Great new book recommendations for our Self-Starter types this Summer

This summer, we have meticulously curated a collection of books that cater to the self-starter's insatiable thirst for knowledge and ambition, ensuring they have the resources to further their personal and professional growth.

september new releases

Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life

by Joanna Ebenstein

A transformative guide to embrace your own mortality and live a more fulfilling life

Talking about death has been deemed morbid, taboo, or even pathological. But in order to fully embrace life, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual leaders all agree--contemplating death is the key to living a life with meaning.

This life-changing book will give you a 12 week program to befriend death in your own way, creating your own personal, daily meditation on what it means to be mortal. Through personal anecdotes, historical examples, meditations, exercises, journal prompts, and reflections, you will learn to both come to terms with what death means and to live alongside it without fear. In doing so, you will see your own life in a new light and discover what makes life worth living. After all, there's no better motivation to seize the day than a regular reminder that your days are numbered.

Strive: 8 Steps to Find Your Awesome

by Venus Williams

An inspiring and innovative guide towards living your best life--made easy--from Venus Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

Throughout Venus Williams' incredible career in tennis, she's been asked almost every question imaginable. What she eats, how she trains, what she does to unwind, and most frequently, how does she manage to do it all?

Venus harnessed a rich blend of hard-won wisdom and core discipline to achieve her goals while keeping a simple promise to herself: to keep things fun. But after being diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disorder that affected her emotional and physical wellness, Venus's vow was put to the test. She came up with the STRIVE strategy--a winning combination of holistic and scientific approaches to wellness and performance that focuses on making self-improvements reachable and sustainable.

In STRIVE, readers will learn how eight tiny but essential tenets can help turn smart choices into habits. And once that happens, you'll forge a lifestyle you return to because you want to, not because you have to--and that's when you start winning.

Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification

by Melissa Petro

In the spirit of Rebecca Traister's Good and Mad and Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist comes a courageous, in-depth investigation into the modern epidemic of shame in our society--what it is, why women are uniquely susceptible, and how we can shift the shame off our plates and live our best lives in an over-exposed, image-obsessed world.

For millions of women, shame is a vicious predator. It tells us we are less than, that we are unworthy. We try everything to escape shame--ignoring it, intellectualizing it, and even, ironically, shaming ourselves for feeling it. The reality is that women experience shame more frequently and more intensely than men--a direct result, as acclaimed journalist Melissa Petro explains, of a patriarchal culture that "urges women to feel bad about themselves, and then punishes them when they do." Why can't we figure out how to break the shame cycle once and for all?

Supremacy: Ai, Chatgpt, and the Race That Will Change the World

by Parmy Olson

Longlisted for the 2024 Financial Times & Schroders Business Book of the Year

In November of 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was an AI chatbot called ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world's two leading AI firms, OpenAI and DeepMind, who now steers Google's AI efforts, has remained elusive - until now.

In Supremacy, Olson, tech writer at Bloomberg, tells the astonishing story of the battle between these two AI firms, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the hazardous direction they could go as they serve two tech Goliaths whose power is unprecedented in history. The story focuses on the continuing rivalry of two key CEOs at the center of it all, who cultivated a religion around their mission to build god-like super intelligent machines: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind.

Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion

by Anne Chow

Drawing from over three decades of experience, former CEO of AT&T Business Anne Chow shares how to lead bigger by leveraging inclusion beyond DEI, to elevate your work, workforce, and workplace.

For generations, when we've needed to innovate and grow, we've been told to "think bigger"--it's now time to Lead Bigger.

In a world that's become more interconnected yet polarized, inclusion has been overly politicized and narrowly defined to issues of gender and race. As a result, we need a new approach to inclusive leadership that goes beyond DEI, harnessing its power for innovation and growth. In Lead Bigger, Anne Chow reframes inclusion as the required leadership competency of expanding our perspectives for greater performance in our work, workforce, and workplace.

Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

by Yuval Noah Harari

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.

"Masterful and provocative."--Mustafa Suleyman

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI--a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

"With a thoughtfully curated series of essays, poetry, and conversations, the brilliant scientist and climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has assembled a group of dynamic people who are willing to imagine what seems impossible, and articulate those visions with enthusiastic clarity."--Roxane Gay

Our climate future is not yet written. What if we act as if we love the future?

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.

Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take--from every one of us, with whatever we have to offer--to create.

