I’m excited to share the newest nominees for Season 18 of the Next Big Idea Club!
As Season 18 is a special double season, spanning six months of publication (February to July 2022), I’ve broken the list into three parts. Here is Part One, and below you’ll find Part Two—what I consider the most promising, thought-provoking, must-read nonfiction titles released in April and May of 2022.
What comes next? The books will be shared with our incredible Next Big Idea Club curators—Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink—who will narrow the list down to a small handful of finalists and, ultimately, two official season selections.
Authors will also be invited to create a “Book Bite” for our app, a 15-minute audio self-recording that features 5 big ideas from their book. It’s kind of like chatting with a stranger next to you on an airplane—only that person just happened to write a fascinating nonfiction book!
And now, the nominees are…
Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century
By Segei Guriev and Daniel Treisman
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
How a new breed of dictators holds power by manipulating information and faking democracy. View on Amazon
Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Lifetime at Nike
By Greg Hoffman
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
Hoffman shares his philosophy and principles on how to create strong emotional bonds between brands and consumers by unlocking the creativity within your organization and unleashing it out into the world. View on Amazon
Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior
By Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
Two MIT economists show how game theory—the ultimate theory of rationality—explains irrational behavior. View on Amazon
Wired for Love: A Neuroscientist’s Journey Through Romance, Loss, and the Essence of Human Connection
By Stephanie Cacioppo
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
The world’s foremost neuroscientist of romantic love shares revelatory insights into how and why we fall in love, what makes love last, and how we process love lost—all grounded in cutting-edge findings in brain chemistry and behavioral science. View on Amazon
Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others
By Stephen M.R. Covey
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
Trust and Inspire is the solution to a future of work where a dispersed workforce will be the norm, necessitating trust and collaboration across time zones, cultures, personalities, and technology. View on Amazon
Life on the Rocks: Building a Future Coral Reefs
By Juli Berwald
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
Life on the Rocks is an inspiring, lucid, meditative ode to the reefs and the undaunted scientists working to save them against almost impossible odds. View on Amazon
The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career
By Jason Tartick
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
Jason Tartick, a motivational business speaker, coach, and host of the Trading Secrets podcast shares clear action steps to define and achieve your vision of financial, professional, and emotional success. View on Amazon
Democratizing Finance: The Radical Promise of Fintech
By Marion Laboure and Nicolas Defrennes
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
While celebrating fintech’s achievements to date, Laboure and Deffrennes also make recommendations for overcoming the obstacles that remain. The stakes―improved quality of life for all people―could not be higher. View on Amazon
Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership
By Susan Brady, Janet Foutty, and Lynn Perry Wooten
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
From three of today’s top women leaders in business and academia come seven essential practices for thriving professionally. View on Amazon
The Joy of Science
By Jim Al-Khalili
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
Quantum physicist, New York Times bestselling author, and BBC host Jim Al-Khalili reveals how 8 lessons from the core of science can help you get the most out of life. View on Amazon
Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick
By J. David McSwane
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
Winner of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, McSwane connects the dots between backdoor deals and the spoils systems to provide the definitive account of how this pandemic was so catastrophically mishandled. View on Amazon
The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech Is Everything
By Eric Heinze
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. View on Amazon
The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight
By Alexander Monea
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
An exploration of how heteronormative bias is deeply embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords, content moderation, and more. View on Amazon
Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe
By Keith O’Brien
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
Sweeping and electrifying, Paradise Falls brings to life a defining story from our past, laying bare how the dauntless efforts of a few women helped to spark the modern environmental movement as we know it today. View on Amazon
Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live
By Becca Levy
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
A Yale professor and leading expert on the psychology of successful aging draws on her groundbreaking research to show how age beliefs can be improved so they benefit all aspects of the aging process. View on Amazon
How to Live Like the Little Prince: A Grown-Up’s Guide to Rediscovering Imagination, Adventure, and Awe
By Stéphane Garnier
Publication Date: April 12, 2022
Stéphane Garnier revisits St. Exupéry’s story with a fresh, contemporary eye, urging us—as the Little Prince did—to preserve our childlike wonder by slowing down, dreaming big, and showing humble kindness to our planet and one another. View on Amazon
The Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy Around the World
By Gideon Rachman
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
While others have tried to understand the emergence of these new leaders individually, The Age of the Strongman provides the first truly global treatment of the new nationalism, underpinned by an exceptional level of access to key actors in this drama. View on Amazon
