The Chris Voss Show

The President’s Man: The Memoirs of Nixon’s Trusted Aide by Dwight Chapin In time for the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s epic trips to China and Russia, as well as his incredible Watergate downfall, the man who was at his side for a decade as his aide and White House Deputy takes readers inside the life and administration of Richard Nixon. From Richard Nixon’s “You-won’t-have-Nixon-to-kick-around-anymore” 1962 gubernatorial campaign through his world-changing trips to China and the Soviet Union and epic downfall, Dwight Chapin was by his side. As his personal aide and then Deputy Assistant in the White House Chapin was with him in his most private and most public moments. He traveled with him, assisted, advised, strategized, campaigned and learned from America’s most controversial president. As Bob Haldeman’s protege, Chapin worked with Henry Kissinger in opening China—then eventually went to prison for Watergate although he had no involvement in it. In this memoir Chapin takes readers on an extraordinary historic journey; presenting an insider’s view of America’s most enigmatic President. Chapin will relate his memorable experiences with the people who shaped the future: Henry Kissinger, his close friend Bob Haldeman, Choi En-lai, Pat Nixon, the embittered Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra, Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, young and ambitious Roger Ailes, and John Dean. It’s a story that ranges from Coretta Scott King to Elvis Presley, from the wonder of entering a closed Chinese society to the Oval Office, and concludes with startling new insights and conclusions about the break-in that brought down Nixon’s presidency.

Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War by Roger Lowenstein From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern “for” its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans. Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback—paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North’s financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields. Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration by Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts With deeply personal and uplifting essays in the vein of Black Girls Rock, You Are Your Best Thing, and I Really Needed This Today, this is “a necessary testimony on the magic and beauty of our capacity to live and love fully and out loud” (Kerry Washington). When Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts wrote an essay on Black joy for The Washington Post, she had no idea just how deeply it would resonate. But the outpouring of positive responses affirmed her own lived experience: that Black joy is not just a weapon of resistance, it is a tool for resilience. With this book, Tracey aims to gift her community with a collection of lyrical essays about the way joy has evolved, even in the midst of trauma, in her own life. Detailing these instances of joy in the context of Black culture allows us to recognize the power of Black joy as a resource to draw upon, and to challenge the one-note narratives of Black life as solely comprised of trauma and hardship. “Lewis-Giggetts etches a stunning personal map that follows in her ancestors’ footsteps and highlights their ability to take control of situational heartbreak and tragedy and make something better out of it….A simultaneously gorgeous and heartbreaking read” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Majority Minority by Justin Gest How do societies respond to great demographic change? This question lingers over the contemporary politics of the United States and other countries where persistent immigration has altered populations and may soon produce a majority minority milestone, where the original ethnic or religious majority loses its numerical advantage to one or more foreign-origin minority groups. Until now, most of our knowledge about largescale responses to demographic change has been based on studies of individual people’s reactions, which tend to be instinctively defensive and intolerant. We know little about why and how these habits are sometimes tempered to promote more successful coexistence. To anticipate and inform future responses to demographic change, Justin Gest looks to the past. In Majority Minority, Gest wields historical analysis and interview-based fieldwork inside six of the world’s few societies that have already experienced a majority minority transition to understand what factors produce different social outcomes. Gest concludes that, rather than yield to people’s prejudices, states hold great power to shape public responses and perceptions of demographic change through political institutions and the rhetoric of leaders. Through subsequent survey research, Gest also identifies novel ways that leaders can leverage nationalist sentiment to reduce the appeal of nativism–by framing immigration and demographic change in terms of the national interest. Grounded in rich narratives and surprising survey findings, Majority Minority reveals that this contentious milestone and its accompanying identity politics are ultimately subject to unifying or divisive governance.

Roger Williams of The Crossing It Off Podcast Subscribe to the podcast at: Podcasts.apple.com

Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right by Randall Balmer A surprising and disturbing origin story There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn’t true. Largely ambivalent about abortion until the late 1970s, evangelical leaders were first mobilized not by Roe v. Wade but by Green v. Connally, a lesser-known court decision in 1971 that threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions—of which there were several in the world of Christian education at the time. When the most notorious of these schools, Bob Jones University, had its tax-exempt status revoked in 1976, evangelicalism was galvanized as a political force and brought into the fold of the Republican Party. Only later, when a more palatable issue was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the central issue of the movement now known as the Religious Right. In this greatly expanded argument from his 2014 Politico article “The Real Origins of the Religious Right,” Randall Balmer guides the reader along the convoluted historical trajectory that began with American evangelicalism as a progressive force opposed to slavery, then later an isolated apolitical movement in the mid-twentieth century, all the way through the 2016 election in which 81 percent of white evangelicals coalesced around Donald Trump for president. The pivotal point, Balmer shows, was the period in the late 1970s when American evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter—despite his being one of their own, a professed “born-again” Christian—in favor of the Republican Party, which found it could win their loyalty through the espousal of a single issue. With the implications of this alliance still unfolding, Balmer’s account uncovers the roots of evangelical watchwords like “religious freedom” and “family values” while getting to the truth of how this movement began—explaining, in part, what it has become.

