Finalized more than 1 month ago the MasterClass - Training with Kim Scott about Tackle the Hard Conversations with Radical Candor® (trailer below).
The more than 3 hours of content was a great investment and I have learnt a lot in an area that I definitely needed to improve my game.
I can only say that I really enjoyed the Sessions and made me think differently on how to tackle conversations throughout my personal and professional life (hard or soft), by following the 4 pillars of the Radical Candor framework:
Get feedback,
Give praise,
Give criticism,
Gauge on how the feedback has landed.
and while doing it, to be cognizant that the most important is not what you say, but what the receiving part understands.
What is Radical Candor?
Care personally → while engaging with others show how you care about their wellbeing/feelings as a person,
Challenge directly → tell the good and the bad directly, do not overvalue the short-term feelings, but think about the long-term prospects.
A imagine can speak 1.000 words, thus the below framework will do just that:
This framework should be used to guide better discussions/conversations with others.
The “Care Personally” dimension, aka “Give a Damn” dimension, makes us embrace the emotions embedded in every interaction, avoid a “friend vs. foe” mindset and allows us to disclose common human decency when dealing with others.
The “Challenge Directly” dimension oblige you to say what you think when things are not going well or to say something when they are and avoid the default mindset “if I cannot say something positive, I would not say a thing”.
You should not forget that providing Radical Candor is always about what you think and is not communicating a truth/fact of life. Why? Candor implies a dialogue, and you are not fully certain of your feedback and willing to receive counterarguments, while a truth is a one-way communicating path.
The key on how to approach Radical Candor it is not to make the other person feel good, but what would be good for them.
(WHY) One should not forget that is part of your job as manager to provide critical feedback, praise and also solicit feedback. Full Stop.
(HOW) In order to do the above you should:
Get feedback,
Give praise & criticism
Gauge it - understand how it has landed
Encourage it within your team.
(WHEN) if possible, it should be immediate, and one should not wait for a better moment, thus do not wait for your 1-2-1 or PDP, but you need to ensure that everyone, including yourself, is in the right mood/mindset and it should be quick and not something too lengthily.
Double-clicking on the 4 steps mentioned on the how, my key takeaways were:
Ask and Receive feedback
Why we need it:
Understand what we are doing that is contributing to such behavior and good/poor performance,
Understand the context,
Provide psychological safety to the other person to speak its mind.
How to do-it:
Think the questions you will make to induce that feedback - (Start, Stop, Continue doing),
Make it natural and authentic,
Be aware on how your words are landing,
Do not fish for compliment,
Make open-ended questions, but within a context or situation you want to approach.
Remember that the goal is to detect if you are doing something wrong and how you can improve and actively listen to the feedback.
While listening embrace the discomfort, you should not be defensive and make follow-up questions.
Finally, you should reward candor. How?:
if you agree with the feedback, fix the problem immediately,
if you agree but it’s difficult to solve it quickly, acknowledge it and ask help to fix it,
if you disagree you should, with respect, explain why you disagree.
Offer powerful praise
While praising you should:
focus on what went well,
show that you care and,
challenge that person to do more of that
The key features of a good praise have the following ingredients:
Should be helpful (humble),
Immediate and in person,
Public and not about personality but actions,
Context - you should provide a clear context,
Observation - pinpoint the specific action(s) that you are referring to,
Results - Provide the effect of such action,
Next steps - promote that it happens again.
Give Criticism Effectively
The key features of effective criticism are exactly the same as #2, with the exception that it should be made privately.
One should offer criticism for things that really matter and are important to the receiver of the critique.
When that critique lands badly and too personal, try to focus the conversation on the behavior and not the person.
Try to start a dialogue to promote corrections and for that one should:
not try to find winners or losers, but find a solution,
bring data to support the discussion,
try to understand the other side POV.
Gauge how your feedback lands
Don’t forget it is a conversation, not a dialogue, understand how the other person is responding to what you are saying.
More often than not, such talks go better than you anticipated, but when your feedback is not being received as you wanted to, what can you do?
