How books are helping employees bond at this real estate company

Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical 1963 book “The Bell Jar” is most likely to be found in a sophomore English class, pored over by high-school students.

But recently at Squarefoot, a commercial real estate company based in Manhattan, it was the chosen book title for the office book club. “People really latched onto [“The Bell Jar”] and talked about women’s roles in the workplace,” says Eliza Bell, people-operations manager. “The book club has been a bonding opportunity.

People are able to learn about each other, and it’s really nice to talk about stuff that isn’t work-related. ‘The Bell Jar’ really brought that out, and we were able to talk about diversity initiatives.” Over the summer, the book pick was “The Hate U Give,” the 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas.

The monthly club meets during a lunch that is provided by the company. In its first iteration, the club met after work and read business books: Not surprisingly, people weren’t quite as enthusiastic about that initiative. The club is the brainchild of CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum, who is passionate about reading.

There are some rules: At the beginning everyone has a chance to express what they liked or didn’t like. “If someone goes on a rant, it’s important to change the topic and move to another one,” says Bell. “When we read ‘The Last Lecture’ [the 2008 bestseller co-authored by the late Randy Pausch] for instance, it got a little heated.”

What makes for a good pick? “We need an aspect of it to get people excited. It’s important that the books are ones people will have opinions on. People can learn from all sorts of different books,” says Bell. “And they have to be less than 250 pages.”

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