Ana Lennyr, Family Relationships Mentor & Life Strategist Analennyr.com

Decide and Conquer: 44 Decisions that will Make or Break All Leaders by David Siegel Success boils down to one thing: making good decisions. Learn the right framework now that can make all the difference later when faced with terrible options, deep anxiety and fear of failure. Access the decision framework David Siegel used when he took over as CEO of Meetup, the world’s leading platform for making connections and finding your community. Let David’s success during one of the most tumultuous times in his company’s history help guide you on your own path. Decide and Conquer helps all leaders navigate the big decisions that will impact their future and make their organizations a success. David outlines the 44 challenges leaders face when starting a new position, then shows you the decision framework he applied to overcome challenges in his own role. David takes you on an epic journey of corporate and personal survival that includes industry titans like Adam Neumann, Barry Diller, Jack Welch, Bill Ackman, and other leaders. In Decide and Conquer, you will learn to: Apply principles like open communication, transparency, and kindness to inform great decision making. Set yourself up to succeed, even before you start, by removing potential roadblocks before they become a problem. Be a bold and decisive leader and not succumb to fear. By applying the principles he had learned in previous leadership positions, David was able to make the many critical decisions that would mean life or death for Meetup when WeWork decided to sell the company. From deciding to accept the position and negotiating terms to managing a seemingly endless series of crises during the sale and global pandemic, Decide and Conquer walks readers through the key decisions they will face with invaluable advice for each one.

Grief: A Philosophical Guide by Michael Cholbi An engaging and illuminating exploration of grief―and why, despite its intense pain, it can also help us grow Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us―as universal as it is painful―is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief is, whom we grieve, and how grief can ultimately lead us to a richer self-understanding and a fuller realization of our humanity. Drawing on psychology, social science, and literature as well as philosophy, Cholbi explains that we grieve for the loss of those in whom our identities are invested, including people we don’t know personally but cherish anyway, such as public figures. Their deaths not only deprive us of worthwhile experiences; they also disrupt our commitments and values. Yet grief is something we should embrace rather than avoid, an important part of a good and meaningful life. The key to understanding this paradox, Cholbi says, is that grief offers us a unique and powerful opportunity to grow in self-knowledge by fashioning a new identity. Although grief can be tumultuous and disorienting, it also reflects our distinctly human capacity to rationally adapt as the relationships we depend on evolve. An original account of how grieving works and why it is so important, Grief shows how the pain of this experience gives us a chance to deepen our relationships with others and ourselves.

The Amazon Way: Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles by John Rossman The 3rd edition of The Amazon Way is one of the rare business leadership books giving actionable insights for innovation and business growth to be the basis for your digital transformation gameplan. The Amazon Way translates Amazon’s unique culture and management practices into insights and opportunities, as only an Amazon executive and expert advisor could do for the Amazon Leadership Principles giving readers one of the essential business leadership books for the digital era. Peppered with humorous and enlightening firsthand anecdotes with Jeff Bezos from the author’s career at Amazon, this revealing business guide is also filled with the valuable lessons that have served Jeff Bezos’ “everything store” so well—providing expert advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors. The author was responsible for launching the Amazon Marketplace business and had accountability for the enterprise services business. Since leaving Amazon, Rossman has worked across every industry sector and with companies of all sizes to create business and product strategies, approaches to scale leadership, culture and innovation. It’s this combination of Amazon insider experience coupled with a vast portfolio of helping other businesses compete which make The Amazon Way a guide for anyone looking to compete in the digital era. The 3rd edition has many new and updated sections. This includes a new foreword from Tom Alberg, managing partner at Madrona Venture Group. Tom was on the board of directors at Amazon for 23 years. A new preface is included suggesting a vital strategy for Amazon and the leadership teams for all companies. The Amazon Way is on a short list of essential business leadership books and should be a key addition to business leadership programs to develop a culture of growth and innovation. If you are interviewing at Amazon or for current Amazon employees, The Amazon Way will be an invaluable asset for your success. The Amazon Way doesn’t just explain the Amazon Leadership Principles, but gives tools, mechanisms and atomic habits to create change in a team or business. The leadership principles and examples include customer obsession, long-term thinking, think big, working backwards and the future press release, bias for action, earn trust and free cash flow. Praise for The Amazon Way “In this new edition, John Rossman provides an updated, in-depth and invaluable view of the principles that are fueling Amazon’s extraordinary business success. John’s suggestion to add a new principle focused on the Golden Rule is a great one for every company, as, more than ever, we need business to serve the common good!” – Hubert Joly, former chairman and CEO of Best Buy, author The Heart of Business – Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism “In The Amazon Way, John Rossman brilliantly illuminates Amazon’s secretive corporate culture, using HIS rare insider’s perspective to show how Jeff Bezos has created unique systems that facilitate good decision making at all levels of his company” — Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and Amazon Unbound

Saul Colt, Founder of The Idea Integration Company Theideaintegration.com

How to Talk to Your Boss About Race: Speaking Up Without Getting Shut Down by Y-Vonne Hutchinson An indispensable practical toolkit for dismantling racism in the workplace without fear Reporting and personal testimonials have exposed racism in every institution in this country. But knowing that racism exists isn’t nearly enough. Social media posts about #BlackLivesMatter are nice, but how do you push leadership towards real anti-racist action? Diversity and inclusion strategist Y-Vonne Hutchinson helps tech giants, political leaders, and Fortune 500 companies speak more productively about racism and bias and turn talk into action. In this clear and accessible guide, Hutchinson equips employees with a framework to think about race at work, prepares them to have frank and effective conversations with more powerful leaders, helps them center marginalized perspectives, and explains how to leverage power dynamics to get results while navigating backlash and gaslighting. How to Talk To Your Boss About Race is a crucial handbook to moving beyond fear to push for change. No matter how much formal power you have, you can create antiracist change at work.

