As most of you know, I spend a good deal of my time on the road.
Over the past two years, my travels have taken me to Amsterdam; Arlington, Va.; Aspen, Colo. (twice); Atlanta (twice); Austin; Bali, Indonesia; Bangkok; Barcelona (twice); Beijing; Berlin; Boston (four times); Butte, Mont. (twice); Carlsbad, Calif. (twice); Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago (four times); Copenhagen; Cork, Ireland; Dallas (three times); Dana Point, Calif. (twice); Denver; Des Moines, Iowa (twice); Frankfurt; The Hague; Half Moon Bay, Calif.; Hong Kong (twice); Houston; Laguna Beach, Calif. (three times); Lisbon; London (twice); Los Angeles; Nashville; New York City (10 times); Phoenix (three times); Queenstown, New Zealand; Raleigh, N.C.; Rome; Sacramento, Calif. (three times); San Antonio; San Diego; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Santa Monica, Calif. (twice): Santiago, Chile (as well as Temuco, Huilo Huilo, Valparaiso, Vina Del Mar and Horcun); Short Hills, N.J.; Singapore (twice); South Beach, Fla.; Tacoma, Wash.; and Washington, D.C.
Obviously, that’s a lot of miles, and a ton of hours in the air. Most of the time I try to spend productively, by reading. Because my interests are somewhat eclectic, the titles I’ve completed during the past two years spans a broad range of topics and genres. Here’s a sampling of most of them:
- Abundance, by Peter Diamandis
- The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and A World On Fire, by Neil Irwin (who recently helped keynote our VIP Americas conference)
- Ancient Rome, by Robert Franklin Pennell
- Average Is Over, by Tyler Cowen
- The Battle of Bretton Woods, by Been Steil
- Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil
- Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War, by Max Hastings
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
- A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin
- The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx
- Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Berkins
- Content Is Currency, by Jon Wuebben
- A Dance with Dragons, by George R.R. Martin
- David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, by Malcolm Gladwell
- Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face — and What to Do About It, by Richard S. Tedlow
- Design Crazy, by Max Chafkin
- Disorder in the Court, by Charles M. Sevilla
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink
- The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil
- Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
- The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, by Brad Stones
- The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that Transformed the South, by Bruce Levine
- A Feast of Crows, by George R.R. Martin
- A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin
- The Genius (Bill Walsh biography), by David Harris
- Gettysburg, The Last Invasion, by Allen C. Guelzo
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman
- How Stella Saved the Farm: A Tale About Making Innovation Happen, by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
- I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words, edited by George Beahm
- Into the Wild, by John Krakauer
- Jesus, Interrupted, by Bart D. Ehrman
- Jony Ive, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products, by Leander Kahney
- The Kingmaker’s Daughter, by Phillippa Gregory
- The Lady of the Rivers, by Phillippa Gregory
- The Leader’s Checklist, by Michael Useem
- The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson
- The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
- The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume I through XII, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
- The Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed
- Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, by E.M. Berrens
- One Summer — America, 1927, by Bill Bryson
- Other People’s Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made, by Charles Bagli
- The Pacific, by Hugh Ambrose
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg
- The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, by Carmine Gallo
- The Red Queen, by Phillippa Gregory
- The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Bill Walsh
- A Short History of England, The Glorious Story of a Rowdy Nation, by Simon Jenkins
- A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
- The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver
- The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil
- Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
- Still Foolin’ ’Em, by Billy Crystal
- A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin
- That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum
- The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, by Sharon Bertch McGrayne
- Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- This Explains Everything, a collection of essays edited by John Brockman
- Transcend — Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D.
- A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson
- The War that Ended Peace: the Road to 1914, by Margaret McMillan
- Washington, A Life, by Ron Chernow
- The White Princess, by Phillippa Gregory
- The White Queen, by Phillippa Gregory
- Whole Earth Discipline: Why dense cities, nuclear power, transgenic crops, a restored wildlines and geoengineering are necessary, by Stewart Brand
- Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
- Why the West Rules — For Now, by Ian Morris
- Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan
Most of the above are highly recommended. Where have you been lately, and what have you been reading?
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Geoffrey Dohrmann is president and CEO of Institutional Real Estate, Inc.