The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure
By Yascha Mounk
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
From one of our sharpest and most important political thinkers, a brilliant big-picture vision of the greatest challenge of our time—how to bridge the bitter divides within diverse democracies enough for them to remain stable and functional. View on Amazon
Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career is Good for Your Kids
By Lara Bazelon
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
It turns out that being ambitious at work and being a good mother to our children are not at odds—these qualities mutually reinforce each other. View on Amazon
The Good-Enough Life
By Avram Alpert
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
A Princeton lecturer shares how an acceptance of our limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious society. View on Amazon
Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace
By Christopher Blattman
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and the author’s own experience in warzones, we see, for example, how queens have waged war more than kings; that the homicide rate in the ganglands of Medellín, Columbia, is lower than you think; and that even monkeys have an innate righteousness. View on Amazon
Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs
By Frederic Kerrest
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
From the cofounder of a $40 billion software company comes an invaluable guide packed with $1 trillion worth of advice from some of the world’s most successful and recognizable entrepreneurs. View on Amazon
The Courage Playbook: Five Steps to Overcome Your Fears and Become Your Best Self
By Gus Lee
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
This is a practical guide to gaining your courage to live rightly, treat others without bias, and lead inspirationally. View on Amazon
Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices
By Don Moore and Max Bazerman
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
A fresh, research-driven playbook for how successful leaders can maximize the potential of others. View on Amazon
There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women
By Mary Ellen Iskenderian
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Microfinance has been hailed as an economic lifeline for women in developing countries—but, as Mary Ellen Iskenderian shows in this book, it takes more than microloans to empower women and promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth. View on Amazon
A Brief History of Equality
By Thomas Piketty
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. View on Amazon
The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life
By A.J. Jacobs
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world. View on Amazon
The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis
By Nate Hilger
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
An economist explains how parents have been set up to fail, and why helping them succeed is the key to achieving a fair and prosperous society. View on Amazon
Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay
By Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
From the duo behind the bestselling book No Hard Feelings and the wildly popular @LizandMollie Instagram, an insightful and approachable illustrated guide to handling our most difficult emotions. View on Amazon
Can Fish Count?: What Animals Reveal About Our Uniquely Mathematical Minds
By Brian Butterworth
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Butterworth reveals how insights gleaned from studying animals can help us make better sense of our own abilities. Full of discovery and delight, Can Fish Count? is an astonishing journey through the animal kingdom and the human mind. View on Amazon
The Inside Story: The Surprising Pleasures of Living in an Aging Body
By Susan Sands
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Body image expert Dr. Susan Sands unpacks the research to make a bold call to aging women to find safe harbor from the ravages of age right where they strike the deepest: in the body. View on Amazon
The Joy Choice: How to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise
By Michelle Segar
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
This groundbreaking book liberates you from the self-defeating obligations and rigid requirements of past diet and workout regimens and reveals what emerging research suggests really drives the consistent choices that power sustainable change. View on Amazon
The Sale: The Number One Strategy to Build Trust and Create Success
By Jon Gordon and Alex Demczak
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Bestselling author Jon Gordon and rising star Alex Demczak deliver an invaluable lesson about what matters most in life and work—and how to achieve it. View on Amazon
The Come Back Culture: 10 Business Practices That Create Lifelong Customers
By Jason Young and Jonathan Malm
Publication Date: May 1, 2022
The Come Back Culture breaks down the elements that make for remarkable experiences so that you can implement them in your business, whether you’re an entrepreneur just getting your brand off the ground or an established business looking to improve your return rate. View on Amazon
A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How It Made Us Human
By Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell
Publication Date: May 1, 2022
A Better Ape draws on the latest research in the biological and social sciences to explain the key role that morality has played in human evolution. View on Amazon
Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo
By Reggie Fils-Aimé
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
Reggie Fils-Aimé, retired President and Chief Operating Officer of Nintendo of America Inc., shares leadership lessons and inspiring stories from his unlikely rise to the top. View on Amazon
Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad)
By Tracy Dennis-Tiwary
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
By challenging our long-held assumptions about anxiety, this book will provide a concrete framework for how to reclaim it for what it has always been—a gift rather than a curse, and a source of inner strength, joy, and ingenuity. View on Amazon