A Game of Fear: A Novel (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries, 24) by Charles Todd In this newest installment of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge is faced with his most perplexing case yet: a murder with no body, and a killer who can only be a ghost. Spring, 1921. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to the sea-battered village of Walmer on the coast of Essex, where amongst the salt flats and a military airfield lies Benton Abbey, a grand manor with a storied past. The lady of the house may prove his most bewildering witness yet. She claims she saw a violent murder—but there is no body, no blood. She also insists she recognized the killer: Captain Nelson. Only it could not have been Nelson because he died during the war. Everyone in the village believes that Lady Benton’s losses have turned her mind—she is, after all, a grieving widow and mother—but the woman Rutledge interviews is rational and self-possessed. And then there is Captain Nelson: what really happened to him in the war? The more Rutledge delves into this baffling case, the more suspicious tragedies he uncovers. The Abbey and the airfield hold their secrets tightly. Until Rutledge arrives, and a new trail of death follows…

The High Call of Forgiveness: It’s A Mandate by Rosemarie Downer Ph.D. The High Call of Forgivenes sexposes the strategy of the enemy that has caused too many of us to believe it is too difficult to forgive. Undeniably, forgiving someone who has wronged us is difficult, but we can, if Christ lives in us. In the High Call of Forgiveness, Rosemarie Downer takes you on a faith journey by sharing the context of offense, why we hurt others, why it is as difficult for most of us to forgive, how we can forgive, how we can go beyond forgiveness to reconciliation, and how we can obtain emotional healing. She also gives permission to hurt but notes carefully that hurt must be addressed in a timely manner. This is an eye-opening and honest journey of self-examination. You will ask yourself and find answers to questions like these: What got me here? How can I get past the pain? How is it that I love the Lord and know what the Word of God say about unforgiveness, yet I find it so difficult to obey? This book will change your life!

Sean O’Rourke of Simple Home Exitz Simplehomeexitz.com Highperformanceedu.com

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby From the New York Times bestselling author of More Money Than God comes the astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture-capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world. In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby has parlayed unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time—the key figures at Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Benchmark, and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Chinese partnerships such as Qiming and Capital Today—into a riveting blend of storytelling and analysis that unfurls the history of tech incubation, in the Valley and ultimately worldwide. We learn the unvarnished truth, often for the first time, about some of the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in Valley history, from the comedy of errors at the birth of Apple to the avalanche of venture money that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber. VCs’ relentless search for grand slams brews an obsession with the ideal of the lone entrepreneur-genius, and companies seen as potential “unicorns” are given intoxicating amounts of power, with sometimes disastrous results. On a more systemic level, the need to make outsized bets on unproven talent reinforces bias, with women and minorities still represented at woefully low levels. This does not just have social justice implications: as Mallaby relates, China’s homegrown VC sector, having learned at the Valley’s feet, is exploding and now has more women VC luminaries than America has ever had. Still, Silicon Valley VC remains the top incubator of business innovation anywhere—it is not where ideas come from so much as where they go to become the products and companies that create the future. By taking us so deeply into the VCs’ game, The Power Law helps us think about our own future through their eyes.

How Architecture Tells: 9 Realities that will Change the Way You See by Robert Steinberg The general reading public is likely to think of architecture as buildings. But, with this book, Robert Steinberg would like to help readers understand that architecture shapes lives. Architecture can help communities integrate and thrive. Architecture can touch us, influencing how we feel, and how we interact with others. In short, architecture can fundamentally improve our quality of life. As a young graduate architect fresh from Berkeley, Steinberg began to discover the potential of architecture to shape communities. Working with his father, an architect who had studied with Mies van der Rohe (and whose father was also an architect), one of Steinberg’s first projects was to draft and redraft a parking garage in downtown Silicon Valley, CA. As he mediated between the two architects in charge of the project?his father and the city architect?he noticed that with each evolution, the garage became more beautiful and refined. And with each improvement, this garage became more able to succeed in the goal of reviving the dying downtown core of Silicon Valley. The garage was a huge success, and Steinberg began to codify what he had learned. Thanks to the garage, he wrote the first of what would become the 9 Realities of Architecture: Architecture is the Pursuit of Perfection ? a magnificent take-away from a humble parking garage project. As Steinberg eventually rose to become CEO of his firm and grew it into a global practice with six regional offices including Austin and New York, and a major office in Shanghai, he used his drive for creating thriving communities to eventually touch the lives of countless people around the world.

The Leader’s Mind: How Great Leaders Prepare, Perform, and Prevail by Jim Afremow PhD, Phil White Clear and concise steps to develop the confidence and mental edge that sets you apart as a trailblazing leader—the same approach thousands of professional athletes have used to become champions. TheLeader’s Mind taps into the same tips and techniques honed by top-tier athletes, such as how to get in a “zone,” thrive on a team, and stay humble, to become a champion at work and the ultimate team player at home. Based on high-performance psychology research and Dr. Jim Afremow’s two decades of experience providing mental training services across the globe to athletes and business leaders, TheLeader’s Mind will help you master: Valuable leadership lessons through powerful parables and stories from well-known leaders. The actionable steps leaders must take to change their thinking and become the leader they want to be. The necessary mindset to push through the challenges you face and take control of the direction your career and home life are taking. Tips and techniques to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and challenges in order to excel. Stop struggling with the expectations you face at work and at home by fundamentally changing the way you process what’s happening in your life. The mental edge that sets elite athletes apart outlined in this book will help you become the champion leader you want to be.

