The Reading Room

Each month a member of the team reviews a book of their choosing, irrelevant of genre or publishing date.

Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK

Simon Kuper

Published: 2022, Profile Books

The lack of academic effort generally put in by Oxford undergraduates is an important theme running through this book, penned by Financial Times columnist Kuper. It links this work-shy attitude to the centuries’ old dominance of Oxford by the top English public schools spawning “top tory toffs with a born to rule attitude”.    

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars

Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan

Published: 2013, Columbia Business School Publishing

Jim Paul’s meteoric rise took him from a small town to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Moynihan revisit the events and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.

The Outsiders

William M. Thorndike Jr

Published: 2012, Harvard Business Review Press

The Outsiders chronicles the unconventional techniques that led eight CEOs to outperform the S&P 500 by an astounding twenty times.