Leaders Are Readers
Understanding the times.
Books that have helped shape our understanding of the times — and that we return to when advising leaders.
Recommended Reading
C.S. Lewis
Our fellow Ulsterman, C.S. Lewis, combined intellectual rigour with a gift for making timeless truths accessible. Few writers have shaped Christian thought and moral imagination more profoundly.
C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (8-Volume Box Set)
Boxed together for the first time, here are the signature spiritual works of our fellow Belfastman, C.S. Lewis. The Signature Classics include: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, The Abolition of Man and The Four Loves.
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Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity has changed lives around the world for generations. Lewis explores the core beliefs of Christianity by providing an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith.
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The Screwtape Letters
At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man.
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Surprised by Joy
Lewis begins with his childhood in Belfast, surveys his boarding school years and his youthful atheism in England, reflects on his experience in World War I, and ends at Oxford, where he became "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." As he recounts his lifelong search for joy, Lewis demonstrates its role in guiding him to find God.
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The Abolition of Man
C.S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society. Both astonishing and prophetic, this book is one of the most debated of Lewis's extraordinary works.
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That Hideous Strength
A sinister technocratic organization is gaining power throughout Europe, with a plan to "recondition" society, and it is up to Ransom and his friends to stop this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a new universe dominated by science.
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Leadership, Culture & the Future of the West
These books explore the ideas, leaders, institutions, and values that have shaped Western civilization and continue to influence our world today.
The Man Nobody Knows
The best short book I have ever read. One plane journey and you're done, and a better man for it. Bruce Barton was the original 'Mad Man' — an Ad Man from Madison Avenue who presents Jesus as the world's first advertising man, a great business executive who picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world.
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The Power of With
1st Century Wisdom and 21st century Wit to Build Your Business — a concise and entertaining handbook for what business managers need to know to sign new clients, serve clients, and lead people. Written by my brother Mark D. McIntyre, former speechwriter to President George H.W. Bush.
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Civilization — The West and the Rest
Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Has the zenith of Western power now passed? Ferguson shows how 'the Rest' have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself.
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The Global Public Square
In a world torn by religious conflict, the threats to human dignity are terrifyingly real. Os Guinness argues that the way forward for the world lies in promoting freedom of religion and belief for people of all faiths and none.
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The Power of Geography
Find out why US interest in the Middle East will wane; why Australia is now beginning an epic contest with China; how Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UK are cleverly positioning themselves for greater power; and why Europe's next refugee crisis looms closer than we think.
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The Tragedy of American Compassion
The crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. The needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give.
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An Immigrant's Love Letter To The West
Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective.
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A Library for Leaders
The challenges facing leaders today are rarely new. Questions of faith, courage, character, governance, responsibility, service, and human nature have confronted every generation.
The Knowledge of the Holy
Before God is love He is holy. The Scriptures tell us that "without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14 NIV). Tozer's book is a wonderful primer for those seeking to know the true God and His holiness.
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A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and A Great War
This book chronicles how the combat experiences of WWI shaped the theology and writing of both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. "War is hell" is not quite accurate: "War reveals hell". We would not have The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia were it not for the trenches of WWI.
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Heroic Leadership
Set in a business rather than religious context, this book speaks to the leadership principles of a 450+ year old "company" known as the Jesuits. These time-tested principles — self-awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism — are ones that leaders today would be well advised to understand and embrace.
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