Read, watch, listen: bluenotes’ 2022 content stocking with a special focus on leadership

Ilana Atlas, ANZBGL Board Director

• Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech – It’s been a decade since it was delivered and since then I have watched it many, many times. I admire it as a speech many women would want to have made in response to their experiences as leaders.

• I am looking forward to reading Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real lessons by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
• A collection of Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime speeches will be published this month as a book called  A Message from Ukraine and I am looking forward to reading them. How does an actor and comedian become a great wartime leader? What is it in a person that drives them to step into leadership, not out, at a time of great personal peril?
• I will be listening to Noel Pearson’s 2022 Boyer lectures. Noel is an eminent First Nations leader who always challenges our thinking about who we are as a nation and what can make us a better one. Specifically, he puts the case for the need to amend the Constitution to recognise the Voice of First Nations people in our Constitution. 

John Key, Director

• I’ll be going with a Netflix binge:  All three seasons of Dead to Me starring Christina Applegate.  It’s very funny and all the more impressive knowing she filmed season three while suffering from multiple sclerosis.

• There’s also a great movie on Netflix I’ve had my eye on for a while, Sour Grapes. It’s all about counterfeit French Bordeaux in case you are planning on enjoying a few over the summer break. Real ones, not fake ones ….

Kevin Corbally, Chief Risk Officer

• One book I read earlier this year and will definitely pick up again over the holiday period is Tim Marshall’s The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of the World. Marshall explores ten regions he believes will shape global politics. The book is written in a witty, insightful and easy-to-read manner while providing a really good mix of history, economics and political analysis – putting geography at the centre of humanity’s past, present and future.
• I am just about to start reading Ionbhá – The Empathy Book for Ireland collated by Irish actor Cillian Murphy. It includes a collection of short stories and reflections by a range of Irish authors that aim to act as a compass, guiding the reader to things that really matter in life, looking at the healing power of empathy and the countless ways in which it shapes all of us.
• Having watched this year the second series in the latest version of the James Herriot TV series All Creatures Great and Small, I was encouraged to pick up the books I last read as a child many, many years ago and once again enjoy his heart-warming tales, funny storytelling abilities and his menageries of animal patients from his life over many decades as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales.

I will also be spending some time at the beach over the holidays and will make sure to read:

• The latest in the Aaron Falk series Exiles, by Jane Harper, along with, in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child,  No Plan B,
• My Dream Time – A memoir of Tennis and Teamwork by Ash Barty.

Jeff Smith, Independent Non-Executive Director

• My big recommendation podcast / leadership lecture series is Tom Mendoza Presents. Tom is the benefactor for the Notre Dame Business school and he interviews different leaders - it's interesting , funny and really relevant. He interviewed me as well – and found out things about me I didn't know. He's terrific - and he was the president / vice chair of NetApp, the best performing stock on the Nasdaq in the 2000s which won best place to work in more countries than any other company. 

Shayne Elliott, Chief Executive Officer:

I am very traditional in my tastes and prefer reading over other options. And given the time invested in a book, I still feel it is a treat and privilege to have time over a holiday to indulge in a good book, fiction or non-fiction.

I start collecting books for the summer in about September and grow a portfolio to finally choose from. Sadly my ambition is greater than my ability and I generally don’t get to all those I hope for …

But in addition to my regular selection of the season’s best Crime Fiction, my starting list for this break is as follows:

• The Quiet Americans by Scott Anderson – Four CIA spies at the dawn of the Cold War. A fascinating history of modern American espionage.
• Regenesis by George Monbiot – feeding the world without devouring the planet. I have started following George on social media and enjoy his perspectives on social and environmental issues and am interested to understand more about the challenge of food.
• The Land where Lemons grow by Helena Attlee – The story of Italy and its citrus fruit. This looks like a lovely mix of Italian history, geography and cooking – a great set for an Italian vacation.
• Crassius: The First Tycoon by Peter Stothland  – Recommended by my colleague Gerard Brown. I love well written (and not too long!) biographies, particularly related to Italy. This is not a person I know much about other than his name being associated with extreme wealth.

In terms of fiction, I am going outside my safety zone and trying Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel Horse. This is based on a true story of the greatest racehorses in American history and described as a “sweeping story of spirit, obsession and injustice across American history”.