No Second Chances: A Novel by Rio Youers From Rio Youers, the acclaimed author of Lola on Fire, comes a blistering high-octane thriller about desperate love, vengeance, and the precarious pursuit of fame. “A rip-roaring Hollywood noir that smashes the pedal to the metal and keeps it there. The best villain since Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels . . . This one is hot.” –Stephen King Luke Kingsley’s glory days are behind him. A star on the rise, his life and career imploded after his soul singer wife, Lisa Hayes, disappeared without a trace, silencing a very public and tumultuous marriage. Most people, especially an avenging PI, think Luke got away with murder. The last thing he expects is to be pulled back from the brink by a starstruck stranger. Wannabe actress Kitty Rae has chased her dreams all the way from Kentucky to Hollywood. Saving a washed-up actor’s life wasn’t one of them, but she believes in Luke—as much as she believes her own career is just one lucky break away. For now, she works for Johan Fly, a charismatic, wealthy, and seriously unbalanced drug dealer to the rich and famous. When Johan discovers that Kitty has been skimming the product, he vows to make her pay. As Luke steps up to help Kitty, he uncovers a web of violence and corruption, as well as a single, enticing clue about his wife’s disappearance. Barreling across the Mojave Desert, Luke and Kitty set off to find the long-lost Lisa. But Johan, hungry for vengeance, is hot on their trail. There’s no limit to what he will do to find them. And in a world where fortune favors the ruthless, there’s also no limit to what Luke and Kitty will have to do to survive.

White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America by Anthea Butler The American political scene today is poisonously divided, and the vast majority of white evangelicals play a strikingly unified, powerful role in the disunion. These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power. Butler reveals how evangelical racism, propelled by the benefits of whiteness, has since the nation’s founding played a provocative role in severely fracturing the electorate. During the buildup to the Civil War, white evangelicals used scripture to defend slavery and nurture the Confederacy. During Reconstruction, they used it to deny the vote to newly emancipated blacks. In the twentieth century, they sided with segregationists in avidly opposing movements for racial equality and civil rights. Most recently, evangelicals supported the Tea Party, a Muslim ban, and border policies allowing family separation. White evangelicals today, cloaked in a vision of Christian patriarchy and nationhood, form a staunch voting bloc in support of white leadership. Evangelicalism’s racial history festers, splits America, and needs a reckoning now.

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas by Gal Beckerman An “elegantly argued and exuberantly narrated” (The New York Times Book Review) look at the building of social movements—from the 1600s to the present—and how current technology is undermining them “A bravura work of scholarship and reporting, featuring amazing individuals and dramatic events from seventeenth-century France to Rome, Moscow, Cairo, and contemporary Minneapolis.”—Louis Menand, author of The Free World We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fueling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can whisper among themselves, imagine alternate realities, and deliberate about how to achieve their goals. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that—in a world dominated by social media—they might soon go extinct. Gal Beckerman, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, takes us back to the seventeenth century, to the correspondence that jump-started the scientific revolution, and then forward through time to examine engines of social change: the petitions that secured the right to vote in 1830s Britain, the zines that gave voice to women’s rage in the early 1990s, and even the messaging apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. In each case, Beckerman shows that our most defining social movements—from decolonization to feminism—were formed in quiet, closed networks that allowed a small group to incubate their ideas before broadcasting them widely. But Facebook and Twitter are replacing these productive, private spaces, to the detriment of activists around the world. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart? Why did Occupy Wall Street never gain traction? Has Black Lives Matter lived up to its full potential? Beckerman reveals what this new social media ecosystem lacks—everything from patience to focus—and offers a recipe for growing radical ideas again. Lyrical and profound, The Quiet Before looks to the past to help us imagine a different future.

Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams “Keen observer [and] deft writer” (David Quammen) Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own. When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of “social pain” to learn why heartbreak hurts so much―and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong. Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist’s living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe. With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.

The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest by Felix Salten, Alenka Sottler, Jack Zipes A new, beautifully illustrated translation of Felix Salten’s celebrated novel Bambi―the original source of the beloved story Most of us think we know the story of Bambi―but do we? The Original Bambi is an all-new, illustrated translation of a literary classic that presents the story as it was meant to be told. For decades, readers’ images of Bambi have been shaped by the 1942 Walt Disney film―an idealized look at a fawn who represents nature’s innocence―which was based on a 1928 English translation of a novel by the Austrian Jewish writer Felix Salten. This masterful new translation gives contemporary readers a fresh perspective on this moving allegorical tale and provides important details about its creator. Originally published in 1923, Salten’s story is more somber than the adaptations that followed it. Life in the forest is dangerous and precarious, and Bambi learns important lessons about survival as he grows to become a strong, heroic stag. Jack Zipes’s introduction traces the history of the book’s reception and explores the tensions that Salten experienced in his own life―as a hunter who also loved animals, and as an Austrian Jew who sought acceptance in Viennese society even as he faced persecution. With captivating drawings by award-winning artist Alenka Sottler, The Original Bambi captures the emotional impact and rich meanings of a celebrated story.

Nothing to Lose: A J.P. Beaumont Novel (J. P. Beaumont, 25) by J. A Jance The newest thrilling Beaumont suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance, in which Beaumont is approached by a visitor from the past and finds himself drawn into a missing person’s case where danger is lurking and family secrets are exposed. Years ago, when he was a homicide detective with the Seattle PD, J. P. Beaumont’s partner, Sue Danielson, was murdered. Volatile and angry, Danielson’s ex-husband came after her in her home and, with nowhere else to turn, Jared, Sue’s teenage son, frantically called Beau for help. As Beau rushed to the scene, he urged Jared to grab his younger brother and flee the house. In the end, Beaumont’s plea and Jared’s quick action saved the two boys from their father’s murderous rage. Now, almost twenty years later, Jared reappears in Beau’s life seeking his help once again—his younger brother Chris is missing. Still haunted by the events of that tragic night, Beau doesn’t hesitate to take on the case. Following a lead all the way to the wilds of wintertime Alaska, he encounters a tangled web of family secrets in which a killer with nothing to lose is waiting to take another life.

Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses by Jackie Higgins Perfect for fans of The Soul of an Octopus and The Genius of Birds, this “revelatory book” (Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author) explores how we process the world around us through the lens of the incredible sensory capabilities of thirteen animals, revealing that we are not limited to merely five senses. There is a scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. Research has shown that the extraordinary sensory powers of our animal friends can help us better understand the same powers that lie dormant within us. From the harlequin mantis shrimp with its ability to see a vast range of colors, to the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors; from the orb-weaving spider whose eyes recognize not only space but time, to the cheetah whose ears are responsible for its perfect agility, these astonishing animals hold the key to better understanding how we make sense of the world around us. “An appealingly written, enlightening, and sometimes eerie journey into the extraordinary possibilities for the human senses” (Kirkus Reviews, starred), Sentient will change the way you look at humanity.

White Lies: The Double Life of Walter F. White and America’s Darkest Secret by A. J. Baime A riveting biography of Walter F. White, a little-known Black civil rights leader who passed for white in order to investigate racist murders, help put the NAACP on the map, and change the racial identity of America forever Walter F. White led two lives: one as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and the NAACP in the early twentieth century; the other as a white newspaperman who covered lynching crimes in the Deep South at the blazing height of racial violence. Born mixed race and with very fair skin and straight hair, White was able to “pass” for white. He leveraged this ambiguity as a reporter, bringing to light the darkest crimes in America and helping to plant the seeds of the civil rights movement. White’s risky career led him to lead a double life. He was simultaneously a second-class citizen subject to Jim Crow laws at home and a widely respected professional with full access to the white world at work. His life was fraught with internal and external conflict—much like the story of race in America. Starting out as an obscure activist, White ultimately became Black America’s most prominent leader. A character study of White’s life and career with all these complexities has never been rendered, until now. By the award-winning, best-selling author of The Accidental President,Dewey Defeats Truman, and The Arsenal of Democracy,White Lies uncovers the life of a civil rights leader unlike any other.

The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many. Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.

Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong by Greg Brennecka A Short History of Nearly Everything meets Astrophysics for People in a Hurry in this humorous, accessible exploration of how meteorites have helped not only build our planet but steered the evolution of life and human culture. The Solar System. Dinosaurs. Donkey Kong. What is the missing link? Surprisingly enough, it’s meteorites. They explain our past, constructed our present, and could define our future. Impact argues that Earth would be a lifeless, inhospitable piece of rock without being fortuitously assaulted with meteorites throughout the history of the planet. These bombardments transformed Earth’s early atmosphere and delivered the complex organic molecules that allowed life to develop on our planet. While meteorites have provided the raw materials for life to thrive, they have radically devastated life as well, most famously killing off the dinosaurs and paving the way for humans to evolve to where we are today. As noted meteoriticist Greg Brennecka explains, meteorites did not just set us on the path to becoming human, they helped direct the development of human culture. Meteorites have influenced humanity since the start of civilization. Over the centuries, meteorite falls and other cosmic cinema have started (and stopped) wars, terrified millions, and inspired religions throughout the world. With humor and an infectious enthusiasm, Brennecka reveals previously untold but important stories sure to delight and inform readers about the most important rocks on Earth.

The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers Who Defy Categorization by Michael R. Solomon Consumers are changing but the marketing categories used to identify them have not. Engage with this new generation of consumers who increasingly take for granted that products and advertising will blend their multiple brand identities rather than market to them as a specific subculture. Male or female, work or play, online or offline. These and other market categories are no longer relevant as modern consumers defy traditional boundaries and identify as members of multiple subcultures. The New Chameleons reveals how to engage with this new generation and how to stand out among the competition. Global consumer behavior expert Michael R. Solomon directs marketers to move beyond their traditional categories and communicate with consumers as individuals rather than as a market segment. He explains how traditional marketing is based on the assumption of boundaries between us and them, the individual and the collective, producer and consumer, work and play, humans vs. computers, and editorial vs. commercial. He then shows how those boundaries are blurring: people identify with members of multiple subcultures; individuals seek collective advice before making a purchase; consumers no longer distinguish between purchases online or in-store; consumer-generated content becomes the norm; gender identity is fluid; gamification strategies turn work into play; and identity marketing becomes more popular. Combining history, data, experience and examples, The New Chameleons is written for every marketer (or reader) who wants to offer products and services that resonate with consumers now and in the future.

Brigitta Hoeferle, CEO of The Center of NLP Centerofnlp.com

Estrogeneration: How Estrogenics Are Making You Fat, Sick, and Infertile by Anthony G Jay The devastating truth about a class of chemicals called “estrogenics” and how your daily exposures can cause weight-gains, depression, infertility and many other exploding health problems. In this book, Dr. Anthony G. Jay offers a clear and honest look at: THE Top 10 List of Everyday Estrogenics Cutting-Edge Weight-Loss Strategies New Muscle-Mass Building Discoveries How Estrogenics “Feminize” Males How Estrogenics Harm Children 3 Detailed Estrogenic Avoidance Plans Specific Food/Water Estrogenic Numbers Simple Clear Language and Definitions The US and EU Legal Status of Estrogenics A Direct Exposé on Scientific Bias Brand New Epigenetics Discoveries Amazing Fishing “Tail” Chapter Openers An Actionable Summary Appendix And much, much MORE…

Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies by Ranjay Gulati A distinguished Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor. Having conducted extensive field research, Ranjay Gulati reveals the fatal mistakes leaders unwittingly make when attempting to implement a reason for being. Moreover, he shows how companies can embed purpose much more deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of and relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, and comprehensively than ever before. In this authoritative, accessible, and inspiring guide, Gulati takes readers inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to understand the secrets to their successes. He explores how leaders can pursue purpose more deeply by navigating the inevitable tradeoffs more deliberately and effectively to balance between short- and long-term value; building purpose more systematically into every key organizational function to mobilize stakeholders and enhance performance; updating organizations to foster more autonomy and collaboration, which in turn allow individual employees to work more purposefully; using powerful storytelling to communicate a reason for being, arousing emotions and building a community of inspired and committed stakeholders; and building cultures that don’t merely support purpose, but also allow employees to link the corporate purpose to their own personal reasons for being. As Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future. With capitalism under siege and relatively low levels of trust in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that businesses—and the rest of us—urgently need.

