One of my favorite parts of being the editorial director of the Next Big Idea Club is putting together the longlist of seasonal nominees (aka “Panio’s List”). In an era of increasing reliance on AI and algorithms, I maintain an editorial approach that is defiantly old-fashioned: I review advance copies and press releases of hundreds of upcoming books, and then select the most promising, thought-provoking, must-read nonfiction titles of the season—all based on the preferences of our curators, member feedback from previous seasons, and my own 20+ years of publishing experience.
Once the longlist is assembled, I reach out to the selected authors with the news, invite them to create an audio “Book Bite,” and share the list with our incredible Next Big Idea Club curators: Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink. The curators gradually narrow the list down to a small handful of finalists and, ultimately, two official season selections.
Today, I’m excited to share my list of nominees for Season 18 of the Next Big Idea Club. This is a special double season, spanning six months of publication (February to July 2022), so I’ve broken the list into three parts. This is Part One, which covers February and March. And now, drumroll please…
The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale
By John List
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
University of Chicago economist John A. List explains how to identify the ideas that will be successful when scaled, and how to avoid those that won’t. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
By Florence Williams
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own. View our “Book Bite” Summary
How to Talk to Your Boss About Race: Speaking Up Without Getting Shut Down
By Y-Vonne Hutchinson
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
An indispensable practical toolkit for dismantling racism in the workplace without fear. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss
By Mary-Frances O’Connor
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
A renowned grief expert and neuroscientist shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
More Than Words: The Science of Deepening Love and Connection in Any Relationship
By John Howard
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
More Than Words shows you how to deepen love and connection in any relationship based on the latest cutting-edge research in interpersonal neurobiology, trauma-informed healing, attachment theory, and many more scientific fields. View on Amazon
The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
By Sebastian Mallaby
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
The astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture-capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy. View on Amazon
The Revolution That Wasn’t: Gamestop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors
By Spencer Jakab
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
In this nuanced analysis, Jakab shines a light on often-misunderstood profit motives and financial mechanisms to show how this so-called revolution is, on balance, a bonanza for Wall Street. View on Amazon
Price Wars: How the Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World
By Rupert Russell
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
A fascinating, groundbreaking exposé of how commodity traders in New York and London have destabilized societies all over the world, leaving the most vulnerable at the mercy of hunger, chaos, and war. View on Amazon
Out of Touch: How to Survive an Intimacy Famine
By Michelle Drouin
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent’s Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age
By Julie Bogart
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
A guide for parents to help children of all ages process the onslaught of unfiltered information in the digital age. View on Amazon
My Money My Way: Taking Back Control of Your Financial Life
By Kumiko Love
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
My Money My Way will give you the tools to align your emotional health with your financial health—to let go of deprivation and embrace desire. View on Amazon
Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It
By John Abramson
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
The inside story of how Big Pharma’s relentless pursuit of ever-higher profits corrupts medical knowledge—misleading doctors, misdirecting American health care, and harming our health. View on Amazon
Speaking in Thumbs: A Psychiatrist Decodes Your Relationship Texts So You Don’t Have To
By Mimi Winsberg
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
An essential look at the love language of texts, helping you decipher the personalities of online daters, the subtle signals from your romantic partner, and the red flags hiding in plain sight. View on Amazon
Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media
By Jacob Mchangama
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. View on Amazon
Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies
By Ranjay Gulati
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
A Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms get purpose right. View on Amazon
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain
By Sara Manning Peskin
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
Our brains are the most complex machines known to humankind, but they have an Achilles heel: the very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds. View on Amazon
The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World
By David Robson
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Melding neuroscience with narrative, science journalist David Robson takes readers on a deep dive into the many life zones that the expectation effect permeates. View on Amazon
The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology
By Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel’s riveting examination of synthetic biology and the bioeconomy provide the background for thinking through the upcoming risks and moral dilemmas posed by redesigning life, as well as the vast opportunities waiting for us on the horizon. View on Amazon
Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
By Dennis Duncan
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart―and we have been for 800 years. View on Amazon
From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
