Big-Impact Books That Matter Most to Audette Exel

Reading for pleasure takes founder and chair of NGO Adara Group New Zealander Audette Exel to many places, but there’s one place it brings her back to most often. The regular Australian Financial Review What I Am Reading column is in the publication’s upcoming November issue.

“There can’t be much spare time for reading?” AFR’s Luke Slattery asks Exel, who also recently joined the Westpac board.

“I make time – reading is a joy and a great way to turn off the talking to-do list in my head. I read to be informed and also to escape,” Exel, 58, replies.

“What were the books that mattered most to you in your work, the big-impact books?” Slattery asks.

“Mountains Beyond Mountains, a biographical work by Tracy Kidder that describes American physician Dr Paul Farmer’s work among the poor in Haiti, Peru and Russia. It crystallised for me that I should keep going with Adara no matter what; and that we should be angry on behalf of the poor every day.”

Original article by Luke Slattery, Australian Financial Review, October 21. 2021.

Photo by Chris Pearce.