What to Read in 2022: Book Recommendations From UVA Darden Professors

In a world awash in uncertainty and upheaval, where can we look for guideposts for the year ahead? The answer, often, is between the covers of a book.

We recently asked University of Virginia Darden School of Business professors what book or books they recommend to help navigate the year ahead. Their suggestions span genres and subject matter, but all aim to offer a helpful perspective in a world of seemingly constant change.

An Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda

I have found this book to be truly stunning. On the one hand, it narrates the life of an extraordinary person, but on the other, makes one ponder on its deeper message veiled behind the simplicity of its language. In particular, given the events and uncertainties surrounding COVID, politics, social churn, and the general direction in which we move forward as a society, I felt that there was much need for each individual to have a more positive outlook and deeper self-reflection and this book has helped me engage with these dimensions thoughtfully.

As an aside, the book as sold more then six million copies worldwide and has been recommended by academics, businesspeople and artists as a book that revolutionized their lives.

– Darden Professor Gaurav Chiplunkar

Apology by Plato

The Apology of Socrates, written by Plato, is a Socratic dialogue of the speech of legal self-defense which Socrates spoke at his trial for impiety and corruption in 399 BC.

I like it because: 1) I was not aware of the true origins of the word, apology. It means a defense, rather than what we conventionally think of today. To me it was an education of how we have evolved (or devolved) in the way we associate certain words with actions and events. 2) In today’s world of extremes, I really like to hear a good argument. This book does it well, in a satirical form, where motives come out not in one flash of good versus bad, but as a gradual reveal through an argument. Nothing is as simple as it seems. 3) And finally, it brings to fore the question, what would you have done?

– Darden Professor Vidya Mani

Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work by Darden Professor Jim Detert

Choosing Courage is THE guide to difficult conversations at work and why they’re worth having anyway. This book served as the course text for my “Values-Based Leadership” class this past fall, and I’m still talking about it with my students.

– Darden Professor Gabe Adams

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

In a world where social media platforms increasingly chip away at our efforts to concentrate on important work, Cal Newport has some fundamental ideas for how to create and develop work of “unambiguous value.” I particularly like his suggestion to “embrace boredom,” when the temptation otherwise is to fill every minute of the day by consuming information about things happening in the world that may or may not be of relevance.  The book was published in 2016 but seems to me to be even more relevant today than when it was first published.

– Darden Professor Shane Dikolli

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

This book argues that even in a world of specialization, those who have early generalist interests are likely to find career success, and often more so than those who specialize early. The book gives a myriad of examples of individuals who have had remarkable accomplishments in their career despite not having specialized in a vocation until late in their career. A basic premise in the book is that generalists bring new ideas to specialist settings, which can generate inspiration for breakthrough ideas. I was struck by how much the insights reminded me of why it is so important to have such a broad core curriculum at Darden — specializing too early in a specific discipline avoids learning about concepts in other disciplines that may create inspiration and ideas in the specific discipline.

– Darden Professor Shane Dikolli

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz

How much better off could we be if we thought not about what we might add, but what we could take away? Leidy Klotz’s book tackles why we neglect to consider subtraction as a change strategy.

– Darden Professor Gabe Adams

The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World by Peter Schwartz

I really, really like this book. It deals with extrapolating present circumstances into the future and how to create/estimate different scenarios and outcomes in business. It is conceptually grounded and provides terrific frameworks. It’s also an easy read.

– Darden Professor Anthony Palomba

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race  by Walter Issacson

Isaacson offers a broad perspective in his first biography featuring a great female mind in telling the story of the Nobel Prize winner who developed the gene editing technology CRISPR. The book explores the value of networking and collaboration and the disincentives to do so from an academic and business perspective, as well as the moral questions of editing the human genome and the question of who should draw the “red line.” The final section captured the real-time events of how Doudna and her gene editing is helping the battle against COVID.

– Darden Professor Tim Laseter

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration  by Isabel Wilkerson

This book was recommended to me by a student during the first year of COVID. It is a combination of scholarly research and gifted storytelling about the resilience of the human spirt to redefine the future.

– Darden Professor Mary Margaret Frank

For more thoughts on the year ahead from Darden professors, see “7 Leadership Issues for 2022: Actions for the Present to Shape the Future.”