72 7x4.5 pages -- this book already lives up to its title: Tiny essentials of an effective volunteer board written by Ken Burnett and published by The White Lion Press Limited.
Similar to the approach taken by Eugene Fram in Policy vs. Paper Clips, Mr. Burnett provides his insights about boards in the persona of a new board chair visiting some of the bigger nonprofit "charities" in England.
The theme of the book is that there are 21 key aspects of governance. Relevant? For the most part. Essential -- not so sure, and definitely not earth shattering.
One big caution was number three which offered five main roles of the board of which one was about "Appointing and Monitoring the Exec" but included "approving appointment of management team". This I believe is a no-no. The board has one employee - the CEO or ED. The CEO hires and monitors their team -- not the Board.
All else in the book is ok and might be a good primer to introduce a prospective board member, plus it is not such a big investment and is easy to read.