If you haven't yet been able to picture a transformed and replenished world--or to see yourself, your loved ones, and your community in it--this book is for you. If you haven't yet found your role in shaping this new world or you're not sure how we can actually get there, this book is for you.

august new releases

Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of Ftx's Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire

by Andrew R Chow

For fans of Bad Blood and Too Big to Fail, an explosive, page-turning account of one of the largest financial frauds in US history, chronicling the utopian promises, human collateral, and incineration of billions of dollars in the 2022 crypto crash, by Time magazine's technology correspondent.

As cryptocurrency rose in popularity during the pandemic, new converts bought into the idea that crypto would not only make them rich, but would usher in imminent revolutions across art, finance, politics, and gaming. Cryptocurrency caught the zeitgeist through figures like FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who only two years later would be convicted of one of the most calamitous acts of financial fraud in US history.

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything

by Nate Silver

NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024 BY FT, The Guardian, and The Sunday Times

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk--and the players raising the stakes

In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "the River," the community of like-minded people whose mastery of risk allows them to shape--and dominate--so much of modern life.

These professional risk-takers--poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true believers and blue-chip art collectors--can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the twenty-first century. By immersing himself in the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI.

Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World

by Anupreeta Das

From the finance editor of The New York Times, an examination of Bill Gates--one of the most powerful, fascinating, and contradictory figures of the past four decades--and an eye-opening exploration of our national fixation on billionaires.

Few billionaires have been in the public eye for as long, and in as many guises, as Bill Gates. At first heralded as a tech visionary, the Microsoft cofounder next morphed into a ruthless capitalist, only to change yet again when he fashioned himself into a global do-gooder. Along the way, Gates forever influenced how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he also set a new standard for high-profile, billionaire philanthropy. But there is more to Gates's story, and here, Das's revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side.

Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life

by Nathalie A Cabrol

One of the world's leading astrobiologists takes us on an awe-inspiring journey across the cosmos to investigate some of humanity's most profound questions: Are we alone in the universe? And, how did life on Earth begin?

We are in a golden age in astronomy, living on the cusp of breakthroughs that will revolutionize our understanding of our place in the cosmos in. Yet a profound question remains: Are we alone in the universe?

We have never been closer to answering this question. In The Secret Life of the Universe, astrobiologist and the director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute Nathalie A. Cabrol takes us to the frontiers of the search for life. The book's odyssey begins by exploring how life began on Earth in order to understand what's necessary for its existence elsewhere. What role did our Moon play? And could life on Mars have seeded life on Earth?

JULY New Releases

Completely Different Game: My Leadership Playbook

by Emma Hayes - Michael Calvin

From the head coach of the United States Women's National Team and legendary coach of Chelsea FC comes a book of hard-won lessons for leading a team to success on and off the field

Few places will test your leadership skills more than the global soccer stage. For more than twenty years, Emma Hayes has led her teams to championship after championship, coaching her players through personal and professional setbacks, and becoming a powerful advocate for women in sports.

Available for the first time in print, A Completely Different Game shares Hayes's inspirational, innately human approach to fulfilling the potential of those around her. Beginning with her upbringing in Camden and ending with her move to the US National Team, Hayes takes us through the events that shaped her and the critical leadership lessons she learned along the way.

Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

by Henry Shukman

The essential meditation guide for the twenty-first century: renowned mindfulness teacher Henry Shukman replaces the concept of original sin with original love, teaching us to tap into the love that shapes our world and can transform who we are.

An increasing number of people today feel disconnected, disengaged, and lonely. Many of us are seeking solace, beginning with ourselves. Original Love is the secular spiritual handbook we need to ease our troubles and find the highest possible happiness.

Henry Shukman, spiritual director of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, provides a way forward based on four paths--Mindfulness, Support, Absorption, and Awakening--that promote growth and healing through meditation for practitioners of any level. And it works! Shukman includes inspiring stories from the students of his Original Love program that reveal how it has transformed their lives.

Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve

by Drew Afualo

The empowering, inspiring, patriarchy-smashing first book by the TikTok and Spotify star Drew Afualo.

Drew Afualo is best known as the internet's "Crusader for Women" and is at the head of a new generation of entertainment's rising stars. Loud is part manual, part manifesto, and part memoir. It makes it clear that behind her fearsome laugh is a mission and a life philosophy, a strategy for self-confidence from the inside out, and a pathway to once and for all remove men from the center of how women and femmes think about themselves.

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