Copper HQ 2021 Most Impactful Reads

Everyone loves an end-of-year roundup, right?! We asked each member of the Copper HQ team for the book that was ‘Most Impactful’ for them in 2021… with no other specific qualifiers. So, from fiction based in Greek mythology to a coffee table tome about video game consoles– here are recommendations for your TBR list from everyone here at Copper!

• Allison Trowbridge (Founder, CEO) // The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. // This book probes the nature of regret and depression in a way that is equal parts thought-provoking and totally whimsical. What if you could go back and make a different decision? Would you finally have the life you’ve always wanted? This one’s a must-read.
• Mark Holmes (Product Engineer) // Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. // I’m loving Greek myths retold from the perspective of the women “left in the wake” of the so-called Hero’s Journey, and I just couldn’t put this one down. It details the lives of Ariadne and her sister Phaedra as they deal with the fallout of Theseus slaying their brother the Minotaur, and helps to deromanticize some well-known figures in Greek Mythology. Big recommend.
• Alex Hudgens (Community Manager) // Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee // This book is FULL of practical, easy-to-implement ways to bring more joy into our lives and into the world. Fetell Lee is the former design director at IDEO, so she’s got the cool-and-creative thing locked down… but writes in such a way that I feel like I, too, can bring creativity and joy into the ‘design’ of my everyday environments.
• Francesco Stumpo (Product Designer) // Transitions by William Bridges & Who Moved My Cheese? By Spencer Johnson // As 2021 felt like a giant wave, two audiobooks that helped me navigate (and swim) were “Transitions” by William Bridges, and “Who Moved my Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson. Both works were written in the late 20th century, yet I found many simple nuggets and phrases that I use to this day to remind myself of the constant ebbs and flows of work and life.
• Adam Ake (iOS Engineer) // The Game Console 2.0: A Photographic History from Atari to XBox by Evan Amos // This one is picture heavy, but “The Game Console” is a historical overview of video game consoles from the last 40 years. It’s a fun nostalgia trip that includes amazingly detailed images of hardware internals, info about system capabilities, and insight into the successes and failures of the companies that launched them. A great coffee-table, nerd book.
• Mark Kropf (CTO Advisor) // Kissa By Kissa by Craig Mod // I like Kissa By Kissa because Craig Mod’s prior book was 99% a photo journal– but in this one, we get to hear his voice doing something I’d love to do!
• Natalia Pulido (UX Engineer) // Deep Work by Cal Newport // This book talks about all the habits that are stopping us from achieving our goals, challenging us to restructure our days to be more intentional. As someone who has a constant love-hate relationship with social media because of how distracting it is, this book has made me realize how much “deep work” time I’m missing out on by just mindlessly scrolling!
• Maegan Schwindling (Chief of Staff) // Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb // This book found me in 2021. I don’t normally read fiction, but my pre-tech life was in social work so it caught my attention. I got lost in the life of the main character and it makes you feel so normal. Don’t we all want to feel normal in the midst of a global pandemic? I couldn’t put it down and it has been the topic of many dinner conversations since I read it in the summer.
• Lindsay Ratowsky (Author Strategist) // Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. //This beautiful written memoir is moving, raw, and made me reflect on my own life priorities like few I’ve read before it.
• Matt Graves (CFO) // The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz // I see ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ as a survey of working at a startup. I love the concise, intense writing style. Concise anecdotes with real names and real numbers. The intense writing style gives you the feeling of a normal workday in a startup. If you are thinking about joining a startup, have aspirations to start something yourself, or wonder why your roommate is addicted to the startup life, then do yourself a favor and invest in a few hours following along with ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’.

Hit us up on Instagram @copper.books and let us know YOUR ‘Most Impactful’ read of the year! We love DMs, don’t you?

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