A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness
By Roger L. Martin
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
One of the greatest business thinkers of our time argues that to solve their most pressing challenges in “The Great Reboot,” business leaders must first rethink their models. View on Amazon
The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold
By Sam Knight
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
From a rising star New Yorker staff writer, the incredible and gripping true story of John Barker, a psychiatrist who investigated the power of premonitions—and came to believe he himself was destined for an early death. View on Amazon
The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists
By Richard Rumelt
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
Through vivid storytelling—ranging from how Elon Musk found the crux that propelled the success of Space X to how the American military came to grips with the weaknesses of its battle strategy—Rumelt reframes how we think about strategy. View on Amazon
The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment
By Marshall Goldsmith
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
Full of illuminating stories from Goldsmith’s legendary career as a coach to some of the world’s highest-achieving leaders, as well as reflections on his own life, The Earned Life is a roadmap for ambitious people seeking a higher purpose. View on Amazon
The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work
By Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
With hard data, personal anecdotes from women of all stripes, and innovative advice from the authors’ consulting Fortune 500 companies, this book will forever change the conversation about how we advance women’s careers and achieve equity. View on Amazon
The New Megatrends: Seeing Clearly in the Age of Disruption
By Marian Salzman
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
A pioneering forecaster predicts the trends and technologies that will shape global culture and commerce in the next two decades—a must-read guide for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking for an edge. View on Amazon
The Power of Conflict: Speak Your Mind and Get the Results You Want
By John Taffer
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
With easy-to-follow advice that shows how to best engage in constructive discourse to get the results you want, The Power of Conflict provides you with the rules to argue smarter, uphold your values, and keep the conversation real. View on Amazon
Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids
By Scott Hershovitz
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
From a University of Michigan professor of law and philosophy comes a fresh, deep, and funny inquiry into life’s biggest questions with the help of first-rate philosophers—including his two young children. View on Amazon
The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind
By Noga Arikha
Publication Date: May 3, 2022
A diabetic woman awakens from a coma having forgotten the last ten years of her life. A Haitian immigrant has nightmares that begin bleeding into his waking hours. A retired teacher loses the use of her right hand due to pain of no known origin. Noga Arikha began studying these patients and their confounding symptoms in order to explore how our physical experiences inform our identities. View on Amazon
Hacking Artificial Intelligence: A Leader’s Guide from Deepfakes to Breaking Deep Learning
By Davey Gibian
Publication Date: May 5, 2022
Leaders and AI enthusiasts are shown how AI hacking is a real risk to organizations, and are provided with a framework to assess such risks before problems arise. View on Amazon
The Truth About Crypto: A Practical, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, and Other Digital Assets
By Ric Edelman
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Edelman shows how blockchain works, the difference between digital currency and digital assets, and a comprehensive look at every aspect of the field. View on Amazon
The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI
By Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
With a digital mindset, you’ll ask the right questions, make smart decisions, and appreciate new possibilities for a digital future. View on Amazon
Radical Confidence: 10 No-BS Lessons on Becoming the Hero of Your Own Life
By Lisa Bilyeu
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
The story of how Bilyeu unpaused her life to cofound a company that went from zero to a billion dollars in just five years, and become a leader in the world of personal development. View on Amazon
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change
By Angela Garbes
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at what mothering is—and can be. View on Amazon
Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind
By Andy Dunn
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
The co-founder of the menswear startup Bonobos opens up about the struggle with bipolar disorder that nearly cost him everything in this gripping, radically honest memoir of mental illness and entrepreneurship. View on Amazon
In Emergency, Break Glass: What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World
By Nate Anderson
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
A lively and approachable meditation on how we can transform our digital lives if we let a little Nietzsche in. View on Amazon
Tomorrow’s Capitalist: My Search for the Soul of Business
By Alan Murray, with Catherine Whitney
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
A report from the front lines on how corporate CEOs—the ultimate pragmatists—realize that they could lose their “operating license” unless they tackle the fundamental issues of our time: climate, diversity and inclusion, and inequality and workforce opportunity. View on Amazon
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
By Tony Fadell
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Tony Fadell learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure, and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. View on Amazon
Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made
By David Gergen
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