American Injustice: Inside Stories from the Underbelly of the Criminal Justice System by David S Rudolf From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix’s The Staircase comes a “fine companion to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Emily Bazelon’s Charged. A stellar—and often shocking—report on a broken criminal justice system.” (Kirkus, Starred Review) In the past thirty years alone, more than 2,800 innocent American prisoners – their combined sentences surpassing 25,000 years – have been exonerated and freed after being condemned for crimes they did not commit. Terrifyingly, this number represents only a fraction of the actual number of persons wrongfully accused and convicted over the same period. Renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney David Rudolf has spent decades defending the wrongfully accused. In American Injustice, he draws from his years of experience in the American criminal legal system to shed light on the misconduct that exists at all levels of law enforcement and the tragic consequences that follow in its wake. Tracing these themes through the lens of some of his most important cases – including new details from the Michael Peterson trial made famous in The Staircase – Rudolf takes the reader inside crime scenes to examine forensic evidence left by perpetrators; revisits unsolved murders to detail how and why the true culprits were never prosecuted; reveals how confirmation bias leads police and prosecutors to employ tactics that make wrongful arrests and prosecutions more likely; and exposes how poverty and racism fundamentally distort the system. In American Injustice, Rudolf gives a voice to those who have been the victim of wrongful accusations and shows in the starkest terms the human impact of legal wrongdoing. Effortlessly blending gripping true crime reporting and searing observations on civil rights in America, American Injustice takes readers behind the scenes of a justice system in desperate need of reform.

Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work by Robert H. Frank From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, bold new ideas for creating environments that promise a brighter future Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street―our environments are themselves products of our behavior. Under the Influence explains how to unlock the latent power of social context. It reveals how our environments encourage smoking, bullying, tax cheating, sexual predation, problem drinking, and wasteful energy use. We are building bigger houses, driving heavier cars, and engaging in a host of other activities that threaten the planet―mainly because that’s what friends and neighbors do. In the wake of the hottest years on record, only robust measures to curb greenhouse gases promise relief from more frequent and intense storms, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and famines. Robert Frank describes how the strongest predictor of our willingness to support climate-friendly policies, install solar panels, or buy an electric car is the number of people we know who have already done so. In the face of stakes that could not be higher, the book explains how we could redirect trillions of dollars annually in support of carbon-free energy sources, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. Most of us would agree that we need to take responsibility for our own choices, but with more supportive social environments, each of us is more likely to make choices that benefit everyone. Under the Influence shows how.

Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Epidemic and How to Get Healthy Again by Steven Phillips, Dana Parish “A powerfully informative guide for patient and practitioner from a misinformed past toward a future of recovery and health.” —David Perlmutter, MD, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Grain Brain and Brain Wash In this important and timely book, Steven Phillips, MD, and his former patient, Sony singer-songwriter Dana Parish, reveal striking evidence that a range of common infections, from COVID-19 to Lyme, cause a variety of autoimmune, psychiatric, and chronic conditions. Chronic explores the science behind what makes them difficult to diagnose and treat, debunks widely held beliefs, and provides solutions that empower sufferers to reclaim their lives. After nearly dying from his own mystery illness, Dr. Phillips experienced firsthand the medical community’s ignorance about the pathogens that underlie a deep spectrum of serious conditions—from fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, to depression, anxiety, OCD and neurodegenerative disorders. Parish, too, watched her health spiral after twelve top doctors missed the underlying infections that caused heart failure and other sudden debilitating symptoms. Now, they’ve come together with a mission: to change the current model of simply treating symptoms and shift the focus to finding and curing root causes of chronic diseases that affect millions around the world.

The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad “Read this book, strengthen your resolve, and help us all return to reason.” —JORDAN PETERSON *USA TODAY NATIONAL BESTSELLER* There’s a war against truth… and if we don’t win it, intellectual freedom will be a casualty. The West’s commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism has never been more seriously threatened than it is today by the stifling forces of political correctness. Dr. Gad Saad, the host of the enormously popular YouTube show THE SAAD TRUTH, exposes the bad ideas—what he calls “idea pathogens”—that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms—including freedom of thought and speech. The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful weapons to fight back with—if we have the courage to use them. A provocative guide to defending reason and intellectual freedom and a battle cry for the preservation of our fundamental rights, The Parasitic Mind will be the most controversial and talked-about book of the year.

Shakey’s Madness: Does a Mental Disorder Reveal the “Real” William Shakespeare? by Robert P Boog Have you always been fascinated by history – even just a little bit? If you have, odds are you’ll be delighted by this gem of a book. You won’t be getting the popular story of how William Shakespeare’s name is on the plays, poems, and sonnets, so why doubt him? Instead, using a unique, and original approach, author Robert Boog points out the glaring errors. For example, if the man from Stratford-upon-Avon was the “real” author, when why the fainting, insomnia, despair, depression, and suicidal thoughts found in the Shakespeare canon? Boog points out that these things are symptoms of Bipolar II Affective Disorder (pronounced “Bipolar Two Affective Disorder) and Shakey’s Madness explains how these symptoms can only be found in 2.6% of today’s population, so this percentage may have been even smaller during the Elizabethan era. Bipolar symptoms fit only one person living during the time of Queen Elizabeth. Who? Read Shakey’s Madness to discover: does a mental disorder reveal the “real” William Shakespeare?

