Like every year, this summer the liturgy returns, in which we try to recommend books for leaders who, the poor, go on vacation hoping to rest … but always have their cell phone, mental Excel and guilt in their suitcase. And since we don’t want you to suffer from business disengagement while looking out to sea, here’s the traditional list of ten books that will keep you close enough to work so you don’t panic, but far enough away that you’ll think you’ve disconnected for a while.
Let’s start with the international panorama related to intensive therapy. In The war of the superpowers, Álvaro Zicarelli (Hojas del Sur, 2025) gives us – if “gift” is the right word – a surgical and damning analysis: China and the United States are no longer competing in slow motion; You are in accelerated mode toward an inevitable conflict. Zicarelli writes with the narrative tension of a political thriller, mixing scientific bibliography, documents that we would not have liked to read and a diagnosis that makes us look at the horizon with a certain trepidation. It’s the ideal book for the reader who believes nothing bad can happen…until they read the next page.
From geopolitics we come to domestic politics, which is also not easy. In The fifth powerMartín Yeza and Joan Cwaik (Planeta, 2025) ask how it can be that we continue to be governed by a democracy designed for an analogue, slow and predictable world. The thesis is convincing: our political systems continue to function with the logic of paper files, while their citizens live in a digital ecosystem that operates at the speed of light. The authors suggest chop Democracy, update it, consider the citizen as a node and data as a right. Yeza brings management experience (and, to the surprise of many, impeccable); Cwaik provides the conceptual framework of the digital world in which we live. Together they deliver a text that is intelligent, agile and so up-to-date that it makes you a little dizzy.
Now let’s move on to the most worrying area of all: artificial intelligence. In Artificial experience: how to design intelligence? (Godot, 2025), Franco Pellegrini invites us to completely rethink the idea of design. It is no longer enough to think about products or interfaces; Now it’s about creating living contexts in which intelligence – human and artificial – can emerge and develop. Pellegrini suggests moving from UX to AX and understanding that uncertainty is no longer a bug but an input. For the leader, this book is a compass, a reminder that leadership is no longer about control but about orchestration; in fostering resilient ecosystems that learn in real time. A read that leaves you with the unsettling feeling that, for once, it’s not technology that’s the problem… it’s us.
In Tecnosapiens (Sudamericana, 2025), Santiago Siri publishes a manifesto that is as ambitious as it is provocative: How free software, Bitcoin and decentralized artificial intelligence can completely reorganize the political and economic order. Siri writes from a first-person perspective, with the confidence of someone who has been pushing technological boundaries for years. The book can provoke two possible reactions: excitement or panic. Or both. Especially when you compare this revolution to your Excel spreadsheet.
Nicolás Pimentel brings with him the desire to go to earth – even if it is a glittering land The Taylor-Swift method (Conecta, 2025). Pimentel explains why, in an era of sophisticated products, the fastest growing brand is…water. And what is it about “intimacy,” that mix of closeness and emotional sophistication that explains Taylor Swift’s enormous success? The author, who has been working with brands for thirty years, offers a map of modern innovation: ideas, examples, uncomfortable questions and an arsenal of concepts applicable to any project. It is a book that entertains, surprises and asks you if you were missing a little strategy. fast on your last board.
From music we move on to toys: in The LEGO Story: How a Toy Captured the World’s Imagination (Conecta, 2025), Jens Andersen, with privileged access to the founding family, reconstructs the development of a company that changed the creativity of children and adults for almost a century. LEGO is much more than just colorful pieces: it is a design philosophy, an example of constant innovation and a model for how we can reinvent ourselves after serious crises. Andersen tells this saga like someone opening an inherited chest: with detail, respect and fascination. An ideal read for those who believe that innovation is synonymous with disruption, although often it simply recurs.
From organizational innovation we go down to human innovation. In Talent development in practice (Granica, 2025), Martha Alles – an absolute reference in human resource management – suggests something that seems obvious but that we rarely do: take an honest look and work on ourselves before trying to transform an organization. His book is a fresh and easy-to-understand guide that shows that talent is not always born in a company meeting room, but in unexpected places such as fashion, cooking, sports or hobbies that are often underestimated. Everything invites us to rethink self-development as an active practice: practice, observe, make mistakes, try again and encourage new ways of learning. With updated concepts –self-empowerment, Self-leadership, skills for digital environments—and short exercises that act as little uncomfortable mirrors, the author creates a clear map for moving forward in a world where change doesn’t require permission.
From play we move on to the less playful areas of the modern soul. In Hypermodern misery (Letters of the South, 2025), Luciano Lutereau revisits the seven deadly sins, not out of religious guilt but out of contemporary malaise. Envy, laziness, lust and anger appear as symptoms of a structural emptiness that runs through relationships, families and desires. It’s a deep, uncomfortable, and necessary book for any manager who suspects – even if he doesn’t admit it – that his discomfort comes not just from his boss, but from something much more intimate. It is recommended that you read it at every budget meeting.
And now, yes, something of a corporate zoo. In It’s better not to talk about certain things (Granica, 2025), Eugenio Marchiori and the author are encouraged to put into words what is whispered in low voices in companies while looking at the screen without looking at anything. PowerPoint-lit bosses, agile cultures moving at the pace of a Zen turtle, metrics-obsessed leaders, and teams surviving as best they can: the fauna is complete. The book functions as a modern survival guide, a handbook of sorts for those who believe that today’s organizations have remarkable creativity in testing human patience. If the reader recognizes themselves in a chapter, don’t be afraid: this is statistically normal.
Closing out this list is Ezequiel Hara Duck The Book of Forgetting (Montena–Random House, 2025), an unclassifiable, playful and beautiful piece. It’s not a book to read: it’s a book to engage. Hara Duck invites you to cross out, paint, tear, fold, dip in coffee, light a fire (controlled please) or bury pages in a flower pot. Each reader produces his own, unrepeatable copy. What looks like a game is actually an exercise in self-knowledge: letting go of the heavy, creating something out of the emptiness and letting in something new. Ideal for professionals who are constantly overloaded with screens, deadlines and notifications.
So, dear reader, you have no more excuses. The summer is short, the readings are good and the alternative is to continue looking at the sea while the fear of Excel begins to invade the mate and the greasy biscuits. And for this episode, believe me, there is still no self-help book that will do.
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