The Atlantic

the 20 Best Books of the Year

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by The Atlantic

Giblin and Doctorow make a convincing case that taking on Big Tech and Big Content—seemingly a lonely and demoralizing endeavor—is, in fact, an opportunity for community. (from Amazon)

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both. In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three record labels’ use of inordinately long contracts to up their own margins at the cost of artists, chokepoints are everywhere. By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct “anti-competitive flywheels” designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices. In the book’s second half, Giblin and Doctorow then explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work. Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that’s being heisted away—before it’s too late.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Westover’s one-of-a-kind memoir is about the shaping of a mind. . . . In briskly paced prose, she evokes a childhood that completely defined her. Yet it was also, she gradually sensed, deforming her. (from Amazon)

Educated: A Memoir book cover

by Tara Westover·You?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University “Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. “Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

Recommended by The Atlantic

We would be lucky to be lost in a forest with Tristan Gooley. Not just to find our way out—something he could surely help with—but to find our way in: to see what the trees are telling us about the Earth we all find ourselves a part of. (from Amazon)

“Reams of appealing facts make one itch to get outside and right up close to trees’ rough surfaces and shady cover.”―The Atlantic New York Times–bestselling author Tristan Gooley opens our eyes to the secret language of trees―and the natural wonders they reveal all around us Trees are keen to tell us so much. They’ll tell us about the land, the water, the people, the animals, the weather, and time. And they will tell us about their lives, the good bits and bad. Trees tell a story, but only to those who know how to read it. In How to Read a Tree, Gooley uncovers the clues hiding in plain sight: in a tree’s branches and leaves; its bark, buds, and flowers; even its stump. Leaves with a pale, central streak mean that water is nearby. Young, low-growing branches show that a tree is struggling. And reddish or purple bark signals new growth. Like snowflakes, no two trees are exactly the same. Every difference reveals the epic story this tree has lived―if we stop to look closely. Two 8-page color photo inserts | 34 B&W illustrations

Recommended by The Atlantic

If you’re someone who loves debating whether AC/DC is still AC/DC when Axl Rose is singing, or whether Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen briefly switched places as the top dog of ‘heartland rock’ in the ’90s, Twilight of the Gods will be a feast. (from Amazon)

National Bestseller * Named one of Rolling Stone's Best Music Books of 2018 * One of Newsweek's 50 Best Books of 2018 * A Billboard Best of 2018 * A New York Times Book Review "New and Noteworthy" selection The author of the critically acclaimed Your Favorite Band is Killing Me offers an eye-opening exploration of the state of classic rock, its past and future, the impact it has had, and what its loss would mean to an industry, a culture, and a way of life. Since the late 1960s, a legendary cadre of artists—including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Black Sabbath, and the Who—has revolutionized popular culture and the sounds of our lives. While their songs still get airtime and some of these bands continue to tour, its idols are leaving the stage permanently. Can classic rock remain relevant as these legends die off, or will this major musical subculture fade away as many have before, Steven Hyden asks. In this mix of personal memoir, criticism, and journalism, Hyden stands witness as classic rock reaches the precipice. Traveling to the eclectic places where geriatric rockers are still making music, he talks to the artists and fans who have aged with them, explores the ways that classic rock has changed the culture, investigates the rise and fall of classic rock radio, and turns to live bootlegs, tell-all rock biographies, and even the liner notes of rock’s greatest masterpieces to tell the story of what this music meant, and how it will be remembered, for fans like himself. Twilight of the Gods is also Hyden’s story. Celebrating his love of this incredible music that has taken him from adolescence to fatherhood, he ponders two essential questions: Is it time to give up on his childhood heroes, or can this music teach him about growing old with his hopes and dreams intact? And what can we all learn from rock gods and their music—are they ephemeral or eternal?

