As the pace eases and the year edges toward its quieter months, summer offers a rare chance to step back, read deeply and reconnect with the ideas that sharpen judgement and broaden perspective. This year’s reading list brings together works that probe power, uncertainty, leadership and the shifting global landscape, each chosen for its ability to unsettle, illuminate and provoke thought.
Non-fiction
The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper (2008)
Recommended by Sarah Jones (PhD), FRSN, GAICD, PCC,
AICD Group Head of Education & Policy Leadership
The Tall Man is one of those works of narrative non-fiction that stays with you long after you turn the final page. Chloe Hooper’s devastating and meticulous account of the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island (about 65 km north-west of Townsville, Queensland) is both a gripping true-crime investigation and a profound meditation on power, justice and the human consequences of institutional failure. For directors, this is an essential text, one that unsettles, sharpens awareness and invites a deeper reflection on leadership responsibility within complex systems. In reflecting on its relevance for directors, I would suggest this book offers several enduring insights. Hooper reveals with clarity how institutional culture shapes outcomes well before any formal process begins. Unquestioned assumptions, protective behaviours and historical blind spots can create the conditions in which failure emerges — not with malicious intent, but through inertia, silence and rationalisations that proliferate when scrutiny fades. Her narrative is a powerful reminder for directors that culture is not an abstract concept — it is the lived force that determines whether systems uphold their purpose or get lost along the way.
Equally striking is Hooper’s portrayal of community trust as something earned through presence, transparency and genuine engagement. Through the Palm Island community, she demonstrates that legitimacy must be continually cultivated. For leaders navigating complex social and stakeholder environments, this becomes a compelling call to lead with humility and accountability.
Running through the book is a quiet philosophy of leadership grounded in courageous listening. Hooper listens — to grief, to anger, to fear — and in doing so, models the kind of reflective, unflinching attention that governance demands, especially when institutional narratives are challenged.
More than a decade after its publication, The Tall Man remains relevant to governance, reconciliation and questions of institutional trust in Australia. This is one of the most profound books I have read in recent times. While it’s not light reading, its emotional resonance and moral clarity make it a vital companion for directors seeking to deepen their understanding of culture, justice and responsibility.
Strategic leadership, risk thinking, public policy & governance
Radical Uncertainty, John Kay & Mervyn King (2020)
Recommended by Sarah Jones (PhD), FRSN, GAICD, PCC,
AICD Group Head of Education & Policy Leadership
Radical Uncertainty is a deeply intelligent and quietly provocative examination of how leaders make decisions in a world that refuses to be neatly predicted. John Kay and Mervyn King challenge one of the long-standing assumptions that can still underpin modern management and risk practice — the belief that the future can be modelled, quantified and tamed. They argue that most consequential questions in strategic leadership sit well beyond the reach of probability, and that judgement, not mathematical precision, is the true currency of decision-making.
For directors, the book offers a valuable corrective to the culture of false certainty that can surround forecasting and risk reporting. Kay and King invite us to understand that ambiguity is not a flaw in governance, but the natural state in which organisations operate. In this environment, leadership becomes less about identifying “the right answer” and more about cultivating the adaptive imagination to engage thoughtfully with multiple plausible futures. They elevate narrative reasoning — the disciplined construction of coherent explanations about what might happen — over what they present as the seductive, but often misleading comfort of numerical models.
What makes Radical Uncertainty particularly resonant for contemporary boards is its insistence that strategic judgement is a collective discipline, strengthened by diversity of thought, curiosity and a willingness to dwell in unfamiliar possibilities. In a landscape shaped by geopolitical volatility, technological acceleration and shifting societal expectations, Kay and King remind directors that precision is often an illusion and that the real work of governance lies in embracing uncertainty with maturity and intellectual honesty.
Radical Uncertainty isn’t exactly light summer reading (sorry), but it’s an important read. For me, the value lies in how it sharpens the kind of reflective, systemic, forward-oriented thinking that directors increasingly need as they steward organisations through turbulence and transformation.
Geopolitics, leadership & power
Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, Dan Wang (2025)
Recommended by Mark Thirlwell GAICD,
AICD Chief Economist, Education & Policy Leadership
I’m recommending a book I haven’t even read yet. But a few good reviews and several decent podcast interviews give me some comfort here. And at a time when the world is debating both the likely trajectory of the geopolitical and geo-economic contest between Washington and Beijing, as well as the seeming inability of much of the advanced world to build stuff anymore, a detailed look at both the strengths and the failings of China’s “engineering state” seems particularly apposite.
The Hour of the Predator, Giuliano da Empoli (2025)
Recommended by Mark Thirlwell GAICD,
AICD Chief Economist, Education & Policy Leadership
Recommending something I have actually read, I would suggest The Hour of the Predator. This one snagged my attention via a Financial Times review, which included a telling vignette in which the author turns up to the launch of a foundation set up by the Obamas to inspire future leaders and is promptly treated to lessons about Michelle’s organic garden and a speech from a pioneer of the mindful consumption of chocolate. Da Empoli opens his book by comparing today’s leaders to the Aztecs’ hapless response to the arrival of the conquistadors. I’ve been tempted into deploying the “Are we/you the Aztecs?” question a couple of times this year.
Alternatively, if you prefer a fictional take on a similar theme, the same author’s The Wizard of the Kremlin (2022) was another good read.
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Additional recommendations by AICD team
1. Polostan, Neal Stephenson (2024)
This is the first novel in Stephenson’s new historical-fiction series, Bomb Light.
The novel follows the turbulent life of Dawn Rae Bjornberg (also known as Aurora), born in the American West to anarchist parents, raised in post-revolutionary Russia, then returning to the United States during the Great Depression.
As Dawn’s past catches up with her, she flees back to the USSR and is groomed to become a spy for the nascent Soviet intelligence agency that will evolve into the KGB.
Set against the backdrop of the 1930s —- with its political upheaval, social unrest and the dawn of the Atomic Age — Polostan blends personal drama, ideological conflict and espionage in a fast-paced, richly textured historical canvas.
2. Where the Axe is Buried, Ray Nayler (2025)
Where the Axe Is Buried is a science-fiction novel set in a near-future world where authoritarian regimes and AI-run states have crushed human freedoms.
In the oppressive Federation, a long-time ruler has preserved his power by repeatedly transferring his consciousness into new bodies. Elsewhere, in Western Europe, nations have handed over governance to supposedly benevolent AI prime ministers.
The story follows a cast of characters — including a scientist, her former lover, a dissident exiled deep in the taiga, a regime doctor and a low-level political staffer — whose lives become entangled in a sprawling conspiracy and revolutionary plot that may determine humanity’s future.
At its core, the novel is a grim but provocative exploration of state power, consciousness, technology and resistance — blending cybernetic thriller elements with political and philosophical questions about authoritarianism, identity and freedom
A final thought
From probing institutional failures to exploring uncertainty, power, authoritarianism and the engineering of national futures, this list brings together books that demand attention rather than offering escape. But for leaders and thinkers seeking clarity amid complexity, these works offer something far more enduring than light entertainment — perspective, challenge and the kind of insight that shapes better judgement.
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