no repercussions for those responsible. Personally, we may be conflicted about how…
In 1913, a 15-year-old pregnant girl was found dead of apparent suicide. Dr. James Wilson, a new graduate and the first doctor ever to start a practice in this rural town, feels guilty over her death because of his delayed intervention.
I’ve spent over three decades as a therapist and professor, with ethics at the heart of everything I do. Many clients come to therapy feeling at odds with their moral compass, and I’m passionate about helping them navigate those gray areas with compassion and clarity. As a professor, I live what I teach—engaging in real-world ethical decision-making, mentoring new professionals, and writing books that bring complex concepts to life. I love books that challenge us to think deeply, sit with ambiguity, and reconnect with our moral center. This list reflects that journey—these are the books that stay with you long after the last page.
I’ve never forgotten the Milgram experiment—but I’d never turned it inward until I read this book. It forced me to ask: Do I ever follow instructions just because they’re expected? That question unsettled me—in a good way.
This book helped me recognize the quiet moments where obedience can blur into complicity. And more importantly, it gave me tools to pause, reflect, and re-anchor my values. What stayed with me most was the reminder that ethical clarity doesn’t have to happen in isolation. Community and collaboration are essential—not going it alone is a value I didn’t realize I’d been craving.
In commerce, many moral failures are due to narrow mindsets that preclude taking into account the moral dimensions of a decision or action. In turn, sometimes these mindsets are caused by failing to question managerial decisions from a moral point of view, because of a perceived authority of management. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted controversial experiments to investigate just how far obedience to an authority figure could subvert his subjects' moral beliefs. In this thought-provoking work, the authors examine the prevalence of narrow mental models and the phenomenon of obedience to an authority to analyse and understand the challenges…
Choosing philosophy at 18 raised a few eyebrows: friends and family thought I was a bit mad and a little lost. Later, when I decided to write philosophical stories and essays, I heard the same refrain: “Most people are afraid of philosophy.” But those voices never swayed me. Deep down, I knew that thinking is a powerful tool for healing, a way to mend what’s broken within us and in the world. Ideas, I believe, can spark change and make the world a better place.
In a world obsessed with schedules and statistics, I found myself drawn to this whimsical tale about a man who rolls a dice to make life's big decisions. It mirrored my own youthful spirit–a time when I lived very spontaneously, even writing novels as experiments in happenstance. It was a time of unexpected adventures, an antidote to dull routines.
Nowadays, over-planning and seriousness sometimes creep in. But thankfully, I have my children to remind me of the simple, healing joy of play–life doesn’t always have to be so meticulously planned.
The cult classic that can still change your life...Let the dice decide! This is the philosophy that changes the life of bored psychiatrist Luke Rhinehart-and in some ways changes the world as well. Because once you hand over your life to the dice, anything can happen. Entertaining, humorous, scary, shocking, subversive, The Dice Man is one of the cult bestsellers of our time.
I’ve read countless books and articles on business, leadership, and sustainability—but the ones I return to are those that grapple with purpose. I’m drawn to anything that challenges the "business as usual" status quo and shows how business can be a force for good. Having worked across sectors and shaped my own thinking around the challenges facing business and society, I know how powerful purpose can be when done right. But more than that, I feel it—these books fuel my belief that meaningful change is possible. If you care about business’s potential to positively shape society and the planet, give them a go.
I’ve read lots of books about the future of business and the future of capitalism, but this book deeply inspired me. Mackey and Sisodia articulate with clarity and conviction what I’ve long believed—that purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive but, in fact, must go hand in hand.
I particularly connected with their emphasis on conscious leadership and the need for a higher purpose to guide business strategy. It reinforced my own thinking and sharpened my understanding of how critical it is for leaders to align values with actions. I saw clear parallels with the approach I have developed, and it affirmed for me that embedding purpose isn’t just desirable—it’s essential.
As seen on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday A New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller In this book, Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue for the inherent good of both business and capitalism. Featuring some of today's best-known companies, they illustrate how these two forces can--and do--work most powerfully to create value for all stakeholders: including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment. These "Conscious Capitalism" companies include Whole Foods Market, Southwest Airlines, Costco, Google, Patagonia, The Container Store, UPS, and dozens of others. We know them; we…
Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, and Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977. Both began a historic journey with unique 'time capsules' on board intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record 12-inch gold-plated disk…
I’ve read countless books and articles on business, leadership, and sustainability—but the ones I return to are those that grapple with purpose. I’m drawn to anything that challenges the "business as usual" status quo and shows how business can be a force for good. Having worked across sectors and shaped my own thinking around the challenges facing business and society, I know how powerful purpose can be when done right. But more than that, I feel it—these books fuel my belief that meaningful change is possible. If you care about business’s potential to positively shape society and the planet, give them a go.