Recommended by The Atlantic

[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right . . . [MacLean] has dug deep into her material—not just Buchanan’s voluminous, unsorted papers, but other archives, too—and she has made powerful and disturbing use of it all. . . . The behind-the-scenes days and works of Buchanan show how much deliberation and persistence—in the face of formidable opposition—underlie the antigoverning politics ascendant today. What we think of as dysfunction is the result of years of strategic effort. (from Amazon)

Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for the National Book Award The Nation's "Most Valuable Book" “[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.”—The Atlantic “This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.”—NPR An explosive exposé of the right’s relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution. Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority. In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us. Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy. Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on ten years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of twentieth-century American self-government.

Recommended by The Atlantic

The central premise uniting these theories is that we can’t really tell an algorithm who we are; we have to show it. Platforms used to offer recommendations based on clear user inputs (consider that Netflix used to ask you to rate a movie out of five stars); now things have gotten murkier as our behavior is tracked and collated in complex, opaque ways. Consumers have learned to adjust their actions to get the content they want, according to Nick Seaver, an anthropology professor at Tufts University and the author of Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation. 'You were much more in control of how you represented yourself under those [earlier] systems,' Seaver told me. Now our behavior—even the embarrassing kind—generates our unique media world. (from Amazon)

Meet the people who design the algorithms that capture our musical tastes. The people who make music recommender systems have lofty goals: they want to broaden listeners’ horizons and help obscure musicians find audiences, taking advantage of the enormous catalogs offered by companies like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora. But for their critics, recommender systems seem to embody all the potential harms of algorithms: they flatten culture into numbers, they normalize ever-broadening data collection, and they profile their users for commercial ends. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork, anthropologist Nick Seaver describes how the makers of music recommendation navigate these tensions: how product managers understand their relationship with the users they want to help and to capture; how scientists conceive of listening itself as a kind of data processing; and how engineers imagine the geography of the world of music as a space they care for and control. Computing Taste rehumanizes the algorithmic systems that shape our world, drawing attention to the people who build and maintain them. In this vividly theorized book, Seaver brings the thinking of programmers into conversation with the discipline of anthropology, opening up the cultural world of computation in a wide-ranging exploration that travels from cosmology to calculation, myth to machine learning, and captivation to care.

Recommended by The Atlantic

When it comes to living in a democracy, Nato Thompson argues, nothing affects us more directly and more powerfully than culture. (from Amazon)

One of the country's leading activist curators explores how corporations and governments have used art and culture to mystify and manipulate us. The production of culture was once the domain of artists, but beginning in the early 1900s, the emerging fields of public relations, advertising and marketing transformed the way the powerful communicate with the rest of us. A century later, the tools are more sophisticated than ever, the onslaught more relentless. In Culture as Weapon, acclaimed curator and critic Nato Thompson reveals how institutions use art and culture to ensure profits and constrain dissent--and shows us that there are alternatives. An eye-opening account of the way advertising, media, and politics work today, Culture as Weapon offers a radically new way of looking at our world.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet. (from Amazon)

Keep Working. Keep Playing. Keep Creating. In his previous books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!, both New York Times bestsellers, Austin Kleon gave readers the keys to unlock their creativity and showed them how to become known. Now he offers his most inspiring work yet, with ten simple rules for how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself—for life. The creative life is not a linear journey to a finish line, it’s a loop—so find a daily routine, because today is the only day that matters. Disconnect from the world to connect with yourself—sometimes you just have to switch into airplane mode. Keep Going celebrates getting outdoors and taking a walk (as director Ingmar Bergman told his daughter, ”The demons hate fresh air”). Pay attention, and especially pay attention to what you pay attention to. Worry less about getting things done, and more about the worth of what you’re doing. Instead of focusing on making your mark, work to leave things better than you found them. Keep Going and its timeless, practical, and ethical principles are for anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive life.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Natasha Brown’s debut novel is propelled by elegant, elliptical, violent lines like that. Its story, on the surface, is sparse….There is a pointed plot twist I won’t spoil, but what makes Assembly singular, in the end, is less its story than the manner of its storytelling. (from Amazon)

Assembly book cover

by Natasha Brown·You?

