Books

In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us Stephen Macedo Two Princeton political scientists on how institutions, expert bodies and the press handled the pandemic, and what it cost when deference replaced deliberation. 1 recommender In Defense of a Liberal Education Fareed Zakaria A defense of broad, humanistic learning in an age obsessed with job training, arguing that teaching people to think and write freely is exactly what the future demands. In Defense of Capitalism: Debunking the Myths Rainer Zitelmann A point-by-point rebuttal of the standard objections to capitalism, written squarely in the Friedman tradition. 1 recommender In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present Michael R.J. Bonner A case that the West's inherited culture is worth defending, and a survey of what it contains. 1 recommender In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays Bertrand Russell Russell thought four hours a day would do, and that treating work as virtue was a moral confusion. Written between the wars, aimed at the machinery that produced them. 1 recommender In Search of Now: The Science of the Present Moment Jo Marchant Marchant asks what the present moment actually is, and finds physics, neuroscience and lived duration giving answers stranger and far less unified than intuition expects. 1 recommender In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music of Cecil Taylor Philip Freeman The first full biography of the pianist who made jazz unlistenable to some and essential to others. 1 recommender In the Distance Hernan Diaz A Swedish boy lands in California and walks the wrong way across a country he cannot read. 1 recommender In the Footsteps of the Prophet Tariq Ramadan The Prophet's life read episodically for what each moment asks of a reader now. In the Half Room Carson Ellis A room where everything exists in halves, drawn spare and slightly uncanny, until something arrives whole and rearranges the arithmetic. 1 recommender In the Heights: Finding Home Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Jeremy McCarter The annotated In the Heights libretto plus the story of the show that launched Miranda, from college project to Broadway to film. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts Gabor Maté Drawn from his years treating addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Maté reframes addiction not as a choice or a disease but as a response to pain. Indigo Ellen Bass Bass writes desire, ageing, food and grief without embarrassment about pleasure or flinching at loss. The collection where her plainspoken late style arrives complete. 1 recommender Indus Journey Imran Khan A personal portrait of Pakistan's landscapes, peoples and layered past, traced along the river that made the country. Inevitable Illusions Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini A tour of the mental traps and cognitive illusions that reliably fool even careful thinkers. 1 recommender Infinite Country Patricia Engel One Colombian family split across two countries by an expired visa, told in short compressed chapters. 1 recommender Influence Robert Cialdini Six principles that produce compliance, documented from inside the industries that use them. 1 recommender Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert B. Cialdini Robert Cialdini's classic study of the six principles that make people say yes, from reciprocity to scarcity and social proof. 4 recommenders Inhabit the Poem: Last Essays Helen Vendler The last essays of the critic who taught several generations how to read a poem line by line. 1 recommender Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection Robert A. Johnson Johnson on projection: the unlived gold we hand other people to carry for us, and what happens to everyone involved when they eventually put it down. 1 recommender Inside Out Demi Moore Demi Moore's memoir, unusually candid about addiction, a chaotic childhood, and the cost of being the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. 1 recommender Inside Thatcher’s Monetarism Experiment: The Promise, The Failure, The Legacy Tim Lankester A Treasury official who was in the room when Britain tried monetarism and it did not go to plan. 1 recommender Inside the Box David Epstein David Epstein, author of Range, makes the counterintuitive case that the right limits and constraints, not boundless freedom, are what push people to do their best work. 2 recommenders Inspire Adam Galinsky Columbia Business School's Adam Galinsky distills decades of research into what separates inspiring leaders from infuriating ones, and how to become the former. 1 recommender Inspired Marty Cagan A field manual for how the best tech companies staff, structure and run the product teams behind the software people actually love. Instant Influence and Charisma Paul McKenna Techniques for connecting with and influencing others. 1 recommender Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist Larry Rohter The Brazilian officer who strung telegraph wire across the Amazon and refused to fight the people there. 1 recommender Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer Krakauer summited Everest the day a storm killed eight climbers, and wrote this trying to work out how it happened 1 recommender Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! Lori Greiner The Shark Tank inventor's step-by-step guide from idea to store shelf, including how to tell a mass-appeal hero product from a money-pit zero. Iranian Architecture: A Visual History Sohrab Sardashti Iranian architecture photographed at length, for readers who may never be able to visit any of it. 1 recommender Iraq Confidential Scott Ritter The weapons inspections from inside, including the intelligence operations running under their cover. Is a River Alive? Robert Macfarlane Three rivers, in Ecuador, India and Canada, and the legal movement arguing they hold rights of their own. The question in the title is not rhetorical. 1 recommender Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Mindy Kaling Kaling's debut collection of comic essays, from bookish immigrant kid to The Office writers' room, in the confident-yet-insecure voice that made her a star. Islam and Politics Peter Mandaville From the earliest disputes over authority to the present, showing how much theology is about power. Islamesque: The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe’s Medieval Monuments Diana Darke Darke traces the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the geometric ornament back through Sicily and Spain, and asks why the craftsmen were written out. 1 recommender Isola Allegra Goodman A French noblewoman is marooned on an island off Quebec in the 1540s, in a novel drawn from a real survival. 1 recommender