The Glutathione Revolution: Fight Disease, Slow Aging, and Increase Energy with the Master Antioxidant by Nayan Patel PharmD Ward off life-threatening disease and symptoms of aging with this guide to boosting your levels of glutathione (GSH), the “master antioxidant.” The body has a remarkable ability to ward off disease and heal itself–and it does it with the help of the most important antioxidant you’ve never heard of: glutathione (GSH), the “master antioxidant.” This indispensable molecule–which we make ourselves–holds the key to immunity, vitality, and lifelong health, helping to flush out toxins, fight DNA-damaging free radicals, and rebuild other essential antioxidants like Vitamins C and E. It’s been linked to longevity in centenarians, and it protects against diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. It plays a role in lesser ailments too: low glutathione levels could be the culprit behind your fatigue, aches, and pains. At the forefront of the latest GSH research, Dr. Nayan Patel shares all the information you need to boost your glutathione levels, revitalize your body, and transform your life with this naturally-occurring super antioxidant. In The Glutathione Revolution, he addresses the most important questions about GSH: What exactly is glutathione? What happens when your GSH levels are low? What diseases does GSH ward off? How can you naturally increase the amount of GSH your cells produce? What foods should you eat–and not eat? What are the safest and most effective GSH supplements? With a wealth of practical information and three easy, accessible action plans that you can tailor to your own life and health concerns, you too can harness the power of glutathione.

The Future You: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Get Healthier, Stress Less, and Live Longer by Harry Glorikian “AI is all around us. Self-driving cars. Smart personal assistants-think Siri, Cortana, or Google Now-or Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service that is available on literally hundreds of millions of devices. Voice-to-text. Manufacturing robots. Facial recognition software. Security surveillance. Automated financial investing and social media monitoring. Smart homes that control themselves when their owners are out of town. The list is endless. “All of the above make life easier for us. But in this new book by Moneyball Medicine author/podcaster Harry Glorikian, the spotlight is on how AI can (and will, and in many cases already does) make us healthier.” -from the Foreword to The Future You by Dr. Bob Arnot Do you have a smartphone and a wearable device, such as an Apple Watch or a Fitbit? Most likely yes, right? Well, then, as Glorikian tells us, there are already numerous apps available for download that ” … can also continuously monitor temperature, calorie intake, blood glucose, menstruation cycle, respiration rate, stress levels, brain waves, or just about any other aspect of physical and mental health you want.” They identify areas where improvement is needed, and tell us how to improve our health in those areas.

Supercharge Your Brain: How to Maintain a Healthy Brain Throughout Your Life by James Goodwin ‘A remarkable book, which turns cutting-edge science into simple strategies for a healthier life that all of us should use.’ – Phillip Polakoff ———————————————– The definitive guide to keeping your brain healthy for a long and lucid life, by one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of brain health and ageing. The brain is our most vital and complex organ. It controls and coordinates our actions, thoughts and interactions with the world around us. It is the source of personality, of our sense of self, and it shapes every aspect of our human experience. Yet most of us know precious little about how our brains actually work, or what we can do to optimise their performance. Whilst cognitive decline is the biggest long-term health worry for many of us, practical knowledge of how to look after our brain is thin on the ground. In this ground-breaking new book, leading expert Professor James Goodwin explains how simple strategies concerning exercise, diet, social life and sleep can transform your brain health paradigm, and shows how you can keep your brain youthful and stay sharp across your life. Combining the latest scientific research with insightful storytelling and practical advice, Supercharge Your Brain reveals everything you need to know about how your brain functions, and what you can do to keep it in peak condition.

Elzie Flenard, III. The MAYOR at Podcast Town Podcasttown.net Podcast Town founder, Elzie Flenard (The MAYOR), started Podcast Town to help folks find their “voice” among the noise. Through podcasting, he has helped and continues to help partners turn that voice into a powerful, long-tail marketing tool. It doesn’t have to be loud – it just has to be real.

The Confident Mind: A Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance by Dr. Nate Zinsser Believe and be unshakable. The Director of West Point’s influential Performance Psychology Program shares the secrets of mental toughness and self-belief in this definitive guide to mastering confidence, the key to performance in any field. Dr. Nate Zinsser has spent his career training the minds of the U.S. Military Academy’s cadets as they prepare to lead and perform when the stakes are the very highest—on the battlefield. Alongside this work, he has coached world-class athletes including a Super Bowl MVP, numerous Olympic medalists, professional ballerinas, NHL All-Stars, and college All-Americans, teaching them to overcome pressure and succeed on the biggest stages. Dr. Zinsser has come to understand that one single trait above all others makes peak performance possible: confidence, or the belief in oneself. Whether your mission involves leading a platoon into combat, returning an opponent’s serve, or delivering a sales pitch to a roomful of skeptical prospects, you perform best when you are so certain about your abilities that your flow of fear, doubts, and confusion slows to the barest minimum. What’s more, Dr. Zinsser has come to understand that confidence is a skill that can be taught, improved, and applied by anyone to enhance nearly every aspect of our lives and careers. Now, for the first time, Dr. Zinsser distills his research and years of experience, offering a fascinating guide to the science of confidence and providing readers with a practical, step-by-step program to best harness their belief in themselves to achieve success in any field. The Confident Mind is a complete guide to confidence: how to understand it, how to build it, how to protect it, and how to rely upon it when your performance matters most.