A NATALIE PORTMAN BOOK CLUB PICK FINALIST FOR THE 2022 LA TIMES ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION. “The electrifying fiction debut that has been called ‘a modern Mrs. Dalloway.’”—THE ATLANTIC "Mind-bending and utterly original."—Brandon Taylor “Slim in the hand, but its impact is massive.”—Ali Smith One woman. One day. One decision. A blistering, fearless, and unforgettable literary debut from "a stunning new writer." (Bernardine Evaristo) Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy an apartment. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going. The narrator of Assembly is a black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: is it time to take it all apart? Assembly is a story about the stories we live within – those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers.And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life. With a steely, unfaltering gaze, Natasha Brown dismantles the mythology of whiteness, lining up the debris in a neat row and walking away.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Wright’s mix of conceptual ambition and humbly witty confiding makes for a one-of-a-kind endeavor—instead of a formulaic how-to book, a fascinating why-not-give-it-a-try book. (from Amazon)

New York Times Bestseller From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain. But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people. In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. At once excitingly ambitious and wittily accessible, this is the first book to combine evolutionary psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to defend the radical claims at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.

Recommended by The Atlantic

A scorching account of life in a golden cage. (from Amazon)

Spare book cover

by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex·You?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Discover the global phenomenon that tells an unforgettable story of love, loss, courage, and healing. “Compellingly artful . . . [a] blockbuster memoir.”—The New Yorker (Best Books of the Year) It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight. At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn’t find true love. Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . . For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Recommended by The Atlantic

The legendary Bulls and Lakers leader's new book finally enlightened me to Jackson's lifelong dedication to the game. (from Amazon)

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success book cover

by Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty·You?

During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. Even more important, he succeeded in never wavering from coaching his way, from a place of deep values. Jackson was tagged as the “Zen master” half in jest by sportswriters, but the nickname speaks to an important truth: this is a coach who inspired, not goaded; who led by awakening and challenging the better angels of his players’ nature, not their egos, fear, or greed. This is the story of a preacher’s kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. In his quest to reinvent himself, Jackson explored everything from humanistic psychology and Native American philosophy to Zen meditation. In the process, he developed a new approach to leadership based on freedom, authenticity, and selfless teamwork that turned the hypercompetitive world of professional sports on its head. In Eleven Rings, Jackson candidly describes how he:Learned the secrets of mindfulness and team chemistry while playing for the champion New York Knicks in the 1970sManaged Michael Jordan, the greatest player in the world, and got him to embrace selflessness, even if it meant losing a scoring titleForged successful teams out of players of varying abilities by getting them to trust one another and perform in syncInspired Dennis Rodman and other “uncoachable” personalities to devote themselves to something larger than themselvesTransformed Kobe Bryant from a rebellious teenager into a mature leader of a championship team.Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship—six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. We all know the legendary stars on those teams, or think we do. What Eleven Rings shows us, however, is that when it comes to the most important lessons, we don’t know very much at all. This book is full of revelations: about fascinating personalities and their drive to win; about the wellsprings of motivation and competition at the highest levels; and about what it takes to bring out the best in ourselves and others.

Recommended by The Atlantic

The Innovators . . . is riveting, propulsive and at times deeply moving. . . . One of Isaacson’s jealousy-provoking gifts is his ability to translate complicated science into English—those who have read his biographies of Einstein and Steve Jobs understand that Isaacson is a kind of walking Rosetta Stone of physics and computer programming. . . . The Innovators is one of the most organically optimistic books I think I've ever read. It is a stirring reminder of what Americans are capable of doing when they think big, risk failure, and work together. (from Amazon)

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Timely and indispensable. (from Amazon)

