Commonfund Institute is excited to share our Summer 2026 recommended reading list, thoughtfully curated with recommendations from our Commonfund colleagues. This edition spans financial history, international economics, nonprofit leadership, literary fiction, and memoir — something for every reader. Whether you are seeking a new perspective, an escape, or fresh inspiration, we hope this collection offers a compelling literary journey for the season ahead.
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation | Andrew Ross Sorkin
From the author of Too Big to Fail, a sweeping narrative history of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and its human toll. Sorkin reconstructs the boom-and-bust nearly hour by hour through a vivid cast of bankers, speculators, politicians, and ordinary investors — showing how easy credit, celebrity finance, and unchecked ambition inflated a decade of euphoria before shattering a nation's confidence. A landmark work of financial history that reads like a thriller and carries unmistakable lessons for today.
The Andromeda Evolution | Daniel H. Wilson
A gripping sequel to Michael Crichton's classic The Andromeda Strain, completed posthumously with co-author Daniel H. Wilson. When a new and rapidly evolving form of extraterrestrial microorganism is discovered in the Amazon rainforest, a team of scientists must race to contain it before it triggers a global catastrophe. The novel blends Crichton's signature techno-thriller storytelling with Wilson's expertise in robotics and AI, delivering a tense, science-forward adventure about biological threat, human ingenuity, and the terrifying speed of evolution.
The Correspondent | Virginia Evans
A #1 New York Times bestselling epistolary novel told entirely through letters written by Sybil Van Antwerp, a sharp-witted retired lawyer in her seventies. Writing to friends, family, authors, and strangers across nine years, Sybil navigates declining eyesight, old grief, and unexpected new connections — revealing, letter by letter, a rich and complicated inner life. A quiet word-of-mouth sensation, Evans' debut is a meditation on aging, memory, and the way a well-written letter can illuminate a whole human soul.
Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I've Cried About | Isabel Klee
From the social media creator behind @SimonSits, a warm, funny, and moving memoir about a twenty-something woman's search for love in New York City — and the rescue dogs who helped her find it. Klee chronicles her years fostering dozens of pups alongside a candid account of the friendships and romances that shaped her. The dogs and the love stories run in parallel, each reflecting the other, in a coming-of-age story about vulnerability, belonging, and the unconditional comfort that only animals can provide.
The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness | Arthur C. Brooks
From the bestselling author of From Strength to Strength, a clear-eyed account of why meaning has grown so elusive — and a practical plan for finding it. Harvard professor and happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks argues that rapid cultural, economic, and technological change has rewired our brains, dulling our capacity to perceive depth and purpose. Drawing on cutting-edge social science, the great philosophers, and the world's faith traditions, he offers evidence-based strategies for rediscovering transcendence, love, and true calling. A compassionate handbook for anyone setting out to answer life's most important and mysterious question: what is the meaning of my life?
None of This is True | Lisa Jewell
A psychological thriller about a true-crime podcaster who meets a seemingly ordinary woman on her birthday — and slowly realizes she may have invited a dangerous obsession into her life. As the podcaster digs deeper into her subject's story, the lines between interviewer and subject, truth and manipulation, begin to blur. Jewell constructs a tightly coiled narrative that interrogates the true-crime genre itself and asks how well we can ever really know the people we invite into our homes — and onto our airwaves.
Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead | Kenneth Rogoff
Our Dollar, Your Problem argues that America's currency might not have reached today's lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good luck. Drawing in part on his own experiences, including with policymakers and world leaders, Kenneth Rogoff animates the remarkable postwar run of the dollar — how it beat out the Japanese yen, the Soviet ruble, and the euro — and the challenges it faces today from crypto and the Chinese yuan, the end of reliably low inflation and interest rates, political instability, and the fracturing of the dollar bloc. Americans cannot take for granted that the Pax Dollar era will last indefinitely, not only because many countries are deeply frustrated with the system, but also because overconfidence and arrogance can lead to unforced errors.
The Space Between Us | Thrity Umrigar
Set in Mumbai, this novel explores the intimate yet deeply unequal relationship between Bhima, a poor domestic worker, and Sera, the upper-middle-class woman she serves. When a crisis forces both women to confront the boundaries that separate them — of class, caste, and custom — Umrigar reveals how love and loyalty can coexist with injustice. A compassionate, quietly devastating portrait of two women's lives and the social structures that keep them apart even as they depend on each other.
Theo of Golden | Allen Levi
A #1 New York Times bestselling novel and word-of-mouth phenomenon, originally self-published in 2023. The story follows Theo, a mysterious elderly man who arrives one spring in the small Southern city of Golden, Georgia. He begins buying pencil portraits of local residents from a coffeehouse wall and returning them to their subjects — and with each exchange, a story is told and a life quietly changed. A gentle, allegorical tale about the power of being truly seen, the generosity of strangers, and the way one person's kindness can ripple through an entire community.
Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential | Dan Pallotta
While the for-profit sector is permitted to use all the tools of capitalism, the nonprofit sector is prohibited from using any of them. Dan Pallotta argues that society's nonprofit ethic creates an inequality that denies the nonprofit sector critical tools and permissions that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint. This irrational system, Pallotta explains, has its roots in four-hundred-year-old Puritan ethics that banished self-interest from the realm of charity. By declaring our independence from these obsolete ideas, Pallotta theorizes, we can dramatically accelerate progress on the most urgent social issues of our time. Uncharitable is an important, provocative, timely, and accessible book — a manifesto about equal economic rights for charity.
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect | Will Guidara
The story of how Will Guidara transformed Eleven Madison Park from a middling Manhattan brasserie into the World's Best Restaurant in 2017 — and the leadership philosophy behind it. Guidara argues that the secret was a relentless commitment to making every guest feel seen, celebrated, and genuinely surprised, often in ways that logic and budgets wouldn't normally allow. Part memoir, part business manifesto, the book makes the case that "unreasonable hospitality” giving people more than they could ever expect — is a principle that can elevate any organization, in any industry.
- 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation
- The Andromeda Evolution
- The Correspondent
- Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I've Cried About
- The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness
- None of This is True
- Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead
- The Space Between Us
- Theo of Golden
- Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential
- Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
