Politics & Social Sciences

In his bestselling book Courage is Calling, author Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a bold and brave life. In this much-anticipated second book of his Stoic Virtue series, Holiday celebrates the awesome power of self-discipline and those who have seized it....

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths....

From the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump's presidency like no other journalist: a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its meaning from his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency....

Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all....

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws....

The father of three sons, a journalist, and a Brookings Institution scholar, Richard V. Reeves has spent twenty-five years worrying about boys both at home and work. His new book, Of Boys and Men, tackles the complex and urgent crisis of boyhood and manhood....

In The Breach, a former House Republican and the first member of Congress to sound the alarm about QAnon, Denver Riggleman, provides listeners with an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the January 6th select committee’s investigation....

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the number-one New York Times best seller Outliers, reinvents the audiobook in this immersive production of Talking to Strangers, a powerful examination of our interactions with people....

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world....  

New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and crazy story of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry and paranoia....

For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days—even hours—of when you decided you wanted it....

Andy Borowitz, “one of the funniest people in America” (CBS Sunday Morning), brilliantly examines the intellectual deterioration of American politics, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle, from George W. Bush to Sarah Palin, to its apotheosis in Donald J. Trump....

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her....

Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up....

A revised and updated edition of Emily Nagoski’s game-changing New York Times best seller Come As You Are, featuring new information and research on mindfulness, desire, and pleasure that will radically transform your sex life....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly 50 years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg....

Dahlia Lithwick, one of the nation’s foremost legal commentators, tells the gripping and heroic story of the women lawyers who fought the racism, sexism, and xenophobia of Donald Trump’s presidency—and won....

Javier Zamora’s adventure is a journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers....

In this stunning audiobook, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" - the best and the brightest, the most famous, and the most successful. He asks the question: What makes high-achievers different? Listen to find out more....

Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death....

Over the past few years, Brianna Wiest has gained renown for her deeply moving, philosophical writing. This new compilation of her published work features pieces on why you should pursue purpose over passion, embrace negative thinking, and see the wisdom in daily routine....

A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present....

For nearly three decades, Dr Colin Manock was in charge of South Australia's forensic pathology services. In cases of unexpected or unexplained death, it was his job to determine when a person took their final breath, and whether they had died naturally - or not. But Manock did not have the necessary training for such a specialist role, and made serious errors in several major cases. The full extent of his wrongdoing, and the exact number of cases impacted by it, remain a mystery more than twenty-five years after he retired.

Argentina, 1960. A car speeds through the streets of Buenos Aires. Inside are four Israeli secret agents and their prisoner: Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious war criminals of Nazi Germany. In this detailed memoir, Rafi Eitan tells the story of his remarkable life and career. He describes how as a teenager, he smuggled Jewish refugees into Palestine, and how, as a spy in the newly established Mossad, he swam through sewers to blow up a British radar station. He goes on to describe in detail his involvement in the extraordinary hunt for the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

What will it take to restore balance to our world, repair past injustices, and support future generations' survival? Looking deeply into the web of life that created and supports us, and drawing inspiration from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives, spirited thinkers Michael Pawlyn and Sarah Ichioka propose a bold set of regenerative principles with potential to transform how we design, make, and manage our buildings; infrastructure; and communities.

From a young age, Charles V showed tremendous potential and intelligence. As his father and grandfather before him continued to weaken France and ruin the prestige of their royal house, Charles’ arrival on the scene couldn’t have come at a better time.

Marxism is the most evil, deadly, totalitarian philosophy of government in history. Marxist governments are estimated to have murdered more than 100 million of their own citizens to purge even potential nonconformists just in the 20th century alone. Yet Marxist propaganda is widely lauded and promoted in American schools and universities by the media, entertainment, and even representatives of our own government.

Me, Myself, They: Life Beyond the Binary chronicles Luna M. Ferguson’s extraordinary story of transformation to become a celebrated non-binary filmmaker, writer, and advocate for trans rights. Beginning with their birth and early childhood of gender creativity, Ferguson recounts the complex and often challenging evolution of their identity, including traumatizing experiences with gender conversion therapy, bullying, depression, sexual assault, and violence. Above all, Ferguson’s story is about survival, empathy, and self-acceptance.

Doctors, nurses, and other caregivers provide the most intimate of services the health and healing of our bodies, minds, and spirits. When one human being cares for another, it should call forth our best of efforts and bring with it remarkable job satisfaction. Yet we find that medical professionals today are stressed, overburdened, and often discouraged, with job-satisfaction rates at an all-time low. How can this be and how is it impacting the patients?

To succeed in the global economy, students need to function as entrepreneurs: resourceful, flexible and creative. Researcher and Professor Yong Zhao unlocks the secrets to cultivating independent thinkers who are willing and able to create jobs and contribute positively to the globalized society. This book shows how teachers, administrators and even parents can understand the entrepreneurial spirit and harness it, foster student autonomy and leadership, champion inventive learners with necessary resources, and develop global partners and resources.

Ireland’s lockdowns were among the harshest and longest in Europe. As the state was battered by waves of disease time and again, unparalleled pressures and untold tensions emerged as the country went to war with Covid, and policymakers and politicians did battle with each other. How were the key decisions made? Who held all the power? Pandemonium reveals the moves, the power-plays and the—at times jaw-dropping—tactics of a government with the health of a nation in its hands.

What if we lived in a world that revolved around quality of life, rather than economic winners and losers? In Person to Person, Joeri Torfs and Pim Ampe describe this world and chart a clear path toward it. Grounded in research and rooted in reality, the world they describe is neither a utopia nor a fantasy. They present an environment that incentivizes goodness, fairness, sustainability, and freedom. It begins with the individual and moves toward our collaborative relationships. 

The holly-jolly holidays aren’t for everyone, least of all when you look back on that one Christmas when there were two definitely haunted dolls waiting for you and your sister under the tree. You have to assume that’s where it all started. And so it was for Jenny Lawson. Now, she lives in the land of eternal Halloween, as evidenced by her interior decor and general state of darkness. (Although, if you ask her, her taxidermy zoo is less dark, more delightful. But not everyone has taste, so what are you going to do?)

How the monarchs of England and Scotland met their deaths has been a wonderful mixture of violence, infections, overindulgence and occasional regicide. In Mortal Monarchs, medical historian Dr Suzie Edge examines 1,000 years of royal deaths to uncover the plots, accusations, rivalries and ever-present threat of poison that the kings and queens of old faced.

Hastings has been a life-long student of warfare, a ‘chronicler of conflict’, working first as a foreign correspondent on battlefields, then as a prolific prize-winning historian of the 20th century’s greatest struggles. He has now been studying warfare for over fifty years, published thirty books, and given hundreds of talks and lectures. Here are thirteen of the best. Addressing questions of truth versus myth and revisiting many last-generation narratives, Hastings leads us through the most important conflicts in recent times. 

In a time when our political and cultural perspectives feel more divisive than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin engines of enlightenment—a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. After thinking deeply about how a scientist views the world and about what Earth looks like from space, Tyson has found that terrestrial thoughts change as our brain resets and recalibrates life's priorities, along with the actions we might take in response.

Have you ever wondered how peas, kale, asparagus, beans, squash, and corn have ended up on our plates? Well, Adam Alexander has. In The Seed Detective, Adam shares his own stories of seed hunting, with the origin stories behind many of our everyday food heroes. Taking us on a journey that began when we left the life of the hunter-gatherer to become farmers, he tells tales of globalization, political intrigue, colonization, and serendipity—describing how these vegetables and their travels have become embedded in our food cultures.