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year An Atlantic Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Politics Book of the Year How a new breed of dictators holds power by manipulating information and faking democracy Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a more sophisticated, globally connected world. In place of overt, mass repression, rulers such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán control their citizens by distorting information and simulating democratic procedures. Like spin doctors in democracies, they spin the news to engineer support. Uncovering this new brand of authoritarianism, Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman explain the rise of such “spin dictators,” describing how they emerge and operate, the new threats they pose, and how democracies should respond. Spin Dictators traces how leaders such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Peru’s Alberto Fujimori pioneered less violent, more covert, and more effective methods of monopolizing power. They cultivated an image of competence, concealed censorship, and used democratic institutions to undermine democracy, all while increasing international engagement for financial and reputational benefits. The book reveals why most of today’s authoritarians are spin dictators—and how they differ from the remaining “fear dictators” such as Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad, as well as from masters of high-tech repression like Xi Jinping. Offering incisive portraits of today’s authoritarian leaders, Spin Dictators explains some of the great political puzzles of our time—from how dictators can survive in an age of growing modernity to the disturbing convergence and mutual sympathy between dictators and populists like Donald Trump.

Recommended by The Atlantic

...a hyper-current artifact of the present - of a time when social-media skills are often conflated with social skills, and when the simple question of what to say out loud to another person can be anxiety-inducing for many...The Offline Dating Method could virtually double as a guide for how to talk to and get to know strangers, full stop. (from Amazon)

Why settle for being swiped-over, when you can attract your perfect partner in the real world? Dating apps were supposed to be a fun new way to meet your future partner - but for many singles, they've morphed into a digital dystopia of lies, harassment, and few (if any) quality connections. Stop competing against thousands online and start enjoying endless untapped opportunities to attract your match in the real world - from the airport to a coffee shop to your grocery store cereal aisle. Author Camille Virginia draws upon her transformation from a shy girl with social anxiety into a socially confident woman who discovered the secret to creating an instantly meaningful connection with anyone. In The Offline Dating Method, she guides you through her proven 3-step process to attract a great partner wherever you go by tapping into every human's inherent (and frequently unmet) need for fulfilling face-to-face interactions. -- Discover 100's of specific + actionable tips (no vague "just be yourself" advice) -- Follow a simple step-by-step system (no guesswork of what to do next) -- Create meaningful connections with everyone (friends, family, coworkers, more) In this NEW, all-inclusive and expanded edition of the best-selling book, author Camille Virginia helps singles of ALL gender identifications and sexual orientations navigate a post-pandemic dating world where they can finally ditch the Zoom dates and attract their perfect partner in the real world. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Your Secret Edge Over the Apps The Five Digital Barriers Keeping You Single The Solution is Simple The Journey That Led Me to You The Universal Power of Human Connection Your Roadmap to Real-World Connection Special Tips for the LGBTQ+ Community A Special Invitation CHAPTER I: Magnetic Approachability Master the art of approachability to attract great people without saying a word Results You'll Get From This Chapter Irresistible You: Authentic, Alluring, Approachable -- Location is Everything -- Simple Social Warm-Ups -- The #1 Principle of Approachability -- Seven Ways to Snap Into the Present Three Pillars of Magnetic Approachability -- Pillar 1: Prepping -- Pillar 2: Positioning -- Pillar 3: Projecting CHAPTER II: Effortless Engagement Discover how to talk to anyone with zero risk of rejection (even if you're shy) Results You'll Get From This Chapter Consistency 101: Your Shift into Effortless Engagement If They Initiate -- The Rules of Engagement If You Initiate -- The Rules of Engagement Overcoming the Five Fears Twelve Super Simple Ways to Start a Conversation How to Keep it Going - Or Shut It Down -- The Four-Word Transition to Meaningful -- Death of a Conversation Essential Engagement Extras -- Four Ways to Never Forget Someone's Name -- Nine Actions to Gain Social Momentum -- How to Handle "One of Those Days" CHAPTER III: Asked Out Organically Create an instantly meaningful connection and inspire a future date together Results You'll Get From This Chapter Warning! You'll Be a Wanted Person -- How to Avoid The Catch-Up Cycle of Doom -- All Praise and No Action Makes Anyone Dull The Five Elements of a Meaningful Conversation -- Element 1: Ask Awesome Questions -- Element 2: Hold Space for Silence -- Element 3: Listen Like Your Life Depends On It -- Element 4: Release Judgment -- Element 5: Share Insights and Stories How to Seal the Deal -- Here's Why it Needs to Be an Actual Date -- Three Ways to Get a Date -- Script: How I Got a Date on LinkedIn More Tips for Your Conversational Arsenal -- Don't Say This to Anyone. Ever -- How to Know When to Exit the Conversation -- Opportunities > Outcomes -- Four Ways to Recover a Forgotten Name -- Instant Charm Hacks -- Ménage à Meaningful -- Tech, Interrupted CONCLUSION: The World is Your Dating Playground NEXT BOOKS: The Sequel and The Prequel GLOSSARY: Definitions of Key Terms LGBTQ+ Page Guide GUIDE: All Book Sections by Page Number