If they seem sad:
should avoid relaxing the challenge directly quadrant of your message, but you should step-up the care personally quadrant.
stay present and offer comfort,
ensure that you understand the emotion being shared,
see what is needed in that moment by the other person.
If they seem mad:
get curious not furious - be self-aware if the latter happens to control it,
go up a notch on the care personally axis,
try to think how you could have said it differently in order not to trigger that kind of reaction.
If they are not listening:
step-up on the challenge directly axis,
use multiple examples to draw attention,
ask for feedback on what you have said and what has been understood.
We should understand how hard to push, but we also need to know when we need to part way and you should promote a “Radical Candor” culture within your organization and/or teams.
As a conclusion, I do feel that I gained a lot by investing my time on this training and hopefully I will be able to use most of the insights and new knowledge in my day-2-day work, although for that it will require persistence and consistent practice.
Happy to discuss further about this subject with all that have interest in this topic.
Throughout April’24 I have added 38 books to my library. Hopefully, you can also find 1 or 2 for your own library!
The selection rules were:
the book had to be recommended by someone directly or by an article I have read or a podcast I have listened.
the book should be less than €5 (usually via Kindle -promotions- or 2nd hand).
1. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, Johann Hari
Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking antidepressants when he was a teenager. He was told—like his entire generation—that his problem was caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. As an adult, trained in the social sciences, he began to investigate this question—and he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong.
Across the world, Hari discovered social scientists who were uncovering the real causes—and they are mostly not in our brains, but in the way we live today. Hari’s journey took him from the people living in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin—all showing in vivid and dramatic detail these new insights. They lead to solutions radically different from the ones we have been offered up until now.
Just as Chasing the Scream transformed the global debate about addiction, with over twenty million views for his TED talk and the animation based on it, Lost Connections will lead us to a very different debate about depression and anxiety—one that shows how, together, we can end this epidemic.
Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building, Claire Hughes Johnson
“Whether you are a new manager or a CEO, there are going to be moments when you feel alone and need help. Odds are, the advice you need is in Scaling People. You are going to pull this book off your shelf over and over!"
—Kim Scott, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Candor and Just Work
A leader at both Google and Stripe from their early days, Claire Hughes Johnson has worked with founders and company builders to try to replicate their success. The most common questions she’s asked are not about business strategy—they’re about how to scale the operating structures and people systems of a rapidly growing startup.
Scaling People is a practical and empathetic guide to being an effective leader and manager in a high-growth environment. The tactical information it puts forward—including guidance on crafting foundational documents, strategic and financial planning, hiring and team development, and feedback and performance mechanisms—can be applied to companies of any size, in any industry. Scaling People includes dozens of pages of worksheets, templates, exercises, and example documents to help founders, leaders, and company builders create scalable operating systems and lightweight processes that really work.
Implementing effective leadership and management practices takes effort and discipline, but the reward is a sustainable, scalable company that’s set up for long-term success. Scaling People is a detailed roadmap for company builders to put the right operating systems and structures in place to scale the most important resource a company has: its people.
Western Lane, Chetna Maroo
A deeply moving novel about grief, sisterhood and a teenage girl's struggle to transcend herself.
Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.
But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.
An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel is a moving exploration of the closeness of sisterhood, the immigrant experience, and the collective overcoming of grief.
España invertebrada y otros ensayos, Ortega y Gasset
El particularismo de las regiones, de las instituciones y de los distintos grupos sociales, el odio generalizado a los mejores o "aristofobia" que lleva a una selección inversa de los mediocres frente a los óptimos, la preferencia por la acción directa en detrimento de un diálogo que posibilite consensos son algunos de los temas que José Ortega y Gasset analiza como síntomas de la invertebración de España. Escritas estas páginas cuando el régimen político de la Restauración daba sus últimos estertores, siguen ofreciendo hoy, en el siglo XXI, incitaciones para pensar los problemas que aquejan a nuestra sociedad y para intentar comprender las dificultades que existen de articular una fructífera convivencia.
