- Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman; recommended by World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and Martin Ford. Amazon calls it “a field guide to the 21st century.”
- Success Through Stillness by Russell Simmons and Chris Morrow and; recommended by Serena Williams. The hip-hop mogul on meditation.
- Lying by Sam Harris; recommended by Elon Musk. A neuroscientist argues that giving up white lies will improve your life and the world.
- Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson; recommended by Tim Ferriss
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo; recommended by surgeon and author Atul Gawande (and Barack Obama)
- Our Kids by Robert D. Putnam; recommended by futurist Martin Ford. A best-selling examination of growing inequality.
- Machines of Loving Grace by John Markoff; recommended by Martin Ford. Will machines help us, or will they replace us?
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg; recommended by psychologist Adam Alter. A Pulitzer Prize-winning business reporter on how to change your habits.
- A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel; recommended by Atul Gawande. A novel set during the French Revolution from the double Booker Prize winner.
- This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz; recommended by Atul Gawande. Short stories from the Pulitzer Prize winner.
- The Unwinding by George Packer; recommended by Atul Gawande. 2013 National Book Award winner.
- Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos; recommended by Atul Gawande. A portrait of contemporary China from The New Yorker’s Beijing correspondent.
- Where We Belong by Hoda Kotb; recommended by Gayle King. “Inspiring stories of people who find their life’s purpose in unexpected ways,” says Amazon.
- The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster; recommended by Elon Musk. Classic sci-fi.
- What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars by Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan; recommended by Tim Ferriss. Just what the title suggests.
- Our Final Invention by James Barrat; recommended by Elon Musk. Will advanced A.I. be the end of humanity?
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari; recommended by Martin Ford. Predictions about the future of humanity from the best-selling historian.
- Unfair by Adam Benforado; recommended by Adam Alter. “A law professor sounds an explosive alarm on the hidden unfairness of our legal system,” says Kirkus Reviews.
- How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett; recommended by Adam Alter. A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions.
- Mindwise by Nicholas Epley; recommended by Adam Alter. Science shows your intuition about other people probably isn’t as reliable as you think.
- Dancing With Dementia by Christine Bryden; recommended by neuroscientist and author Lisa Genova. After receiving a diagnosis of dementia at 48, a woman goes on to live positively with the condition.
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; recommended by Lisa Genova. The true story of how a poor woman’s cells were harvested without her knowledge and became one of medicine’s most important tools.
- Wetware by Dennis Bray; recommended by economist Robin Hanson. Jargon-free introduction to systems biology.
- The Midas Paradox by Scott B. Sumner; recommended by Robin Hanson. A history of the Great Depression.
- Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark; recommended by neuroscientist Anil Seth. Exploration of new theories of consciousness.
- Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik and Sarah Hunt Cooke; recommended by Anil Seth. The history and science of everyday materials.
- Heller’s Tale by David Pablo Cohn; recommended by doctor and 2017 TED Prize winner Raj Panjabi. Fiction set in the South Pole.
- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman; recommended by cultural historian Jeffrey Schnapp. Classic American poetry.
- Flash Boys by Michael Lewis; recommended by astrophysicist Katherine Freese
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom; recommended by Martin Ford. Another one on the future of A.I.
- Originals by Adam Grant; recommended by Adam Alter. The star Wharton professor on how to come up with and champion original ideas.
- The Accidental Admiral by James Stavridis; recommended by meteorologist David Titley. Autobiography of NATO’s 16th Supreme Allied Commander.
- To Build a Castle by Vladimir Bukovsky; recommended by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Memoir of a Soviet dissident’s time in the gulag.
- Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez; recommended by Elon Musk. Gripping techno thriller about killer drones.
- Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty; recommended by Gayle King. The legendary basketball coach tells his story.
- Lucky Jim by James Hart; recommended by writer Anne Lamott. Memoir of the author’s escape from a hard-luck childhood.
- Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit; recommended by podcaster Helen Zaltzman
- The Stress-Proof Brain by Melanie Greenberg; recommended by psychologist Guy Winch
- The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall; recommended by author Emily Esfahani Smith. How stories make us human.
- The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel; recommended by Katherine Freese. Little-known story of one group of women’s contribution to astronomy.
- The Spiritual Child by Lisa Miller; recommended by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. A psychologist explains the link between spirituality and health.
- Strangers Drowning by Larissa Macfarquhar; recommended by Atul Gawande. Portraits of people who devote their lives to helping others.
- Alone Together by Sherry Turkle; recommended by Dan Ariely. How tech is changing our relationships.
- Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah; recommended by refugee activist Luma Mufleh. A novel offering “a harrowing account of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the fate of child soldiers,” according to Amazon.
- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; recommended by health activist T. Morgan Dixon. Celebrated novel set during Nigeria’s civil war.
- The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes; recommended by Guy Winch. A pro football player on how he bounced back from a career-ending injury.
- Inviting Disaster by James R. Chiles; recommended by Robin Hanson. The book “delves inside some of history’s worst catastrophes in order to show how increasingly ‘smart’ systems leave us wide open to human tragedy,” says Amazon.
- The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner; recommended by Robin Hanson. Environmental dystopia.
- Ghost Boat by Dan Gillcrist; recommended by refugee advocate David Miliband
- Against Empathy by Paul Bloom; recommended by historian Rutger Bregman. A Yale researcher makes the counterintuitive case that empathy is bad for us.
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/50-books-recommended-by-this-years-ted-speakers.html