12 summer reads for social good sector people like you

It’s summertime, and the reading is easy. So grab your inflatable unicorn and your sunscreen, head to the beach and check out these fresh reads from the Future of Good team and some Canadian non-profit gurus whilst enjoying the best of what Canada has to offer this season. 

Good Guys by Sharon Bala 

A sharp, page‑turner moral drama about a charity that really wants to do good… but keeps tripping over its own ego. When a celebrity adoption goes sideways, and a journalist uncovers a major wrongdoing, the staff are forced to face how their “helping” may have hurt people. It’s messy, human, and asks whether doing good is even possible inside imperfect systems.  

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Set in a tiny Tokyo café where you can time‑travel only until your coffee cools, this cozy magical‑realism novel follows four people trying to revisit heartbreak, loss, and unanswered questions. The catch? Nothing you do in the past can change the present, but it might change you.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — Haruki Murakami

Murakami’s memoir is basically a long, meditative run: part training log, part life philosophy. He talks about marathons, writing discipline, aging, and how running keeps his mind clear enough to write novels. It’s gentle, reflective, and feels like listening to a friend think out loud while jogging.   

Break Room — Miye Lee

Future of Good’s first internal book club selection! Imagine being voted “worst coworker” and then forced onto a reality show where you must find the office mole to win cash. This darkly funny psychological drama turns petty workplace habits into high‑stakes paranoia. As alliances shift, contestants realize the real villain might be… themselves. Sharp, satirical, and very “oh my god, I’ve totally worked with that person. Wait. Am I that person?!”

Protest — Annie Leonard & André Carothers

A lively, photo‑rich history of peaceful protest that argues activism is essential to democracy. It highlights 42 protests – from the Boston Tea Party to Standing Rock to youth climate strikes – showing how everyday people have reshaped society through dissent. It’s a reminder that our rights exist because someone fought for them.

Sanctuary Harm — Olga Morawczynski

A nonfiction exploration of how workplaces, especially first‑responder and high‑pressure professions on the front lines, can quietly erode mental health. Through lived‑experience case studies, it shows how environments meant to protect people can actually harm them, and asks what safer, more humane work cultures could look like. 

Strangers by Belle Burden

Burden’s Strangers retraces her marriage, searching for signs that her husband was never the man she believed him to be. As she reinterprets their life together, she confronts her own family history and the quiet expectations placed on women facing betrayal. In the process, she sheds “Belle the Good” and emerges braver, determined to speak for herself.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Sybil Van Antwerp has always used letters to understand her life. Every morning at half past ten, she writes—to her brother, her closest friend, the university president who won’t let her audit a class, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry, and to one person she writes to often but never sends. She assumes her world will continue unchanged, but when letters from her past resurface, forcing her to confront an old wound, she realizes the unsent letter must finally be read—and that forgiveness is the only way forward.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

A deliciously twisty literary thriller about a struggling writer who steals a dead student’s brilliant story idea… and then becomes wildly successful. Just when he thinks he’s gotten away with it, someone starts hinting they know the truth. It’s sharp, satirical, and full of “oh no oh no oh no” moments as the guilt and the danger close in.  

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke  

A picture‑perfect lifestyle influencer- selling raw milk, farm charm, and frontier femininity to millions – wakes up cold, filthy, and terrified in 1855. Natalie Heller Mills, once the flawless face of a carefully manufactured pioneer brand, suddenly finds herself in a world where her kitchen runs on fire, her children are strange and unwashed, and her polished cowboy husband is an actual farmer. As she fights to understand whether she’s trapped in a hoax, a deranged reality show, or something far darker, Natalie realizes one thing: this is not her beautiful life, and she’ll do anything to escape it.  

My Husband by Maud Ventura

A weirdly dark tale about a woman who is obsessed with her perfect marriage – like, spreadsheets‑of-his‑behaviour obsessed. As she tries to control every detail of her husband’s life, her own grip on reality starts to slip. It’s a little unhinged in the best possible way and perfect beach reading.

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot

How do you reconcile the horror that Gisèle Pelicot suffered? Pelicot challenges the patriarchy everywhere with this quiet, resilient book about shame, suffering and yourself. She tells the story of discovering her ex-husband drugged and let at least 50 men sexually assault her, and her choice to waive her anonymity in the trial against her ex-husband. “Shame must change sides,” she declared, which became a rallying cry for women everywhere.