I’m pleased to share what I consider the most promising, must-read nonfiction titles scheduled for release in October of 2023. These titles are included in the longlist of nominees for Season 22 of the Next Big Idea Club.
Our Next Big Idea Club curators—Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink—will narrow the list down to a handful of finalists and, ultimately, two official season selections.
Authors will also be invited to create a “Book Bite”, a 15-minute audio self-recording that features 5 key insights from their book. Imagine chatting with a stranger at a party—only that person just happened to write a fascinating nonfiction book!
And now, the October 2023 titles are…
What the Bears Know: How I Found Truth and Magic in America’s Most Misunderstood Creatures
By Steve Searles & Chris Erskine
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
The incredible story of how one man went from a hired hunter to becoming one of America’s top champions for this iconic animal. View on Amazon
The Future of Us: The Science of What We’ll Eat, Where We’ll Live, and Who We’ll Be
By Jay Ingram
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
A fascinating look at the cutting-edge science and technologies that are on the cusp of changing everything from where we’ll live, how we’ll look, and who we’ll be, by the popular science broadcaster and bestselling author Jay Ingram. View on Amazon
Level Up: Get Focused, Be More Productive, and Actually Improve 1% Every Day
By Rob Dial
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Rob Dial, life coach and host of the popular podcast The Mindset Mentor, shows the science behind how taking small actions every day will build momentum that leads to life-changing success. View on Amazon
A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life
By Farnooshi Torabi
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
The creator of the popular finance podcast So Money demonstrates how leaning into your fear can actually become your greatest superpower, in this accessible and clever guide to maximizing your financial success and beyond. View on Amazon
The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire
By Karen Eber
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Learn how to take any story and make it perfect–from storytelling expert Karen Eber, whose TED Talk on the subject has nearly two million views. View on Amazon
Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality
By Angus Deaton
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Blending rare personal insights with illuminating perspectives on the social challenges that confront us today, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton offers a disarmingly frank critique of his own profession while shining a light on his adopted country’s policy accomplishments and failures. View on Amazon
Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
By Zeke Faux
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Fueled by the absurd details and authoritative reporting , Number Go Up is the essential chronicle, by turns harrowing and uproarious, of a $3 trillion financial delusion. View on Amazon
Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet
By Taylor Lorenz
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet—revealing how online influence and the creators who amass it have reshaped our world, online and off. View on Amazon
Code to Joy: Why Everyone Should Learn a Little Programming
By Michael Littman
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
In this informative, accessible, and very funny book, Littman inspires readers to learn how to tell machines what to do for us. View on Amazon
The Beauty of Games
By Frank Lantz
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
How games create beauty and meaning, and how we can use them to explore the aesthetics of thought. View on Amazon
I’ve Been Thinking
By Daniel Dennett
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
This memoir by one of the greatest minds of our time will speak to anyone who seeks to balance a life of the mind with adventure and creativity. View on Amazon
Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe
By Carl Safina
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world. View on Amazon
This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us About Creativity
By Richard Deming
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
An examination of the life and work of six brilliant minds of the twentieth century, intent on answering the question “What can be done not despite but because of loneliness?” View on Amazon
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results
By Shane Parrish
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Few things will change your trajectory in life or business as much as learning to think clearly. Yet few of us recognize opportunities to think in the first place. View on Amazon
The Idea Is the Easy Part: Myths and Realities of the Startup World
By Brian Dovey
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Venture capitalist Brian Dovey offers readers a personal, humorous, story-driven compendium of practical advice for navigating the risky entrepreneurial journey. View on Amazon
Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection
By Jeremy Nobel
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Insight into our new world of loneliness that offers solace, hope, and solutions. View on Amazon
High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
By Marc Masters
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
This book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers. Scorned by the record industry for “killing music,” the cassette tape rippled through scenes corporations couldn’t control. For so many, tapes meant freedom—to create, to invent, to connect. View on Amazon
Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will
By Kevin Mitchell
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
Traversing billions of years of evolution, Mitchell tells the remarkable story of how living beings capable of choice arose from lifeless matter. View on Amazon
Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post
By Martin Baron
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
A first-row seat to the epic power struggle between politics, money, media, and tech. Marty Baron took charge of The Washington Post newsroom in 2013, after nearly a dozen years leading The Boston Globe. Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive news: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post, marking a sudden end to control by the venerated family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency. View on Amazon
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
By Cat Bohannon