A powerful guide to the art of leadership from David Gergen—former White House adviser to four U.S. presidents, CNN analyst, and founder of the Harvard Center for Public Leadership. View on Amazon
Plays Well with Others: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships Is (Mostly) Wrong
By Eric Barker
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Barker explains what hostage negotiation techniques and marital arguments have in common, how an expert con-man lied his way into a twenty-year professional soccer career, and why those holding views diametrically opposed to our own actually have the potential to become our closest, most trusted friends. View on Amazon
Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life
By Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
The pursuit of health, happiness, and life satisfaction has endured for as long as humans have roamed the earth. But it’s only in the last decade that a remarkable tool has emerged to vastly improve human potential: data. View on Amazon
We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy
By Eboo Patel
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
From the former faith advisor to President Obama, comes an inspirational guide for those who seek to promote positive social change and build a more diverse and just democracy. View on Amazon
The Suite Spot: Reaching, Leading, and Delivering the C-Suite
By John Jeffcock
Publication Date: May 15, 2022
The Suite Spot provides unique guidance on how to break into the C-Suite, and then how to be successful in the space through a unique combination of models, case studies, tables, and images. View on Amazon
The 2% Way: How a Philosophy of Small Improvements Took Me to Oxford, the NFL, and Neurosurgery
By Myron L. Rolle
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Discover the simple, revolutionary practice behind the against-the-odds success story of Dr. Myron L. Rolle: NFL football player, Rhodes Scholar, and neurosurgery resident at Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital. View on Amazon
The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and Our Response—Will Change the World
By Ian Bremmer
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer draws lessons from global challenges of the past 100 years—including the pandemic—to show how we can respond to three great crises unfolding over the next decade. View on Amazon
How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to Do the Best Work of Their Lives
By Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian, and Helen Kupp
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
How the Future Works offers concrete solutions and practical steps for building high-functioning teams of talented, engaged people by providing them with the flexibility and choice they need to do their best work. View on Amazon
Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness
By Andrew Scull
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Carefully researched and compulsively readable, Desperate Remedies is a definitive account of America’s long battle with mental illness, one that challenges us to rethink our deepest assumptions about who we are and how we think and feel. View on Amazon
The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media
By Kevin Driscoll
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
The untold story about how the internet became social, and why this matters for its future. View on Amazon
Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise
By Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz take us on an unlikely journey to explore the meaning of silence and the art of finding it in any situation. They present a blueprint for how we can improve our world by reclaiming the presence of silence in our lives. View on Amazon
Beyond Self-Interest: Why the Markets Reward Those Who Reject It
By Krzystof Pelc
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
A provocative retelling of the workings of self-interest in contemporary market society, which claims the world increasingly belongs to passionates, obsessives, and fanatics: those who do things for their own sake, rather than as means to other ends. View on Amazon
How to Make Work Not Suck: Honest Advice for People with Jobs
By Carina Maggar
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
In this straight-talking guide to the real world of work, discover genuinely useful advice that will help you find the confidence to go for that promotion, quit your job, break into that industry, nail that pitch, or climb over a creative brick wall. View on Amazon
Game Theory: Understanding the Mathematics of Life
By Brian Clegg
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Clegg delves into game theory’s colorful history and significant findings, and shows what we can all learn from this oft-misunderstood field of study. View on Amazon
Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age
By Carl Marci
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Living in an age of digital distraction has wreaked havoc on our brains―but there’s much we can do to restore our tech-life balance. View on Amazon
Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World
By Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Identifying underrated, brilliant individuals is one of the simplest ways to give yourself an organizational edge, and this is the book that will show you how to do that. View on Amazon
Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self
By Jay Garfield
Publication Date: May 24, 2022
Examining a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the self, Losing Ourselves makes the case that we can lead healthier social and moral lives if we understand that we are selfless persons. View on Amazon
Inflection Points: How to Work and Live with Purpose
By Matt Spielman
Publication Date: May 24, 2022
A renowned executive coach delivers an energizing and hands-on existential navigational tool that walks you through how to identify what really matters in life and how to achieve it. View on Amazon
How to Grow: Nurture Your Garden, Nurture Yourself
By Marcus Bridgewater
Publication Date: May 24, 2022
Original, timely, and filled with nurturing wisdom, How to Grow takes perennial knowledge from plants to teach us about ourselves—and opens our eyes to what we are capable of achieving. View on Amazon
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