We will be holidaying in the Northern winter and so plenty of time for family movies and I am hoping to introduce my 17-year old daughter to two great classics – Ghandi and Lawrence of Arabia. Having lived in the Middle East for six years and spent extensive travel time in both The Middle East and India, I love these immense, historic and epic stories – particularly with tremendous soundtracks that really bring to life these great characters and the eras in which they lived.

However, I will try to be podcast and social media free …!

Maile Carnegie, Group Executive Australia Retail:

Here’s my list starting with books:

• The Price of Time, Edward Chancellor – I’m interested in going back to first principles about what an interest rate is for and why we have it, especially given we are going through a reset of rates going up.
• The Song of the Cell, Siddhartha Mukherjee – The next explosion in Venture Capital funding is potentially going to be in healthcare and the impact will be profound.  I haven’t looked at this space for about five years so I assume a lot has changed and I want to go back to school on this area.

Podcasts

• Today, Explained – I feel like I’ve developed the habit of getting news headlines so I’m looking for media that gives me snack-sized deeper briefs on topics.
• Down the Middle: A Political Podcast – I’m tired of extreme political views so looking to find media where thoughtful, moderate commentors debate issues.

Streaming

• Limitless with Chris Hemsworth – A series about longevity and quality of life that is getting good reviews.  At 53 years old, this is a topic of growing interest …
• Dopesick – An older series that I haven’t had time to watch.  It’s about a time (late 90s/early 00s) and place (midwest USA) that I experienced and where I started to see the terrible impact of the Opioid crisis on a community I grew to love as both of my sons were born in Cincinnati.

Ken Adams, Group General Counsel:

Having thoroughly enjoyed the first season, I’m looking forward to the next one of Slow Horses, the story of misfit British intelligence operatives brilliantly led – I could barely describe it has led – by a fantastically slovenly Gary Oldman.

Good enough to re-watch over summer: The Bear. At times raw and confronting, with some lovable and unlovable characters whose backgrounds are exposed as Season 1 progresses. Looking forward to the release of Season 2.

My books on the summer read list include:

• The Candy House by Jennifer Egan – Bix Bouton, a minor character in Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, is CEO of an internet company. The novel explores the decline of privacy in the digital age and how tech has the potential to turn the world upside down.
• Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley – As a 20 year-old, Mottley became the youngest ever nominee when longlisted for the Booker Prize. That alone peaked my interest. The central character is a 17 year-old, described by critics as “one of the toughest and kindest young heroines of our time”.

Tony Warren, Group General Manager Communications and Public Affairs:

 On the books front, I have the following lined up for this summer:

• Horizons: A Global History of Science by James Poskett – Rather than the usual history of science that focuses exclusively on the west, this book argues the influences and feedback loops between the Islamic, African, Asian and American worlds provide a far richer understanding of something that completely changed the course of human history – science.
• The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree – Another interesting looking book to help understand a country that will be ever more important for Australia and our part of the world over the years to come. I might also try to get to Richard Eaton’s book on India in the Persianate Age.
• Bulldozed by Nikki Savva – Tells a story of the Morrison Government. I usually find instant history books on politics tedious but Nikki is typically a good writer and apparently, if nothing else, by reading this book you will learn a lot of profanity!

On the TV front, I have the latest series of Endeavour (the early Inspector Morse shows which I would thoroughly recommend) and Shetland (good plots and lots of great scenery) to watch. I am hoping that one of the various new Nordic shows streaming somewhere will also be worth the time.

Antony Strong, Group Executive, Strategy & Transformation:

I can offer two, hopefully thought provoking, takes on leadership: Jack Reacher and John Rawls.

• The Jack Reacher oeuvre spans nearly two dozen novels, novellas and short stories by British author Jim Grant, under the pen name Lee Child, which have been made into movies and television series.

I’ve really enjoyed them as entertainment but there is something archetypal in these stories of an outsider, travelling across a modern, challenging landscape and forced to solve – an admittedly occasionally over-the-top – series of challenges with logic, insight and daring-do.

Beneath the theatre, Reacher has an – unflinching - sense of what is right and an enduring loyalty to his team - and willingness to back them.

• John Rawls on the other hand is one of the 20^th century’s foremost – and most human – moral philosophers. His theories of justice and critiques of more austere philosophical systems, notably utilitarianism, are both insightful and very readable.

His notable contributions to our moral understanding are his theory of distributive justice and ‘the veil of ignorance’ – that is, you should make decisions (or act) as though you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities or your position in society.

In essence, Rawls argues for true equality and, while acknowledging our inherent self interest, develops a theory where that self interest is restrained.