I wrote extensively about Paul Polman in my own book—particularly about his courage. What I admire most is that he didn’t just talk about purpose; he lived it and delivered it.
Reading this book reminded me why I found his leadership at Unilever so compelling. Like purpose itself, Unilever isn’t perfect—but what Polman stood for and what he managed to achieve showed what’s truly possible when courage, conviction, and commitment meet strategy.
I loved how the book balances idealism with practical insight. It pushed my thinking further, reaffirming that profit and purpose can and must coexist if business is to remain relevant in today’s world.
Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50
"An advocate of sustainable capitalism explains how it's done" - The Economist
"Polman's new book with the sustainable business expert Andrew Winston...argues that it's profitable to do business with the goal of making the world better." - The New York Times
Named as recommended reading by Fortune's CEO Daily
"...Polman has been one of the most significant chief executives of his era and that his approach to business and its role in society has been both valuable and path-breaking."…
It might be a stretch to call me an expert in ethics, but I have taught ethics for more than 30 years and I’ve read deeply in the field of behavioral ethics. I'm proud of the work I’ve done with the Ethics Unwrapped video project, though most of the credit goes to filmmakers Cara Biasucci (co-author of Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions) and Lazaro Hernandez (producer ofEthics Unwrapped). My passion for this topic is driven largely by the fact that I want my two daughters to live in a world where most people are trying to do the right thing most of the time.
Love this book! This is a foundational behavioral ethics book, written by two giants in the field—psychologists Bazerman of Harvard Business School and Tenbrunsel of Notre Dame.
It is research-based, yet very accessible to the novice, directly addressing, as the title indicates, why people sometimes mess up and how they can avoid it. It introduces the reader to cognitive biases and other influences that can fool people’s brains into making poor moral choices.
Blind Spots was an invaluable resource for Cara Biasucci and me for many of the 150 or so videos we have produced for Ethics Unwrapped.
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In "Blind Spots", leading business ethicists Max Baseman's and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the…
AO: I have been intrigued by the Adam and smith (a play on Adam Smith’s name due to K. Boulding) of social sciences ever since, as a graduate student, I was given the privilege to teach a history-of-thought course. I found a lot of wisdom in Smith’s works and continue to find it with every new read. BW: I first met Adam Smith when I was studying for my master’s degree in economics almost twenty years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed rereading him, always finding new sources of fascination and insights. For me, Smith's work is endlessly rich and remains astonishingly topical, three centuries after his birth.
Smith is generally considered as the father of economics, laying its foundations in the eighteenth century.
But he can also be an inspiration for rethinking economics (providing more realistic assumptions about human conduct) and laboratory experiments in the twenty-first century, helping us to build a new “Humanomics” (see also McCloskey’s two books on this subject). That’s what Vernon Smith (Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002) and Bart Wilson convincingly argue for in their uncommon and innovative book. Smith is still alive (and well alive) today.
While neo-classical analysis works well for studying impersonal exchange in markets, it fails to explain why people conduct themselves the way they do in their personal relationships with family, neighbors, and friends. In Humanomics, Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon L. Smith and his long-time co-author Bart J. Wilson bring their study of economics full circle by returning to the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith. Sometime in the last 250 years, economists lost sight of the full range of human feeling, thinking, and knowing in everyday life. Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century…
Deputy Jenna Hart has only been working in her sleepy hometown of Pearl Springs for seven months when city officials begin to be targeted by a killer. Twenty years ago, the construction of a dam caused people to lose their land to eminent domain. That wound has not healed with…
I would like to consider myself an experienced and successful designer, researcher, and educator. I'm an Associate Professor in Communication Design and the Head of Education for the School of Design at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, where I've taught and researched for the last twenty years so I'm super passionate about this subject and love explaining how design works. Before joining academia, I worked internationally as a designer and creative director for numerous prestigious design and media organizations, including Philips, Time-Warner, Windmill Lane Pictures, and WPP in the UK, Ireland, USA, and Southeast Asia. Working in these different businesses and locations gave me a broad perspective on the role and importance of design.
There is so much understandable suspicion about how organisations use or misuse your personal data that it's hard to see the many potential benefits of data sharing. This book restores a little faith in technology and those who develop it for public benefit.
It is a compelling read, learning how data can be used for good and bad, with many references to the author’s personal journey, from working in customer services to being an internet entrepreneur before becoming a researcher.
'An essential read' Diane Coyle, University of Cambridge
'We are currently living in a moment of extreme pessimism about data. This book will change your mind.'
It's impossible to escape digital technology. And with that comes fear. But whatever the news has told you about data and technology, think again. Data expert and tech insider turned Cambridge researcher Sam Gilbert shows that, actually, this data revolution could be the best thing that ever happened to us.
Good Data examines the incredible new ways this information explosion is already helping us - whether that's…