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
A myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today. View on Amazon
American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration
By Benjamin Weber
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
In this explosive new book, historian Benjamin Weber reveals how the story of American prisons is inextricably linked to the expansion of American power around the globe. View on Amazon
Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens
By Rajiv Shah
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Rajiv J. Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former administrator of President Barack Obama’s United States Agency for International Development, shares a dynamic new model for creating large scale change, inspired by his own involvements with some of the largest humanitarian projects of our time. View on Amazon
The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology
By Tobias Dengel
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Why voice technology is the next big thing in technology, as big as mobile a decade ago and the internet in the late 90s, fundamentally altering the way companies do business. View on Amazon
The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves
By Alexandra Hudson
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
From classical philosophers like Epictetus, to great twentieth-century thinkers like Martin Luther King Jr., to her own experience working in the federal government during one of the most politically fraught eras in our nation’s history, Hudson examines how civility―a respect for the personhood and dignity of others―transcends political disagreements. Respecting someone means valuing them enough to tell them when you think they are wrong. View on Amazon
How Work Works: The Subtle Science of Getting Ahead Without Losing Yourself
By Michelle King
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
A unique and revelatory guide to understanding and navigating the unwritten rules of the workplace—the key to achieving success, finding meaning, and staying true to your authentic self in today’s business world—from the organizational expert and celebrated author of The Fix. View on Amazon
We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age
By Wendy Wong
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
A rallying call for extending human rights beyond our physical selves—and why we need to reboot rights in our data-intensive world. View on Amazon
How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book
By Liel Leibovitz
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
The Talmud is humanity’s first self-help book, with sage advice on an unparalleled scope of topics, including dealing with grief, choosing friends, and communicating with your partner. Weaving together psychology, philosophy, and history with examples from Weight Watchers and the lives of Billie Holiday and Aristotle, Leibovitz makes the Talmud’s insights reverberate for our modern age. View on Amazon
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
By Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales & Gavin Edwards
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
The unauthorized, behind-the-scenes story of the stunning rise―and suddenly uncertain reign―of the most transformative cultural phenomenon of our time: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. View on Amazon
Nothing Is Missing: A Memoir of Living Boldly
By Nicole Walters
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
A profound and gripping memoir by Nicole Walters, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants who became a self-made multi-millionaire by showing others how to recognize their own strengths—and her own harrowing journey to the discovery that she was worthy all along of the life of her dreams. View on Amazon
Reasons Not to Worry: How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times
By Brigid Delaney
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
In this heartfelt and soul-searching work, brimming with warmth, humor, and insight, the beloved Guardian columnist spends a year exploring how to pursue a rich and meaningful life, turning to the wisdom of the Stoics for insights into the deepest questions of existence. View on Amazon
Smart Startups: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know–Advice from 18 Harvard Business School Founders
By Catalina Daniels & James Sherman
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Two startup company founders and angel investors go inside eighteen companies founded by Harvard Business School graduates, uncovering surprising lessons for success and unexpected pitfalls essential for aspiring entrepreneurs. View on Amazon
A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food
By Will Harris
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
From a pioneer of the regenerative agriculture movement, a memoir-meets-manifesto on betting the farm on a better future for our food, animals, land, local communities, and our climate. View on Amazon
Which Way Is North: A Creative Compass for Makers, Marketers, and Mystics
By Will Cady
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Through a combination of essays, meditations, and memoir, Which Way Is North helps you explore that question, opens new pathways to creativity by guiding you to your True North, and equips you with new tools for the journey to becoming a conscious participant in creation. View on Amazon
Nobility in Small Things: A Surgeon’s Path
By Craig Smith
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Nobility in Small Things not only takes us into the mind and soul of a surgeon with the ability to “play God” but into the heart of a man who chose a lifesaving career. The book introduces us to patients and peers, and moves from family-building and heartbreak at home, to the tragic suicide of two fellow M.D.s. Dr. Smith also writes vulnerably about his debilitating social anxiety and how he overcame it. View on Amazon
Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life
By Arnold Schwarzenegger
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
The seven rules to follow to realize your true purpose in life—distilled by Arnold Schwarzenegger from his own journey of ceaseless reinvention and extraordinary achievement, and available for absolutely anyone. View on Amazon
Breaking Through: My Life in Science
By Katalin Kariko
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
A story of perseverance and the power of convictions from the groundbreaking immigrant scientist whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines, hailed as “an inspiration” by Bill Gates. View on Amazon
Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?