By Arthur Brooks
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and Eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, a Harvard professor shows us that true life success is well within our reach. View on Amazon
Tiny Business, Big Money: Strategies for Creating a High-Revenue Microbusiness
By Elaine Pofeldt
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Small business specialist Elaine Pofeldt offers her blueprint for getting a running start with your microbusiness—that is, a business with no more than 20 employees, including yourself. View on Amazon
Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest
By Keith Ferrazzi, Kian Gohar, and Noel Weyrich
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Competing in the New World of Work is both your inspiration and your road map to embracing new realities, motivating talent, and winning bold frontiers. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future
By Stephen Poloz
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
From the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, a far-seeing guide to the powerful economic forces that will shape the decades ahead. View on Amazon
Why Argument Matters
By Lee Siegel
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
Siegel plumbs the emotional and psychological sources of clashing words, weaving through his exploration the untold story of the role argument has played in societies throughout history. View on Amazon
Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses
By Jackie Higgins
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
The extraordinary sensory powers of our animal friends can help us better understand the same powers that lie dormant within us. View on Amazon
The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
By Laura Shin
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
This fascinating book shows the crypto market for what it really is: a deeply personal struggle to influence the coming revolution in money, culture, and power. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
By Jimmy Soni
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
Today, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry’s most powerful network. This narrative illustrates how this rare assemblage of talent came to work together, and how their collaboration changed our world forever. View on Amazon
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
By Stephanie Foo
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life. View on Amazon
Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts
By Neil Hoyne
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist offers a simple, research-backed playbook that anyone can use to find their best customers and develop relationships that last. View on Amazon
The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World
By Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater
Publication Date: February 22, 2022
Cognitive scientists Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. View on Amazon
Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication
By Vanessa Van Edwards
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Whether you’re pitching an investment, negotiating a job offer, or having a tough conversation with a colleague, cues can help you improve your relationships, express empathy, and create meaningful connections with lasting impact. View on Amazon
Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
By David George Haskell
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. View on Amazon
Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work
By Ruchika Tulshyan
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Tulshyan explains why “leaning in” doesn’t work—and dismantling structural bias does; warns against hiring for “culture fit,” arguing for “culture add” instead; and emphasizes the importance of psychological safety in the workplace. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science
By Frank Keil
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
A Yale psychologist reveals how we can all be lifelong wonderers, restoring the sense of joy in discovery we felt as children. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America
By Deepa Purushothaman
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
A deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and join together in community, advocating for a new corporate environment where we all belong—and are accepted—on our own terms. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World
By Oliver Milman
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history. View on Amazon
The Social Lives of Animals
By Ashley Ward
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Biologist Ashley Ward takes us on a wild tour across the globe as he searches for a more accurate picture of how animals build societies. View on Amazon
Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In
By Ryan Jenkins and Steve Van Cohen
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Connectable delivers the information, insights, and actionable strategies needed to awaken a renewed sense of connection throughout your organization. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley
By Carolyn Chen
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
A UC Berkeley sociologist shows how tech giants are reshaping spirituality to serve their religion of peak productivity. View on Amazon
Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos
By Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, the Self, and civilization emerged incrementally out of chaos. View on Amazon
I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
By Mónica Guzmán
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want, curiously. View on Amazon
Mastering Community: The Surprising Ways Coming Together Moves Us from Surviving to Thriving
By Christine Porath
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
An illuminating and empowering guide to help you discover just how important thriving communities are to our well-being and the success of organizations. View on Amazon
Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate
By Barry Nalebuff
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
A professor at Yale School of Management explains how seeing the relevant “pie” will change how you think about fairness and power in negotiation. View on Amazon
Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible
By Albert Bourla
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
The exclusive, first-hand, behind-the-scenes story of how Pfizer raced to create the first COVID-19 vaccine, told by Pfizer’s Chairman and CEO. View on Amazon
Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
By Richard Cohen
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
A fascinating, epic exploration of who gets to record the world’s history—from Julius Caesar to William Shakespeare to Ken Burns—and how their biases influence our understanding about the past. View on Amazon
The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI
By Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
An essential guide to the age of artificial intelligence which dives into the incredible promises and daunting perils of AI. View on Amazon
The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response
By Ellen Vora
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
From an acclaimed psychiatrist comes a groundbreaking understanding of how anxiety manifests in the body and mind—and what we can do to overcome it. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids
By Mona Delahooke
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
When parents shift from trying to secure compliance to supporting connection and balance in the body and mind, they unlock a deeper understanding of their child, encouraging calmer behavior, more harmonious family dynamics, and increased resilience. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Nature of the Beast: How Emotions Guide Us
By David Anderson
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Anderson explains what studying emotions and related internal brain states in animals can teach us about human behavior, offering new insights into why isolation makes us more aggressive, how sex and violence connect, and whether there’s a link between aggression and mental illness. View on Amazon
Playmakers: How the NFL Really Works (And Doesn’t)
By Mike Florio
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Mike Florio takes readers from the boardroom to the locker room, from draft day to Super Bowl night, showing what really goes on in the sport that America can’t seem to quit. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built and Empire, and Lost It All
By Mary Childs
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
From the host of NPR’s Planet Money comes the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. View on Amazon
Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think)
By Reshma Saujani
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Through powerful data and personal narrative, Saujani shows that the cost of inaction—for families, for our nation’s economy, and for women themselves—is too great to ignore. View on Amazon
How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold
By Maria Brito
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
There has never been a more crucial time than now to develop your creativity and your ability to innovate, as coming up with original ideas of value is today’s most precious skill. View on Amazon
CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest
By Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
From the world’s most influential management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, comes an insight-packed, revelatory look at how the best CEOs do their jobs. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward
By Britt Frank
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
This book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who you’re truly meant to be. View on Amazon
Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists
By N.J. Enfield
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
A University of Sydney linguist argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning
By Justin Smith
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
An original deep history of the internet that tells the story of the centuries-old utopian dreams behind it—and explains why they have died today. View on Amazon
The Elephant and the Mouse: Moving Beyond the Illusion of Inclusion to Create a Truly Diverse and Equitable Workplace
By Laura Liswood
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
Liswood presents a powerful argument for implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including the oft-overlooked risks posed by a homogeneous workforce. View on Amazon
The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation
By Cathy O’Neil
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
O’Neil explores the machinery behind shame, showing how governments, corporations and the healthcare system capitalize on it. View on Amazon
See, Solve, Scale: How Anyone Can Turn an Unsolved Problem Into a Breakthrough Success
By Danny Warshay
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
The founding Executive Director of Brown’s Center for Entrepreneurship leverages his own entrepreneurship successes and his 15 years of experience to debunk common myths about entrepreneurship. View on Amazon
Trustworthy AI: A Business Guide for Navigating Trust and Ethics in AI
By Beena Ammanath
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
Award-winning executive Beena Ammanath offers a practical approach for enterprise leaders to manage business risk in a world where AI is everywhere. View Our “Book Bite” Summary
Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today
By Jane McGonigal
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our brains to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable. View on Amazon
8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World
By Jennifer Sciubba
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
A provocative account of the power of population change to create the conditions for societal transformation. View on Amazon
Difficult Decisions: How Leaders Make the Right Call with Insight, Integrity, and Empathy
By Eric Pliner
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
An indispensable resource to help readers develop self-reflection, clarify their values, and ultimately make the choice that is most “right” to them. View on Amazon
To enjoy “Book Bite” summaries of these books and many more, download the Next Big Idea App today:
When you buy through our Amazon links, the Next Big Idea Club may earn an affiliate commission.
