Books

A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There Aldo Leopold Published months after Leopold died in 1949, and still the founding argument that soil, water and animals belong to a moral community rather than a balance sheet. 1 recommender A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson A determined amateur works out how science actually established what it knows, and finds the researchers stranger than the findings. A Small Personal Voice Doris Lessing Lessing on the novelist obligation: neither propaganda nor retreat, but a small personal voice saying honestly what it knows. Long out of print, still unanswered. 1 recommender A Star Danced Gertrude Lawrence The stage star's own account of a career that ran from London music halls to Broadway. 1 recommender A Storm of Swords George R. R. Martin The volume where Martin cashes in every promise he made about consequence, at a wedding readers have never quite recovered from. Sahih al-Bukhari Imam al-Bukhari The most authoritative collection of hadith in Sunni Islam. 2 recommenders Sahih Muslim Imam Muslim One of the two most authoritative hadith collections in Sunni Islam. 1 recommender Sailing Alone Around the Room Billy Collins Poems that start somewhere domestic and are elsewhere entirely by the last line. 1 recommender Sam Walton: Made in America Sam Walton The Walmart founder's own account of building the world's largest retailer from a single small-town store. 1 recommender Sankofa Chibundu Onuzo A mixed-race Londoner discovers the father she never knew became an African president, and goes to find him. 1 recommender Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari How an unremarkable African ape became the dominant force on the planet, told through the cognitive, agricultural and scientific revolutions. 5 recommenders Say Nothing Patrick Radden Keefe A mother of ten taken from her Belfast flat in 1972, and the decades of silence that followed. 1 recommender Say You’re One of Them Uwem Akpan Uwem Akpan's story collection views violence and upheaval across Africa through the clear eyes of children. 1 recommender Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Alvin Schwartz Campfire folk tales retold for young readers, made unforgettable by Stephen Gammell's nightmarish illustrations. 1 recommender Scattered Gabor Maté Maté, who has ADHD himself, argues it is less a genetic disorder than a response to early stress, and that it can be healed rather than only managed. Schattenfroh Michael Lentz A thousand pages of German memory, guilt and paternal authority, called untranslatable right up until somebody translated it. Admirers and detractors both invoke Solenoid. 1 recommender Schoenberg: Why He Matters Harvey Sachs An introduction to Schoenberg that admits how much of his music people genuinely dislike. 1 recommender Schubert: A Musical Wayfarer Lorraine Byrne Bodley Everything about Schubert, and above all the music, in something close to definitive form. 1 recommender Scorecard Marketing Daniel Priestley, Glen Carlson A four-step playbook for using quizzes and scorecards to generate better leads by engaging prospects instead of interrupting them. 1 recommender Scrappy Little Nobody Anna Kendrick Anna Kendrick turns her sharp, self-deprecating wit on her own life, from awkward childhood to the strange realities of fame. Screw It, Let’s Do It Richard Branson Branson's maxims in miniature: believe in yourself, protect the downside, have fun, and stop overthinking the leap you keep postponing. Searching for Sylvie Lee Jean Kwok The capable sister vanishes in the Netherlands, and the family history explains more than the search. 1 recommender Second Place Rachel Cusk A woman invites a famous painter to her marshland guest house and regrets it almost at once. 1 recommender Secrets and Lies David Southwell A survey of history's most notorious conspiracies and cover-ups. 1 recommender Secrets of Mental Math Arthur Benjamin Techniques for doing fast arithmetic in your head. 1 recommender Secrets of Sand Hill Road Scott Kupor An a16z partner explains how venture capital actually works, from term sheets to what VCs really want. 1 recommender Security Analysis Benjamin Graham, David Dodd The foundational text of value investing by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, laying out how to analyze securities and value a business from its fundamentals. 1 recommender Seize the Day Saul Bellow Half a day in the life of a man who has run out of road, and knows it. 1 recommender Selected Writings Rene Magritte Magritte argued about resemblance and thought with the same precision his paintings used to disrupt them, in manifestos and interviews collected in English at last. 1 recommender Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians Tara Isabella Burton Curating a public self is not new, and Da Vinci was doing it long before Instagram. 1 recommender Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids Bryan Caplan If parenting shapes children far less than we assume, then the rational response is to relax about it and have more of them. Cheerfully provocative. Sell or Be Sold Grant Cardone Cardone's core sales philosophy: everyone is selling something, all the time, so mastering how to persuade and close is a life skill, not just a job function. Serenade James M. Cain A washed-up opera singer in Mexico finds his voice again through a woman, and wrecks everything reaching for it. 1 recommender Set Boundaries, Find Peace Nedra Glover Tawwab Therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab lays out how to set and hold healthy boundaries at work, with family, and with yourself, without the guilt. 1 recommender Settle for More Megyn Kelly The broadcaster's account of trading a law career for television news, and what it cost her once the spotlight turned hostile. Seven Days in June Tia Williams Two writers who spent one week together as teenagers, and fifteen years hiding messages in their novels, meet again. 1 recommender