2014 Holiday Reading List

A Scent of Champagne: 8,000 Champagnes Tasted and Rated by Richard Juhlin. Let champagne expert Richard Juhlin guide you through vintages, vineyards and styles. In “A Scent of Champagne” the author details the history of the world’s most elegant beverage — and offers personal tasting note for more than 8,000 bottles — while helping the reader develop a more sophisticated palate. Stunningly complete and even more stunningly illustrated, Juhlin’s book is perfect for choosing the right holiday bottle, or adorning the table of the truly discerning oenophile.

You Only Have to Be Right Once: The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires by Randall Lane. Success has no age restrictions. Many of this generation’s newest billionaires have a lot in common: youth, brains and courage. In “You Only Have to Be Right Once” Randall Lane provides inside access to some of the sharpest minds in Silicon Valley, unveiling what it took for them to succeed and offering insights into how with little to no business backgrounds these men built some of the world’s hottest companies. A must-read for the aspiring business owner or technology aficionado.

A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity by Nicholas D. Kristof. The perfect book for the philanthropically minded — and ideally timed in this season of giving — “A Path Apppears” is a veritable how-to for making the world a better place. Here Nicholas Kristoff illustrates how a mere $5 donation or $50 million endowment can work equally well when combined with our time and effort. Painstakingly researched, Kristoff’s work examines the science of philanthropy and provides glimpse into local and global projects current under way. Find inspiration in the stories of real people making a real difference.

Hollywood Costume by Deborah Nadoolman Landis. Clothes truly do make the man — or woman — at least on the big screen. Discover what goes into putting together the wardrobe for some of the most iconic movies of all time. Hollywood Costume celebrates the designs that make movies memorable, and the designers that created them. Combining the visual appeal of the photographs of costumes from classics including Cleopatra, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Pirates of the Caribbean and Ocean’s Eleven, alongside essays from scholars and collectors, this book is perfect for design enthusiasts and cinema devotees.

The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun. Adam Braun decided at a young age that success wasn’t measured in dollars and cents. Leaving Wall Street behind to pursue a goal of bringing education to underdeveloped areas, Braun discovered a new approach to philanthropy. In “The Promise of a Pencil,” he lays out his “for-purpose” model of the traditional nonprofit, proving that even the greatest deeds can be accomplished through many small acts. A potential new paradigm for endowments and foundations, and an inspiration tale for the next generation client, Braun’s tale is a journey of compassion.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson. “How We Got to Now,” featured in a major six-part television series on PBS, traces the history of some of mankind’s most important discoveries — and shows how they led to some of the most important events in our history. Steven Johnson scrupulously recounts tales of innovation by both genius and mistake, as he details the “invention” of glass, cold, sound, clean, time and light. A can’t miss read for financial leaders, “How We Got to Now” is the historical account of how modern life came to be this way.