Book Recommendations – Professor Julian Beer

By Professor Julian Beer, Deputy Vice –Chancellor - Birmingham City University
 
As an academic books have played a significant role in my life, whether I am contributing to one, using them for research, or writing articles or just reading for pleasure. Nowadays this tends to be more in the digital form than in hard copy which my wife prefers, as I have boxes of books stored in the garage, weighing down the loft and elsewhere around the house that I cannot part with.
For my recommendations, I have picked out some books that have had an impact upon me in trying to understand the world we live in and our place in the wider universe, whilst they are also useful in a business context.
In no particular order, the first is one that got me into a lot of trouble in my earlier academic career when I referenced this book in a paper I wrote and my then Head of the School of Social Sciences said it was an outrage and if I wanted a long career in my discipline then do not seek viewpoints from ...