Amir Kaltalk CEO & Katia Zaitsev CBO and Co-Founders of LEXIT Lexit.com LEXIT is a platform for transforming Intellectual Property into Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Anyone owning Art, Music, Film/Videos, Patents or Technical Inventions, can join and submit a listing for an NFT Launch, collect NFTs, follow/like its favourite creators and have the ability to build their NFT identity with LEXIT. LEXIT will soon after also release an extension of its NFT Launchpad with an integration of its Decentralized Exchange (DEX) which will make launched NFTs immediately available for trading on LEXIT’s DeFi Pools.

Daniel Tolson of The Tolson Institute Danieltolson.com

Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World by Peter S. Goodman From the New York Times’s Global Economics Correspondent, a masterwork of explanatory journalism that exposes how billionaires’ systematic plunder of the world—brazenly accelerated during the pandemic—has transformed 21st-century life and dangerously destabilized democracy. “Davos Man will be read a hundred years from now as a warning. … Deliciously rich with searing detail, the clarity is reminiscent of Tom Wolfe.” —EVAN OSNOS The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism’s triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”–members of the billionaire class–chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization. Alongside this reporting, Goodman delivers textured portraits of those caught in Davos Man’s wake, including a former steelworker in the American Midwest, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a Seattle doctor on the front lines of the fight against COVID, blue-collar workers in the tenements of Buenos Aires, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City, and more. Goodman’s rollicking and revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society: widening wealth inequality, the rise of anti-democratic nationalism, the shrinking opportunity to earn a livable wage, the vulnerabilities of our health-care systems, access to affordable housing, unequal taxation, and even the quality of the shirt on your back. Meticulously reported yet compulsively readable, Davos Man is an essential read for anyone concerned about economic justice, the capacity of societies to grapple with their greatest challenges, and the sanctity of representative government.

Tom Paladino, Scalar Energy Researcher scalarlight.com

The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself “Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. In the midst of an overdose crisis that grows worse by the hour and has vexed America for centuries, Fisher has given us the best prescription of all: understanding. He seamlessly blends a gripping historical narrative with memoir that doesn’t self-aggrandize; the result is a full-throated argument against blaming people with substance use disorder. The Urge is a propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively. As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues—our successes and our failures—can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.

Janine Bolon of The 8 Gates The8gates.com

Empower: Conquering the Disease of Fear by Tareq Azim, Seth Davis From finding common ground with warlords, introducing the Taliban to change, and working with NFL greats such as Marshawn Lynch, this uplifting and inspirational memoir from coach and personal development expert, Tareq Azim, will help you build a relationship with fear and embrace your own power. A descendant of Afghan nobles, Tareq Azim’s family was forced to flee their homeland in 1979. He assimilated in the United States through his love of sports, excelling in wrestling, boxing, and football. In 2004, Azim decided to visit his home country, and upon arriving, he discovered countless children living on the streets, waiting for the inevitable recruitment into terrorist networks and anti-peace militias. Azim’s close encounter with the ravages of a war-torn society taught him how pain can generate the most intense forms of fear, anxiety, and depression. He had found his salvation through sports and physical activity, and he knew these children could, too. He put his method to the test and created the Afghan Women’s Boxing Federation, the official governing body for women’s sports for the National Olympic Committee and the first ever in the history of any Islamic republic, proving that Afghanistan was ready for social change by addressing the harms of accumulated trauma. Now, his remarkable full story is revealed in this book that is both a memoir and a roadmap. Through his own experiences, he effortlessly explains how fear is an invitation to seek a deeper feeling within—a feeling that is achieved when we engage in righteous and sincere struggle. Only then will our choices be guided by values that help us avoid the pitfalls of moral and personal failure. Featuring actionable advice and varied clear-eyed case studies, including MMA star Jake Shields, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York—Empower is the ultimate guide to living a life understanding that fear is there to help you.

Speaking with Spirit: 52 Prayers to Guide, Inspire, and Uplift You by Agapi Stassinopoulos A collection of 52 prayers and stories to inspire, unlock inner strength, and navigate daily life with spirit, from the author of Wake Up to the Joy of You. “Prayer is a bridge to your truest self that you can access at any time.”—ARIANNA HUFFINGTON “This lovely book vibrates with wisdom.”—JESSICA ALBA “Read this book to discover the power of prayer.”—GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN Prayer is your ongoing conversation with something larger than yourself. And similar to a mindfulness practice, a daily prayer practice has the power to change your life. Regardless of whether or not you practice organized religion, this gift is available to you as a way to unlock greater awareness and inner strength. With her signature joy and heartfelt wisdom, Agapi Stassinopoulos presents a non-denominational guide to harnessing this power of prayer in your life and using it to find connection, peace, and gratitude. With a structure and style similar to her bestselling meditation book Wake Up to the Joy of You, Agapi encourages us to pray for everything, not just for special occasions. You can get your God fix anytime and anywhere: at the gym or on the train, when you’re on a deadline or when you’re enjoying your first cup of coffee. Accompanied by her personal stories, she shares fifty-two prayers for a year of personal transformation, from navigating relationships with family and friends and expanding past your fears to uncovering your true self and releasing your inner creativity. With prayers written with her unique poetry, verve, and spiritual insight, Agapi guides us in transforming the fear, worry, and anxiety of everyday life into conscious moments of peace and calm. Ultimately, she is teaching us the language of our own soul and the larger energy out there, whatever you want to call it, which is always available to us if we know how to listen and to speak with spirit.