Breaking news from the Next Big Idea Club: Curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink have hand-picked the seven most exciting nonfiction reads of the fall season. Of these, they will soon select the two books that Next Big Idea Club members will enjoy throughout the season. Without further ado, the Finalists are…
Artificial intelligence researcher Janelle Shane pulls back the curtain on the technology that has become so integral to our Facebook feeds, our autocorrected text messages, and life as we know it. Shane has taught AI to tell knock-knock jokes, design the perfect sandwich, and even flirt with humans, making her an ideal, witty tour guide through the inner workings of AI.
The American Dream is fueled by the belief that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. But eminent Yale law professor Daniel Markovits shows that in practice, the meritocratic ideal does much more harm than good, blocking upward mobility and subjecting even the elite to absurd demands and crushing pressure. He then points out a powerful alternative, outlining the first steps toward a better, more prosperous, more dignified future.
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
Behavioral design expert and former Stanford lecturer Nir Eyal literally wrote the book on how people get hooked on attention-grabbing technology. But as emails and phone notifications consume more and more of our time, he now turns his attention toward the psychology of distraction, providing practical, novel techniques to help us control our attention and choose the lives we want.
The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection
Prolific author Tamim Ansary chronicles the evolution of the world’s major cultural movements—including Confucianism, Nomadism, Christianity, and beyond—tracing the dramatic, sometimes ruinous, sometimes transformative effects of their ever closer intertwinement that is the defining feature of the world today.
Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope into Action
When medical school student David Fajgenbaum began suffering from a life-threatening condition, doctors struggled to identify what exactly the disease was, let alone treat it. So Fajgenbaum took matters into his own hands, studying his own charts and testing his own blood in the hopes of discovering a treatment that could save his life. His memoir chronicles a new, groundbreaking approach to medical research, and stands as a testament to the power of determination.
Just a century ago, scientists believed that everyone was fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But award-winning historian Charles King tells the incredible story of the anthropologists who cast their biases aside, defied the prevailing wisdom, and led the way to a richer, more empathetic reimagining of human diversity.
Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick
Professor Wendy Wood, the leading authority on the science of habits, draws on three decades of original research to explain the fascinating science of how we form habits. Revealing why willpower alone is inadequate when trying to adopt new habits—or break old ones—she uses insights from neuroscience, case studies, and experiments conducted in her lab to give readers evidence-based strategies for making the changes we seek.
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