La rebelión de las masas y otros ensayos, Ortega y Gasset
Traducido al inglés y al alemán nada más publicarse, este libro se convirtió en un best-seller y a su autor en una referencia internacional. El filósofo analiza la desmoralización de la sociedad europea producida por el imperio del hombre-masa, un tipo de hombre nacido del desarrollo científico-técnico y del liberalismo del siglo XIX pero arisco a su pasado y decidido a imponer su propia vulgaridad por medio de la acción directa, la cual llevó en política a los totalitarismos fascista y bolchevique. Frente a los mismos, el autor hace una nítida defensa de la democracia liberal y una clara apuesta por la constitución de unos Estados Unidos de Europa como proyecto de futuro. Ortega es uno de los padres intelectuales de la Unión Europea.
¿Está usted de broma Sr. Feynman?: Aventuras de un curioso personaje tal como fueron referidas a Ralph Leighton, Richard P. Feynman
Richard Feynman no ha sido sólo uno de los físicos teóricos más destacados del mundo sino también una personalidad insólita y genial cuyas investigaciones le valieron el Premio Nobel de Física de 1965. En su biografía y en su obra se dan cita la curiosidad irrefrenable, el escepticismo empedernido, el sentido del humor, el gusto por la travesura, la más vasta cultura y el más penetrante ingenio. Feynman es seguramente la única persona en el mundo que ha explicado física a cerebros como Einstein, Von Neumann y Pauli y que ha tocado los bongos en una compañía de ballet, que ha sido declarado deficiente mental por el ejército de Estados Unidos y que ha obtenido un Premio Nobel. "¿Está usted de broma, Sr. Feynman?" recoge las conversaciones mantenidas a lo largo de una serie de años con Ralph Leighton, quien se encargó de grabarlas y transcribirlas.
The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't, Julia Galef
When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a 'soldier' mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalising in our personal lives and everything in between, we are driven to defend the ideas we most want to believe - and shoot down those we don't.
But if we want to get things right more often we should train ourselves to think more like a scout. Unlike the soldier, a scout's goal isn't to defend one side over the other. It's to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what's actually true.
In The Scout Mindset, Galef shows that what makes scouts better at getting things right isn't that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than everyone else. It's a handful of emotional skills, habits, and ways of looking at the world - which anyone can learn.
With fascinating examples ranging from how to survive being stranded in the middle of the ocean, to how Jeff Bezos avoids overconfidence, to how superforecasters outperform CIA operatives, to Reddit threads and modern partisan politics, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think.
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win, Maria Konnikova
It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker.
But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas.
Romola, George Eliot
More than three centuries and a half ago, in the mid spring-time of 1492, we are sure that the angel of the dawn, as he travelled with broad slow wing from the Levant to the Pillars of Hercules, and from the summits of the Caucasus across all the snowy Alpine ridges to the dark nakedness of the Western isles, saw nearly the same outline of firm land and unstable sea—saw the same great mountain shadows on the same valleys as he has seen to-day—saw olive mounts, and pine forests, and the broad plains green with young corn or rain-freshened grass—saw the domes and spires of cities rising by the river-sides or mingled with the sedge-like masts on the many-curved sea-coast, in the same spots where they rise to-day. And as the faint light of his course pierced into the dwellings of men, it fell, as now, on the rosy warmth of nestling children; on the haggard waking of sorrow and sickness; on the hasty uprising of the hard-handed labourer; and on the late sleep of the night-student, who had been questioning the stars or the sages, or his own soul, for that hidden knowledge which would break through the barrier of man's brief life, and show its dark path, that seemed to bend no whither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light and glory. The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the slow wake of the dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main headings of its history—hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and death...
MIDDLEMARCH,George Eliot
Middlemarch" es una novela clásica escrita por George Eliot, seudónimo de la autora británica Mary Ann Evans. Publicada entre 1871 y 1872, la historia retrata la vida de personajes en una ciudad ficticia, abordando temas como el matrimonio, la política y el estatus social. George Eliot es conocida por su estilo de escritura realista y su profunda exploración psicológica, desafiando las normas sociales al utilizar un seudónimo masculino. "Middlemarch" se considera una de las grandes obras de la literatura inglesa. y forma parte de la famosa colección "1001 libros que que hay que leer antes de morir"
The Manticore (Deptford Trilogy Book 2), Robertson Davies
The second book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link
Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven. The Manticore—the second book in the series after Fifth Business—follows David Staunton, a man pleased with his success but haunted by his relationship with his larger-than-life father. As he seeks help through therapy, he encounters a wonderful cast of characters who help connect him to his past and the death of his father.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.’
