Read any good books lately?

Every Christmas my brother and I used to receive a £10 book token each from a family friend and would look forward to the January visit to our local bookshop to choose a book.

Browsing through the huge shelves every year, I was always struck by the amount of choice and impossible task of choosing just one book to spend my token on.

I have published an annual reading list of books since 2009, capturing the publications that I recommend, particularly with regards to internal communication, social media, PR and business.

This year is no exception and I’ve highlighted the books I’ve listed below.

Further reading: Recommended books for comms pros, plus books Rachel has contributed to.

My days of receiving book tokens are no more and sadly our family friend is no longer with us. If anyone in our household is of the age to start receiving such thoughtful presents, it’s certainly my daughter, who is making me realise we are going to need a heck of a lot more shelving as she has an impressive collection already at only seven months old.

When asked for baby shower ideas, I asked my girlfriends to buy her their favourite childhood book, so she has a brilliant collection of exciting adventures to read and have read to her.

However, despite a lack of book tokens, I do have three books winging their way to me in the next few weeks following recommendations from others, which may just appear in my 2014 list.

I purchased them using a voucher I was given recently. There’s a nice sense of continuity about that I feel, I still enjoy exploring bookshops and regularly buy in the high street and online. I’ve not made the switch to e-readers yet. I’m still undecided whether I will or not, so for now am sticking with what I know, and my recommendations in this article are in hardcopy format.

Talking of books, this year will see the publication of Share This Too: More Social Media Solutions for PR Professionals (Wiley, 2013), the follow-up to the best-selling Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals (Wiley, 2012).

I was honoured to have a chapter published in the original and have just submitted my content for the sequel – I’ve written about using social media for corporate communication.

I’ve included it in my list and welcome your feedback, you can also follow conversations about it via #CIPRSM on Twitter. The latest figure I heard was that less than 10 per cent of Share This sales have been digital format; the overwhelming majority have been hardcopy.

Picture this
This morning I Tweeted the photograph you can see on this page, which is part of my ever-growing bookshelf, and asked if anyone had any recommendations of books to read.

Rob Jones @robjones_tring kindly shared a photograph of his (which you can see below) and has captured his top six from his collection as:

• Why should anyone be led by you? What it takes to be an authentic leader by Gareth Jones & Rob Goffee
• Key Management Models by Van Assen, Van den Berg and Pietersma
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• The five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
• The Machine that changed the world – James Womack, Daniel Jones & Daniel Roos
• The Art of War – Sun Tzu

What do you recommend?
I’d love to know what’s on your reading list. What book/s do you find yourself lending out and championing?

I asked that question via Twitter today and received these answers: @dave_wraith recommends Made to Stick, and also Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. He says: “both brilliant for IC but no one seems to have read them.” They were new to me… perhaps one for my next voucher purchase – Rachel

@lizardvanilla recommends Never Mind the Bosses by Robin Ryde @robinrydenow as “an entertaining and insightful read on leadership and organisational culture.”

Comms pro Heather Wagoner has published her own reading list via her blog, which you can access here and says “it’s a starter for ten and that she knows she’ll add more to it.”

Neal Schaffer has published the 2o best social media books from 2012 to read in 2013.

You’re welcome to comment below with your recommend reads about all things internal communication. That’s the beauty of our profession – it’s a broad one, so you may find the books that give you the most inspiration don’t strictly fall under the IC category.

I successfully used Yes!: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion, for internal comms within the railway, and will perhaps share how and what I did, at a later date.

So, without further ado, here are the books in my 2013 list:

• Exploring Internal Communication by Kevin Ruck
• Share This: The social media handbook for PR professionals
• Brand Anarchy: Managing corporate reputation, Stephen Waddington and Steve Earl
• Organisations don’t tweet, people do, by Euan Semple
• Internal communications: Insights, practices and models by  Aniisu K Verghese
• From Lincoln to LinkedIn by Mike Klein
• Making the connections by Bill Quirke
• Homo Imitans by Dr Leandro Herrero
• Effective Internal Communication by Lyn Smith and Pamela Mounter
• The CEO: Chief Engagement Officer: Turning hierarchy upside down to drive performane by John Smythe
• Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion by Noah J Goldstein
• The business of influence: reframing marketing and PR for the digital age by Philip Sheldrake

Further reading
You can see my previous book lists via my Rachel’s Resources page.

Do please let me know what book/s have been important to you in your career or have inspired you, by tweeting me @AllthingsIC or commenting below.

Thanks as ever for stopping by, and happy reading! Rachel.

Update: Thank you to everyone who has Tweeted me a photograph of their bookshelf. You can see them here: Share your shelf.

Post author: Rachel Miller

First published 6 January 2013.