In this edition of the President's Letter, my associate Louis shares some suggestions of books that you may enjoy over the summer. Judy President, JB Homer Associates

Summer is a time when some of us catch up on our reading lists. With that in mind I chose a handful of books for you that are entertaining and thoughtful reads, all the while staying within a general theme of leadership, overcoming adversity and dealing with life.

The Path Between The Seas - David McCullough America takes over the building of the Panama Canal from the French and completes it during the era of gigantic industrial accomplishments. One of the greatest examples in world history of against-all-odds program and project management. Question: Have you ever completed an important project while fighting venomous snakes, malaria and mudslides?

The Boys In The Boat - Daniel James Brown The story of the 1936 American Rowing team at Adolf Hitler's Berlin Olympics. The author is almost cinematic in the way he drops us right into the training and the races themselves. One of the best books about team building and self-sacrifice I've ever encountered.

The Martian - Andy Weir (Fiction) The engineer-geek as hero. Trapped alone on the Angry Red Planet in what reads like the present tense, an engineer has to figure out how to use his training and wits to survive in an almost unimaginably hostile environment. This story manages to surprise and entertain while our hero thinks about and then constructs innovative devices for water collection, sleeping, traveling, you name it. Matt Damon's supposed to play the lead in the movie version.

The Buddha Walks Into The Office -- Lodro Rinzler A quick, easy read that helps you learn to productively manage office stresses while serving as an accessible introduction to meditation (which also relieves stress.)

Meditations -- Marcus Aurelius One of Imperial Rome's greatest emperors: The collected thoughts of a man who spent a great deal of time contemplating and writing about the methods and meaning of leadership and life in general. You don't have to read it straight through. You can dip into it almost at random and encounter the following musings: "Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such will also be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by thy thoughts." and "Loss is nothing else but change."