Written for her lover Vita Sackville-West, ‘Orlando’ is Woolf’s playfully subversive take on a biography, here tracing the fantastical life of Orlando. As the novel spans centuries and continents, gender and identity, we follow Orlando’s adventures in love – from being a lord in the Elizabethan court to a lady in 1920s London.
First published in 1928, this tale of unrivalled imagination and wit quickly became the most famous work of women’s fiction. Sexuality, destiny, independence and desire – all come to the fore in this highly influential novel that heralded a new era in women’s writing.
A Room of One's Own: With an Introductory Essay "Professions for Women", Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf draws on female writers of the past, including Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, while also considering fictional characters and lesser-known women in literary history. Noting women’s struggles, including their lack of intellectual freedom and financial independence, Woolf discusses the necessity for equal rights in the workplace and beyond. She states that in order for women to succeed creatively, they must have both a literal and figural space in the workplace.
Narrativas económicas: Cómo las fake news y las historias virales afectan la marcha de la economía, Robert J. Shiller
Desde antes de que existiera la idea de «viralidad», las historias que la gente se contaba sobre sus experiencias o los rumores que había oído han transformado los mercados y la economía. Muchas veces, los pánicos, las burbujas inmobiliarias, los precios de las acciones o el futuro de nuevos fenómenos como el bitcóin han dependido de lo que una persona le contaba a otra: son las «narrativas económicas».
Cuando circulan por la sociedad en forma de historias populares, las ideas pueden llegar a viralizarse y transformar los mercados. Así sucede, por ejemplo, con la creencia de que las acciones tecnológicas no dejan de subir, la convicción de que el precio de la vivienda nunca disminuye o la seguridad de que algunas empresas son demasiado grandes para quebrar. Sean ciertas o falsas, estas historias se transmiten por el viejo boca a boca, los medios de comunicación o las redes sociales, y crean percepciones sobre el gasto, el ahorro o la inversión que en última instancia tienen un gran impacto en la economía general y en la vida de los individuos y las sociedades.
En este libro fascinante, el premio Nobel de economía Robert J. Shiller parte de estas narrativas populares para enseñarnos cómo afectan al comportamiento individual y colectivo y, de manera clave, cómo su estudio puede mejorar nuestra capacidad para predecir acontecimientos económicos como crisis financieras, recesiones, depresiones o booms. Y, sobre todo, cómo detectar las noticias falsas antes de que afecten a nuestro bolsillo.
Storytelling con datos. Visualización de datos para profesionales, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Storytelling con datos enseña los fundamentos de la visualización de datos para poder comunicar eficazmente con ellos. Aunque este libro está basado en la teoría, utiliza multitud de ejemplos del mundo real para que las pueda aplicar de forma inmediata en su siguiente gráfico o presentación.
Narrar historias no es una habilidad inherente, especialmente cuando se trata de visualización de datos, y las herramientas de las que disponemos no facilitan las cosas. Este libro demuestra cómo ir más allá de las herramientas convencionales para llegar a la raíz de sus datos, y cómo utilizarlos para crear una historia atractiva, informativa y convincente.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new'
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
The first book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link
Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein
THE TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. The project had a broad aim - to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science - and is recognized as a significant philosophical work of the twentieth century. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it when a prisoner of war at Como and later Cassino in August 1918. It was first published in German in 1921 as 'Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'. The Tractatus was influential chiefly amongst the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann. Bertrand Russell's article "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" is presented as a working out of ideas that he had learned from Wittgenstein. (more on: https://ift.tt/edr8mQ3)
A Tract on Monetary Reform, John Maynard Keynes (
In A Tract on Monetary Reform, which was first published in 1923, British economist John Maynard Keynes argues that the objects of British government should be the stability of trade, price, and employment. The gold reserve should be demonetized. However, this does not mean that gold serves absolutely no purpose anymore. Rather, it is a store of value and a means of correcting the influence of a temporarily adverse balance of payment.
