The Big Read Palo Alto

Greetings Big Readers- 

In 2017, we're going to take on a series of challenging books in order to improve our ability to be effective leaders of diverse teams. This year, we will explore books that deal with issues of race, class, bias, and social division. 

Every one of us brings our personal histories and experiences to work each day, but we often don't realize how different our perception of the world may be from that of our co-workers, our bosses, or our employees. We paper over these differences in ways that are big and small, but this behavior often comes at a cost to our authenticity, our ability to bring our best selves to every situation, and our ability to help other women.

Our books for 2017 will challenge us to expand our understanding of others in order to be inclusive leaders. These books may create uncomfortable discussions, but I hope you will  join us on this journey.

The book selections for Q1 2017 are:

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

"In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?"

Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance

"Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck."