With the UK experiencing an extended period of sunshine and hot weather, it seems that it might be the time to take part in that most traditional exercise of the "Summer holiday reading list", although I'm going to propose an entertainment list to cover TV series and podcasts as well as reading. Also, I'm going to try to recommend some things that I personally think are worth the time and the effort but are relatively unknown or under appreciated. The main theme of the list is "what might be interesting to someone who is in the business world" and that should hopefully have something of interest for established C-Suite, investors, founders and advisers to businesses.

Turning to books, I regularly recommend the following books to clients and friends as having an interesting take on business and how companies and the world works:

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - admittedly some of you may be saying "hey this isn't unknown, this is written by a legendary founder and Silicon Valley guru", however, when I recommend it I am surprised that people don't seem to have read it. Recommended mostly because it is honest about things that are hard and things that have gone wrong, as opposed to those books that just say how great a success someone has been.

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein. A fascinating and accessible history if you like of how we "discovered" risk and how it has shaped society and business. What we take for granted as being risk assessment and use of data to analyse risk was actually not all that common not very long ago.

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John Coates. A trader who became a neuroscientist for my money is going to be someone worth checking out. This book particularly looks at the impact on us of high-pressure decision making across a number of fields and how we might better understand how we optimise that process.

The Gold Mine Effect by Rasmus Ankersen (I'm probably going to be called offside for this recommendation as - disclosure - I am a Brentford fan and have met Rasmus on a number of occasions but I'm still recommending it!). While many of the concepts in this book might feel familiar to those who read Gladwell, Sunstein, Thaler this brings a focus to how to develop and identify talent.

The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook. Ok, I'm biased as a huge Joy Division and New Order fan and I'll concede this might have more interest for fans but.....this book is secretly a hugely entertaining confessional about the naivety of opening and owning arguably the UK's most famous nightclub. I guarantee that you will not ever read and enjoy a book that has extracts from balance sheets at the end of each chapter more than this book. Works as a snapshot of the era, the music scene and also the business world and is warts and all for sure.

Turning to TV Series and Podcast, I'll keep this relatively short (quality over quantity) in trying to keep to the theme of unknown or under appreciated.

The podcast I'd recommend is "Flying Coach" with Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll. Again, I'll await the howls of "hang on Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll are two of the most famous sports names around - this isn't unknown", but do think this is relatively under the radar when I see recommendations for podcasts. This makes the cut (or should that be is a high pick on the draft?) because it is pretty broad limited series podcast that was recorded during Covid lockdowns and then also addressed wider societal issues. Fascinating topics and guest speakers which will have some insight for everyone.

The TV Series (and the prompt for getting around to writing this piece - as a result of a Twitter exchange that @ericbahn started that I read today) I have to recommend is "Halt and Catch Fire". Again, I'll brace for cries of "but look at that cast!" and "they did win a couple of awards" but I still think this is under appreciated and pretty unknown and it should be neither of those things! This series did era mood capture perfectly way before Stranger Things got in on the act and covered the whole arc of the development of computing and software against a dramatic business backdrop, with strong characters and intrigue. If you are interested in technology in any way and haven't watched this, then go and track it down!

I'm hoping this list might inspire some to check out the recommendations and to take something away from anything that is read, watched or listened but I'd also be fascinated and welcome views on the list and recommendations for equally unknown and under appreciated media.