Books

We Were the Mulvaneys Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates chronicles the slow unraveling of a golden American family after an assault on its daughter. 1 recommender We Will Be Jaguars Nemonte Nenquimo, Mitch Anderson The Waorani leader who won a landmark case against oil drilling, on growing up in the Amazon and organising against it. 1 recommender We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch A reporter's account of the Rwandan genocide, built from the testimony of those who survived it. 1 recommender Weather Jenny Offill A college librarian in the Trump years tries to hold her family steady as climate dread grows. Wedlock Wendy Moore The richest heiress in Britain was conned into marriage by a staged duel, and then had to invent a way out. 1 recommender Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry Dana Gioia Gioia on opera and poetry, including the claim that Sweeney Todd is a great American opera. 1 recommender Wellness Nathan Hill Nathan Hill's novel follows a Chicago couple from their romantic youth into the disappointments and self-deceptions of middle age. 1 recommender West of Eden Jean Stein Five Los Angeles dynasties, told in overlapping voices by the people who watched them come apart. 1 recommender Western Atheism James Thrower How disbelief in the gods took shape in the West, from ancient Greece to the modern age. 1 recommender Western Muslims and the Future of Islam Tariq Ramadan Western Muslims as citizens rather than a diaspora, argued through the classical legal categories. Whale Cheon Myeong-kwan Cheon Myeong-kwan's epic Korean novel of a bricklayer's rise, translated by Chi-Young Kim and shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize. 1 recommender What About Me? Paul Verhaeghe What a market society does to identity, argued by a clinician who sees the results in his consulting room. 1 recommender What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice Anastasia Berg Whether to have children, treated as a genuine question rather than a settled preference. 1 recommender What Do We Know Mary Oliver Ponds, owls and the discipline of noticing, in the Oliver collection most openly concerned with what the noticing was for. 1 recommender What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam John L. Esposito Plain answers to the questions people actually ask, without apology or lecture. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There Marshall Goldsmith At the top, what stops people is rarely a missing skill. It is a habit that was survivable lower down. 1 recommender What Happened to You? Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey A conversation between Oprah and neuroscientist Bruce Perry that reframes trauma by asking not what is wrong with you, but what happened to you. What I Know for Sure Oprah Winfrey Two decades of Oprah’s “What I Know for Sure” reflections on clarity, gratitude, awe, and resilience, gathered into short essays. What It Takes Stephen A. Schwarzman The Blackstone co-founder on building one of the world's largest investment firms. 1 recommender What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World Prentis Hemphill A somatics teacher who worked with Black Lives Matter argues that political change and personal healing are one process, and is specific about what fear does to a body. 1 recommender What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day Pearl Cleage Pearl Cleage's novel follows an HIV-positive woman who returns to her small Michigan hometown and slowly rebuilds a life. 1 recommender What Should I Believe? Dorothy Rowe Why our beliefs about death and the meaning of life shape so much of what we do. What the Dog Saw Malcolm Gladwell Hair dye, ketchup, and the man who could calm any dog: the New Yorker pieces Gladwell wanted kept. What the Family Needed Steven Amsterdam A family whose members each gain a strange power, and what those gifts reveal about them. What We Can Know Ian McEwan From a drowned future, scholars piece together our present, and find how little of a life survives the reconstruction. 1 recommender What We Owe the Future William MacAskill The case for longtermism: because vast numbers of people may yet live, positively influencing the long-run future is a key moral priority now. 1 recommender What’s Your Problem? Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg A method for reframing problems, on the premise that most teams solve the wrong one well. 1 recommender When Daniel Pink We obsess over how to do things and ignore when. Pink gathers the science of timing: the daily dip, fresh starts, and when to quit. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi A neurosurgeon at the start of his career is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and turns his training on his own dying 2 recommenders When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl’s Book Naja Marie Aidt Naja Marie Aidt's account of losing her son Carl in 2015, translated from Danish by Denise Newman and published by Coffee House Press in 2021. 1 recommender When I Sing, Mountains Dance Irene Sola A Pyrenean valley narrated in turn by women, ghosts, storm clouds and mushrooms. 1 recommender When the Body Says No Gabor Maté Maté's case that chronic stress and suppressed emotion can translate into physical illness, from autoimmune disease to cancer. When Things Fall Apart Pema Chödrön Heart advice for the point where your usual strategies stop working, and moving toward it is the counsel. 1 recommender When We Were Rich Tim Lott Frankie Blue and his friends ride London's boom years toward the crash of 2008. Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? Fred Schwed Jr. Fred Schwed's witty 1940 takedown of Wall Street, whose title asks why the brokers have yachts but their customers do not. 2 recommenders Where Do Balloons Go? Jamie Lee Curtis A child wonders where a balloon goes once it is let go, in Jamie Lee Curtis's picture book.