Instaread Summaries: 317 books

Summary of Disrupted by Dan Lyons | Includes Analysis   Preview: Disrupted by Dan Lyons is a memoir about Lyons’s experiences as a middle-aged career journalist who takes a job in marketing at a startup. For years, Lyons wrote for Newsweek about technology and was well-known...

Summary of Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly | Includes Analysis   Preview: Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly’s debut, is a World War II-era novel based on real people and events. The novel tells the intertwined stories of three women: Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite...

Summary of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow | Includes Analysis   Preview:   Alexander Hamilton (2004) is a sprawling biography of one of the most important figures in American history. It is based on copious original research, especially into Hamilton’s early years....

Summary of Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan | Includes Analysis   Preview: In her memoir, Brain on Fire: My Year of Madness, Susannah Cahalan recounts her battle with a rare, debilitating autoimmune disease that led to psychosis and, eventually, catatonia. Previously...

Summary of The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt | Includes Analysis   Preview: The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt is the result of a year of email exchanges between a son and his mother. They explore themes of...

Summary of The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin | Includes Analysis   Preview: Doris Kearns Goodwin describes the life and leadership of Theodore Roosevelt in this historical work. Roosevelt emerges as a large-than-life character who takes on the financial trusts of huge...

Summary of The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf | Includes Analysis   Preview: The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf is a biography of Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian naturalist born in 1769. Humboldt had an older brother, Wilhelm. Their father died when...

Summary of Lab Girl by Hope Jahren | Includes Analysis   Preview: In her memoir Lab Girl, Hope Jahren describes the life she’s lived and the knowledge she’s learned as a scientist trying to find her way in the world. Focusing mostly on a period of professional development...

Summary of Game of Crowns by Christopher Andersen | Includes Analysis   Preview: Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate, and the Throne by Christopher Andersen blends historical narrative with an in-depth account of the personal lives of members of the British royal family....

**Summary of The Third Wave by Steve Case | Includes Analysis **   Preview: The Third Wave relates AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case’s reflections on his career and the future of the technology industry in America. Part memoir, part analysis of the industry, The...

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish | Key Takeaways & Analysis   Preview: Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t is a guide for growing businesses successfully and profitably. It is the 2014 sequel to Mastering the Rockefeller Habits (2002), a book which derives...

Summary of The Lean Startup by Eric Ries | Includes Analysis   Preview: The Lean Startup offers a set of tools and methodologies for entrepreneurs both in startups and established corporations to better achieve success. Since the vast majority of startups fail,...

Summary of The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford | Includes Analysis   Preview: The Phoenix Project is a business allegory about how a fictional company becomes profitable after a crisis-driven change in its information technology management style....

Summary of Saving Capitalism by Robert B. Reich | Includes Analysis   Preview: Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert B. Reich examines the intersection of economics and politics in order to make sense of income inequality and wealth disparity in the 21st century...