By Tom Wheeler
Publication Date: October 15, 2023
Warning that today is not the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” some envision, Wheeler calls for a new era of public interest oversight that leaves behind industrial era regulatory ideas to embrace a new process of agile, supervised and enforced code setting that protects consumers and competition while encouraging continued innovation. View on Amazon
How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World
By Deb Chachra
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us. View on Amazon
Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women in Physics and Astronomy Decoded the Hidden Universe
By Shohini Ghose
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
An exciting new title in the vein of Hidden Figures, which tells the inspiring stories of long-overlooked women physicists and astronomers who discovered the fundamental rules of the universe and reshaped the rules of society. View on Amazon
The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind
By Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
Journalists Nocera and McLean follow up All the Devils Are Here with this analysis of the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the failures of government and business leaders. View on Amazon
Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
By Robert Sapolsky
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences. View on Amazon
The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution
By Greg Lukianoff & Rikki Schlott
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
A timely deep dive into cancel culture, an account of its dangers to all Americans, and the much-needed antidote from the team that brought you Coddling of the American Mind. View on Amazon
Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It
By Adia Harvey Wingfield
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
A leading sociologist reveals why racial inequality persists in the workplace despite today’s multi-billion-dollar diversity industry—and provides actional solutions for creating a truly equitable, multiracial future. View on Amazon
Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude
By Nicole Avant
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
A spirit-lifting memoir on how to turn pain into purpose, how to live always in gratitude, and how to face down tragedy and turn it into love. View on Amazon
The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food
By Andrew Friedman
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
Acclaimed “chef writer” Andrew Friedman introduces readers to all the people and processes that come together in a single restaurant dish, creating an entertaining, vivid snapshot of the contemporary restaurant community, modern farming industry, and food-supply chain. View on Amazon
He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters
By Schuyler Bailar
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
Schuyler Bailar didn’t set out to be an activist, but his very public transition to the Harvard men’s swim team put him in the spotlight. He uses storytelling and the art of conversation to give us the essential language and context of gender, meeting everyone where they are and paving the way for understanding, acceptance, and, most importantly: connection. View on Amazon
How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks
By Adam Nicolson
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
Nicolson crafts a geography of the ancient world and a brilliant exploration of our connections to the past. View on Amazon
I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country
By Elena Kostyuchenko
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
A fearless, cutting portrait of Russia and an essential cri de coeur for journalism in opposition to the global authoritarian turn. View on Amazon
A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going
By Michael Muthukrishna
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
A Theory of Everyone draws on the most recent research from across the sciences, humanities, and the emerging field of cultural evolution to paint a panoramic picture of who we are and what exactly makes human beings different from all other forms of life on the planet. View on Amazon
Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature
By Dan Sinykin
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Dan Sinykin explores how changes in the publishing industry have affected fiction, literary form, and what it means to be an author. Giving an inside look at the industry’s daily routines, personal dramas, and institutional crises, he reveals how conglomeration has shaped what kinds of books and writers are published. View on Amazon
Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream
By David Leonhardt
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
The clear-eyed, definitive history of the modern American economy and the decline of the American Dream, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist behind The New York Times‘s “The Morning” newsletter. View on Amazon
On the Brink of Utopia: Reinventing Innovation to Solve the World’s Largest Problems
By Thomas Ramge & Rafael Laguna de la Vera
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Offering a new perspective on innovation that centers on readers from all over the world, On the Brink of Utopia is a hopeful and visionary book that reimagines the roles of innovators, citizens, governments, and financial markets to foster innovation leaps that maximize the well-being of the greatest number of people. View on Amazon
How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One Generation
By Justin Michael Williams & Shelly Tygielski
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
A look back from a future in which racism is no more―inspiring us to start taking positive action today. View on Amazon
A+ Parenting: The Surprisingly Fun Guide to Raising Surprisingly Smart Kids
By Eva Moskowitz
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Eva Moskowitz, founder of the highly lauded Success Academy Charter Schools, shares her advice for raising smart, successful, and intellectually engaged children. View on Amazon
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
By Max Bennett
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow. View on Amazon
The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading
By Dwight Garner
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Dwight Garner, the beloved New York Times critic, serves up the intertwined pleasures of books and food. The product of a lifetime of obsessively reading, eating, and every combination therein, this book is a charming, emotional memoir. View on Amazon
How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
By David Brooks
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives. View on Amazon
White Holes
By Carlo Rovelli
Publication Date: October 31, 2023
Journey with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time, into the heart of a black hole: where geometry folds, time and space pull and stretch, space and time dissolves, and a white hole is born. View on Amazon
Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science
By Catherine McNeur
Publication Date: October 31, 2023
The untold story of two sisters whose discoveries sped the growth of American science in the nineteenth century. View on Amazon
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