Recommended by The Atlantic

Taubes builds his case through lawyerly layering of rich detail... Extraordinary and refreshing. (from Amazon)

From the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat, a groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick. Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Austin Kleon is positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet... Kleon makes an articulate and compelling case for combinatorial creativity and the role of remix in the idea economy. (from Amazon)

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of a groundbreaking book on creativity with this limited anniversary hardcover, with a new afterword, color endpapers pulled from Austin Kleon’s sketchbooks, and a ribbon marker. Ten years after its initial publication, the message of Steal Like an Artist remains powerful: embrace influence, follow interests wherever they take us, forget old clichés like writing about what you know—instead, write the book that you want to read, make the movie you want to watch. And above all, find the space you need to be wild and daring in your imagination and your work. This 10th anniversary edition includes a new afterword by the author, discussing the book’s influence and how “stealing” has been misunderstood, and offering a unique, personal perspective on a book that’s touched so many. Unlock your creativitySteal like an artist.Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.Write the book you want to read.Use your hands.Side projects and hobbies are important.The secret: Do good work and share it with people.Geography is no longer our master.Be nice. (The world is a small town.)Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)Creativity is subtraction.

Recommended by The Atlantic

There are some books that are just too good to miss.... In his insider-tells-all book, García Martínez discusses everything from goofy stories to cultural secrets about some of the country’s most powerful and influential businesses. (from Amazon)

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Business Insider Top 20 Business Book of the Year • An Inc. Best Book of the Year for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners “Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.” — Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times “Eye-popping.” — Vanity Fair Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO. The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple: Investors are people with more money than time. Employees are people with more time than money. Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between. Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it. Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez. After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel. Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?

Recommended by The Atlantic

Reading it, you glimpse a glittering mental freedom from the unread/uncrafted/unworn, buyer’s remorse, the nervous eyeing of real estate listings. Life’s overwhelm, conquered. (from Amazon)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The star of the hit Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up helps you visualize your ideal lifestyle. Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo has revolutionized homes—and lives—across the world. Now, Kondo presents an illustrated guide to usingher acclaimed KonMari Method to create a joy-filled home that works the way you need it to. Spark Joy features step-by-step folding illustrations for everything from shirts to socks, plus drawings of perfectly organized drawers and closets. Kondo also answers frequently asked questions, such as whether to keep “necessary” items that may not bring you joy. With guidance on specific categories including kitchen tools, cleaning supplies, hobby goods, digital photos, and even building your own personal “power spot” in your home, this comprehensive companion is sure to spark joy in anyone who wants to simplify their life.

Recommended by The Atlantic

Stephanie Lands memoir [Maid] is a bracing one. (from Amazon)

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive book cover

by Stephanie Land, Barbara Ehrenreich·You?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed in Stephanie Land's memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and gritty exploration of poverty in America. Includes a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich. At 28, Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn't feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them. "I'd become a nameless ghost," Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients' lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path. Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the "servant" worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not her alone. It is an inspiring testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit.