Books

Au Contraire: Figuring Out the French Gilles Asselin and Ruth Mastron Why the French keep seeming rude to visitors, and what is actually being communicated instead. 1 recommender Audition Katie Kitamura An actress meets a young man who may be her son. Then the novel splits down the middle and rearranges everything you thought you had already understood. 2 recommenders Augustus: First Emperor of Rome Adrian Goldsworthy How a sickly nineteen-year-old heir turned Caesar's assassination into forty years of one-man rule. 1 recommender Avant-Gardists: Artists in Revolt in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union Sjeng Scheijen Malevich, Tatlin and Rodchenko from the last years of the empire to the moment the state stopped tolerating them, with Tatlin weighted far more heavily than usual. 1 recommender Awaken the Giant Within Tony Robbins The master manual: how the decisions you make in a single moment can reshape a mind, a body and a life 1 recommender Ayiti Roxane Gay Stories of the Haitian diaspora from before she had an audience, pushing back on the headline version. Back Roads Tawni O'Dell Tawni O'Dell's novel follows a teenage boy left to raise his sisters after their mother is jailed for killing their abusive father. 1 recommender Bad Feminist Roxane Gay Permission to hold the politics and still like the wrong things, from a writer done with consistency. 1 recommender Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up Abigail Shrier The argument that therapy culture has made childhood more fragile, and the dispute over whether it causes the decline or merely responds to it. 1 recommender Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson The long-awaited finale of Sanderson's absurdist middle-grade series, narrated this time by the knight Bastille, resolving the war against the world-ruling Librarians. Batman: Hush Jim Lee A tour of Batman's entire mythology, and the artwork that made it the standard entry point. Battle for the Soul Edward-Isaac Dovere An inside account of the Democratic campaigns and infighting that led to the 2020 election. 1 recommender Battle Ground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East Christopher Phillips Ten conflicts, from Syria to Yemen, explained for readers who gave up following them years ago. 1 recommender Be a Sales Superstar Brian Tracy Twenty-one short chapters of sales fundamentals, written for someone who needs something to use this afternoon rather than a theory. Be Obsessed or Be Average Grant Cardone Cardone reframes obsession as a virtue: rather than taming your ambition to fit in, he argues you should feed it, and channel that intensity into building the life you want. Be Useful Arnold Schwarzenegger Schwarzenegger distils an improbable life into seven tools he insists anyone can use, starting with having a clear vision and thinking big. Beach Read Emily Henry A literary novelist and a romance writer end up in neighbouring beach houses, and bet they can write each other's genre. 1 recommender Beautyland Marie-Helene Bertino A girl born the night Voyager launched reports back to her home planet by fax. 1 recommender Becoming Michelle Obama Michelle Obama's best-selling memoir, tracing her path from the South Side of Chicago to the White House, and her reflections on identity, family, and public life. 1 recommender Before We Were Innocent Ella Berman Two women were acquitted of a friend's death in Greece a decade ago, and the press never let it go. Now one has come back. 1 recommender Behind the Cloud Marc Benioff, Carlye Adler Benioff's playbook of 111 plays for building Salesforce, from a rented apartment to an enterprise giant. 1 recommender Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue Imbolo Mbue's novel follows a Cameroonian immigrant family in New York whose fortunes tangle with a Lehman Brothers executive during the crash. 1 recommender Bel-Ami Guy de Maupassant A charming provincial nobody climbs Parisian society on other people's wives and no talent at all. 1 recommender Beloved Toni Morrison A woman who escaped slavery is haunted, literally, by the daughter she killed to keep from being taken back. 2 recommenders Benjamin Franklin Walter Isaacson The printer, scientist and diplomat who invented the American character, told as the life of the country's first self-made man Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders Warren Buffett The collected annual letters of Warren Buffett, chronicling decades of Berkshire Hathaway and his investing philosophy in his own words. Best Evidence David S. Lifton A controversial best-selling investigation of the JFK assassination, arguing the medical evidence was altered between Dallas and the autopsy. 1 recommender Betsy and the Great World Maud Hart Lovelace A young writer sails for Europe in 1914 to gather material, and finds rather more than planned. 1 recommender Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates Written as a letter to his teenage son, Coates's National Book Award winner reckons with what it means to inhabit a Black body in America, and the history written on it. 1 recommender Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions Batja Mesquita Emotions as something built between people rather than felt inside one, and why that makes them culturally specific. 1 recommender Bewilderment Richard Powers Richard Powers's novel follows an astrobiologist raising his grieving, troubled young son as he searches the stars and struggles to save the boy. 1 recommender Beyond Belief Nir Eyal The author of Indistractable turns to the beliefs we hold about ourselves, arguing that the stories we tell quietly set the ceiling on what we attempt. 1 recommender Beyond Fundamentalism Reza Aslan Extremism recast as a global habit of mind rather than an Islamic problem: what happens when politics gets rewritten as a cosmic war. Beyond Psychology Otto Rank Freud most gifted heir walks away from the discipline entirely, arguing that people need myth and art rather than any explanation. 1 recommender Beyond the Pleasure Principle Sigmund Freud The late essay where Freud concedes something in us pulls the other way from pleasure. 1 recommender Beyond Wealth Alexander Green An investment writer steps away from markets to ask what money is actually for, in short reflective essays. 1 recommender