“This is a very brilliant as well as a very important book. Like all that Mr. Keynes writers, it is full of matter, and also full of wit…If any argument were wanted to show that whether we like it or not, we must tackle the monetary problem, it is to be found in Mr. Keynes’s book. It is a bright light, and though it may, if misused, do harm to the eyesight of some people, it throws a light, and a true light, on the world’s dilemma.”—The Spectator
The End of Laissez-Faire, John Maynard Keynes
The End of Laissez-Faire' is a thought-provoking work by John Maynard Keynes that challenges the laissez-faire economic doctrine.
Published during the 20th century, this book offers a compelling critique of unregulated capitalism and the role of the state in economic affairs. Keynes argues that government intervention is crucial for economic stability and prosperity, sparking a revolution in economic thought.
This book is essential reading for those interested in the history of economic ideas and the ongoing debate about the role of government in the economy. Keynes' exploration of the tensions between individualism and government control remains relevant in contemporary discussions of economic policy.
'The End of Laissez-Faire' is a foundational text that continues to influence economic and political thought, making it a must-read for scholars, students, and anyone passionate about the economic and political dimensions of modern society.
Prices and Production and Other Works on Money, the Business Cycle, and the Gold Standard, F.A. Hayek
Hayek was not only a leading champion of liberty in the 20th century; as this massive book reveals, he was also a great economist whose elaboration on monetary theory and the business cycle made him the leading foe of Keynesian theory and policy in the English-speaking world.
The theory here is the subject of a massively popular video rap song — one which was oddly accurate! However, to truly understand the nuts and bolts, there is no substitute for Hayek's own works. Together they constitute a complete presentation of Hayekian money and business-cycle theory. Even more, they work together as an excellent elucidation of Austrian macroeconomic theory, which is why this book has already been adopted in some classrooms.
The timing could not be better. The entire world economy is now suffering from the effects of bad monetary policy, and with results that Hayek explains in great detail. With "countercyclical" policy again revealed as unworkable, and politicians plotting to make matters worse, the contents of this book have direct bearing on present and future monetary policy.
Hayek was barely out of his twenties in 1929 when he published the German versions of the first two works in this collection, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and "The Paradox of Saving." The latter article was a long essay that was to become the core of his celebrated book and the third work in this volume, Prices and Production, the publication of which two years later made him a world-renowned economist by the age of thirty-two.
But the young Hayek did not pause to savor his success. He was already hard at work on "Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J.M. Keynes," a lengthy critical review of John Maynard Keynes's two-volume Treatise on Money, which had been published in 1930. Hayek's two-part review appeared in late 1931 and 1932.
There followed within a few years the other three works collected in this volume. "The Mythology of Capital" appeared in 1936 and was a response to Frank Knight's hostile criticisms of the Austrian theory of capital. A short article on "Investment That Raises the Demand for Capital" and the monograph "Monetary Nationalism and International Stability" were published in 1937.
These seven works taken together represent the first integration and systematic elaboration of the Austrian theories of money, capital, business cycles, and comparative monetary institutions, which constitute the essential core of Austrian macroeconomics.
These works have profoundly influenced postwar expositions of Austrian or capital-based macroeconomics down to the present day. The creation of such an oeuvre is a formidable intellectual feat over an entire lifetime; it is an absolute marvel when we consider that Hayek had completed it in the span of eight years (1929–1937) and still well shy of his fortieth birthday. Hayek's amazingly precocious intellect and creative genius are on full display in these works.
The Bankers' New Clothes, Anat Admati
Why our banking system is broken―and what we must do to fix it
New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis―and that we’d never again have to choose between massive bailouts and financial havoc. The Bankers’ New Clothes uncovers just how little things have changed―and why banks are still so dangerous. Writing in clear language that anyone can understand, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier. Thoroughly updated for a world where bank failures have made a dramatic return, this acclaimed and important book now features a new preface and four new chapters that expose the shortcomings of current policies and reveal how the dominance of banking even presents dangers to the rule of law and democracy itself.
Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe
The shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium, OxyContin and the opioid crisis. The inspiration behind the Netflix series Painkiller, starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick.
Complexity, M.Mitchell Waldrop
Why did the stock market crash more than 500 points on a single Monday in 1987? Why do ancient species often remain stable in the fossil record for millions of years and then suddenly disappear? In a world where nice guys often finish last, why do humans value trust and cooperation? At first glance these questions don't appear to have anything in common, but in fact every one of these statements refers to a complex system. The science of complexity studies how single elements, such as a species or a stock, spontaneously organize into complicated structures like ecosystems and economies; stars become galaxies, and snowflakes avalanches almost as if these systems were obeying a hidden yearning for order.
Drawing from diverse fields, scientific luminaries such as Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow are studying complexity at a think tank called The Santa Fe Institute. The revolutionary new discoveries researchers have made there could change the face of every science from biology to cosmology to economics. M. Mitchell Waldrop's groundbreaking bestseller takes readers into the hearts and minds of these scientists to tell the story behind this scientific revolution as it unfolds.
Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
The shocking true story of the breathtaking rise and collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes, written by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end.
Seen as the female Steve Jobs, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup ‘unicorn’ promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by wealthy investors, Theranos sold shares that valued the company at more than $9 billion.
There was just one problem: the technology didn’t work . . .
Despite threats of legal action, brave whistleblowers started to talk. They revealed a culture of intimidation and secrecy, technology that repeatedly failed, results sent to real patients that were incorrect but upon which life-changing medical decisions were being made, with devastating consequences.
The riveting story behind The Dropout, in Bad Blood, John Carreyrou investigates the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and scandal set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages.
As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. Forty years later, its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published.
This 40th anniversary edition includes a new epilogue from the author discussing the continuing relevance of these ideas in evolutionary biology today, as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews.
Chaos, James Gleick
Chaos, a book by James Gleick, first introduced the concept and early development of the chaos theory to the public. Chaos theory is a relatively new field in physics, and deals with simple and complex causes that react to one another. Chaos theory is considered as the third revolution in 20th-century science that uses traditional mathematical ways of understanding and explaining complex natural systems. It philosophically counters the second law of thermodynamics.
Chaos helps us in understanding the fact that there is growth and pattern in chaos itself, despite the outward appearance of being random. Various concepts such as the butterfly effect, universal constants, and strange attractors are discussed at a length in the book. Numerous theories of Mitchell J Feigenbaum and D'arcy Thompson are discussed in an elaborate manner, while also taking into account their historical background. The book explains the Mandelbrot Set and Julia Set without resorting to complex mathematics. In this book, the importance of scientific education is stressed upon by the author.
SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING_ A By BILL BRYSON
The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century and has sold over 2 million copies.
'Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.' Economist
'Truly impressive...It's hard to imagine a better rough guide to science.' Guardian
'A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide' The Times
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us.
Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. As a result, A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Jix Dixon has a terrible job at a second-rate university. His life is full of things he could happily do without: the tedious and ridiculous Professor Welch, a neurotic and unstable girlfriend, Margaret, burnt sheets, medieval recorder music and over-enthusiastic students. If he can just deliver a lecture on 'Merrie England', a moderately successful career surely awaits him. But without luck, life is never simple . . .
A Confederacy of Dunces By John Kennedy Toole
A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with...
Never published during his lifetime, John Kennedy Toole's hilarious satire, A Confederacy of Dunces is a Don Quixote for the modern age, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Walker Percy.
The Loved One , Evelyn Waugh
The more startling for the economy of its prose and plot, this novel's story, set among the manicured lawns and euphemisms of Whispering Glades Memorial Park in Hollywood, satirizes the American way of death and offers Waugh's memento mori.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka
Nikolai, an 86 year old retired Ukrainian engineer and tractor historian in Peterborough, has fallen in love with 36 year old Valentina. His daughters, Vera and Nadezhda, who have not spoken to one another since their mother's death, unite in horror to defend their father and what remains of his pension.
