Books

Hold On to Your Kids Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld Maté and Gordon Neufeld argue that children are increasingly oriented to peers instead of parents, and that this weakens the bond kids most need. Homage to Catalonia George Orwell Orwell's memoir of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and of watching the revolution he believed in turn on itself. 3 recommenders Home Marilynne Robinson Marilynne Robinson retells the Gilead story from the minister Boughton's house, as his prodigal son and dutiful daughter come home. 1 recommender Home Ground Lynn Freed A girl grows up in a theatrical Jewish family in Durban, under apartheid and largely oblivious to it. 1 recommender Homeschooled Stefan Merrill Block Pulled from school at nine, and a childhood organised entirely around one parent's certainty about him. 1 recommender Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller Miriam Horn Seventy years of field work, from mountain gorillas to snow leopards, by the biologist who established that wild animals could be studied by living alongside them. 1 recommender Homo Deus Yuval Noah Harari Having largely beaten famine, plague and war, Harari asks what a species does next, and whether humanism survives the algorithms. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture Johan Huizinga Written in 1938, as Europe prepared to demonstrate the darker half of the argument that play is what civilisation actually grew out of. 1 recommender Honey and Spice Bolu Babalola A campus radio host who warns women off bad men is caught kissing one, and fakes a relationship to save face. 1 recommender Honor Frank Henderson Stewart 1 recommender Hopscotch Julio Cortázar Julio Cortázar's novel built to be read in more than one order, in a Pantheon paperback. 1 recommender Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores James Howe Three mouse friends are split up by a boys' club and a girls' club, until Dolores decides she has had enough. 1 recommender Hot Flushes, Cold Science Louise Foxcroft How doctors turned an ordinary stage of women's lives into a medical problem, and why. Hotter Than the Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Scott Horton An abolitionist argument against nuclear weapons, built from interviews with the people who study them. House of Sand and Fog Andre Dubus III Andre Dubus III's novel pits an evicted woman against an Iranian immigrant family over a small California house, with tragic results. 1 recommender Houses that Sugar Built: An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes Gina Consing McAdam The great houses that Philippine sugar money built, photographed before any more of them disappear. 1 recommender How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes Peter Schiff, Andrew Schiff The Schiff brothers explain macroeconomics through a fishing-island fable, an illustrated Austrian-school case that saving builds growth and easy credit causes crashes. How Animals Work Knut Schmidt-Nielsen 1 recommender How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project Bent Flyvbjerg Almost every big project runs late and over budget, and the exceptions have a pattern. 1 recommender How Buildings Learn Stewart Brand Architecture judged over decades rather than at completion, where the celebrated buildings often fare worst. 1 recommender How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950 Kimmo Rentola Rentola uses Soviet archives to explain the survival: the Winter War, the 1944 fighting and the postwar settlement joined into one account of living beside Stalin. 1 recommender How Google Works Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg Schmidt and Rosenberg's inside account of how Google was run, built around hiring "smart creatives" and designing a culture where the best ideas win. How Life Imitates Chess Garry Kasparov Lessons in strategy, preparation, and decision-making drawn from Kasparov's two decades at the top of world chess, applied to business and life. How Minds Change David McRaney Argument almost never changes a mind. This follows the people who have worked out what does. 1 recommender How Not to F*** Them Up Oliver James Parenting advice for the first three years, matched to the kind of mother you are. How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations Carl Benedikt Frey The economist behind the automation research, on why technological progress stalls and who stalls first. 1 recommender How Religion Evolved Robin Dunbar Religion examined as a bonding technology, and the question of what holds a group larger than instinct allows. 1 recommender How Risky Is It, Really? David Ropeik The psychology of risk perception, and the danger of the gap between what frightens us and what harms us. 1 recommender How Roland Rolls Jim Carrey A wave afraid of breaking on the shore learns he was never only a wave, in Carrey's picture book about impermanence. How Solar Energy Became Cheap Gregory F. Nemet 1 recommender How the Best Leaders Lead Brian Tracy Tracy's field guide to leadership as developable practice: strategy, priorities, team-building, and accountability, not an innate gift. How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America Cristina Page An argument that the fight over abortion is really a fight over birth control and sex. 1 recommender How the Scots Invented the Modern World Arthur Herman Arthur Herman argues that Enlightenment Scotland handed the modern world many of its founding ideas, from free markets to modern democracy. 1 recommender How the World Eats Julian Baggini A philosopher visits farms and factories to ask how the world should feed itself. How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History Josephine Quinn Four thousand years of the West being made by everywhere else, not by Greece and Rome alone. 1 recommender How the World Thinks Julian Baggini A tour of the world's philosophical traditions, and what the West can learn from the rest.