But is Valentina a refugee searching for better opportunities, or a bogus visa seeker trying to cheat a vulnerable old man? Growing closer to her sister, and unearthing some family history from which she has previously been shielded, Nadezhda finally understands the animosity between Vera and her father.
Award-winning writer Tanika Gupta has created a wonderful re-telling of this dark family comedy, adapted from the bestselling novel by Marina Lewycka for the stage. It explores the hopes and hardships of immigrants, and how past experiences can shape families and relationships.
Critical Mass, Philip Ball
Is there a 'physics of society'? Philip Ball's investigation into human nature ranges from Hobbes and Adam Smith to modern work on traffic flow and market trading, across economics, sociology and psychology. Ball shows how much of human behaviour we can understand when we cease trying to predict and analyse the behaviour of individuals and look to the impact of hundreds, thousands or millions of individual human decisions, in circumstances in which human beings both co-operate and conflict, when their aggregate behaviour is constructive and when it is destructive. By perhaps Britain's leading young science writer, this is a deeply thought-provoking book, causing us to examine our own behaviour, whether in buying the new Harry Potter book, voting for a particular party or responding to the lures of advertisers.
Why Most Things Fail, Paul Ormerod
From the best-selling author of The Death of Economics and Butterfly Economics, a ground-breaking look at a truth all too seldom acknowledged: most commercial and public policy ventures will not succeed.
Paul Ormerod draws upon recent advances in biology to help us understand the surprising consequences of the Iron Law of Failure. And he shows what strategies corporations, businesses and governments will need to adopt to stand a chance of prospering in a world where only one thing is certain.
The Sorrow of War, Bao Ninh
Kien’s job is to search the Jungle of Screaming Souls for corpses. He knows the area well – this was where, in the dry season of 1969, his battalion was obliterated by American napalm and helicopter gunfire. Kien was one of only ten survivors. This book is his attempt to understand the eleven years of his life he gave to a senseless war.
Based on true experiences of Bao Ninh and banned by the communist party, this novel is revered as the ‘All Quiet on the Western Front for our era’.
Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In 1960s Nigeria, three lives intersect. Ugwu works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic lover, the lecturer. And Richard, a shy Englishman, is in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. Amongst the horror of Nigeria’s civil war, loyalties are tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways none of them imagined.
Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s masterpiece is a novel about race, class and the end of colonialism – and the ways in which love can complicate everything.
A Sense of Urgency, John P. Kotter
Most organizational change initiatives fail spectacularly (at worst) or deliver lukewarm results (at best). In his international bestseller Leading Change, John Kotter revealed why change is so hard, and provided an actionable, eight-step process for implementing successful transformations. The book became the change bible for managers worldwide. Now, in A Sense of Urgency, Kotter shines the spotlight on the crucial first step in his framework: creating a sense of urgency by getting people to actually see and feel the need for change. Why focus on urgency? Without it, any change effort is doomed. Kotter reveals the insidious nature of complacency in all its forms and guises. In this exciting new book, Kotter explains: * How to go beyond "the business case" for change to overcome the fear and anger that can suppress urgency * Ways to ensure that your actions and behaviors -- not just your words -- communicate the need for change * How to keep fanning the flames of urgency even after your transformation effort has scored some early successes Written in Kotter's signature no-nonsense style, this concise and authoritative guide helps you set the stage for leading a successful transformation in your company.
The Affluent Society, John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith's international bestseller The Affluent Society is a witty, graceful and devastating attack on some of our most cherished economic myths.
As relevant today as when it was first published over forty years ago, this newly updated edition of Galbraith's classic text on the 'economics of abundance', lays bare the hazards of individual and social complacency about economic inequality.
Why worship work and productivity if many of the goods we produce are superfluous - artificial 'needs' created by high-pressure advertising? Why begrudge expenditure on vital public works while ignoring waste and extravagance in the private sector of the economy? Classical economics was born in a harsh world of mass poverty, and has left us with a set of preconceptions ill-adapted to the realities of our own richer age. And so, too often, 'the bland lead the bland'. Our unfamiliar problems need a new approach, and the reception given to this famous book has shown the value of its fresh, lively ideas.
Happy readings!
