Throughout June’24 I have added 10 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).
Neuromancer, William Gibson
“…The book that defined the cyberpunk movement, inspiring everything from The Matrix to Cyberpunk 2077.
The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.
William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the Cyberpunk movement.
More than three decades later, Gibson's text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of the rise and abuse of corporate power look more prescient every day. Part thriller, part warning, Neuromancer is a timeless classic of modern SF and one of the 20th century's most potent and compelling visions of the future. His later work, The Peripheral, has been adapted into a series by Amazon Prime, starring Chloë Grace Moretz. …”
The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, Victor Davis Hanson
“… A "breathtakingly magisterial" account of World War II by America's preeminent military historian (Wall Street Journal)
World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Never before had a war been fought on so many diverse landscapes and in so many different ways, from rocket attacks in London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya.
The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, bestselling author Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.
An authoritative new history of astonishing breadth, The Second World Wars offers a stunning reinterpretation of history's deadliest conflict. …”
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn
“… “One of the most influential books of the 20th century,” the landmark study in the history of science with a new introduction by philosopher Ian Hacking (Guardian, UK).
First published in 1962, Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ”reshaped our understanding of the scientific enterprise and human inquiry in general.” In it, he challenged long-standing assumptions about scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but instead occur outside of “normal science.” Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in today’s biotech age (Science).
This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including “paradigm” and “incommensurability,” and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. This newly designed edition also includes an expanded and updated index. …”
Mozart: The Reign of Love, Jan Swafford
“… From the acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
At the earliest ages it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored and hated to be idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun.
Mozart was known to be an inexplicable force of nature who could rise from a luminous improvisation at the keyboard to a leap over the furniture. He was forever drumming on things, tapping his feet, jabbering away, but who could grasp your hand and look at you with a profound, searching, and melancholy look in his blue eyes. Even in company there was often an air about Mozart of being not quite there. It was as if he lived onstage and off simultaneously, a character in life’s tragicomedy but also outside of it watching, studying, gathering material for the fabric of his art.
Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself. …”
7 Rules of Power: Surprising - But True - Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career, Jeffrey Pfeffer
“…If you want to 'change lives, change organizations, change the world,' the Stanford business school's motto, you need power.
Is power the last dirty secret or the secret to success? Both. While power carries some negative connotations, power is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Don't blame the tool for how some people used it.
Rooted firmly in social science research, Pfeffer's 7 rules provide a manual for increasing your ability to get things done, including increasing the positive effects of your job performance.
With 7 Rules of Power, you'll learn, through both numerous examples as well as research evidence, how to accomplish change in your organization, your life, the lives of others, and the world. …”
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann (
“… #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.
A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture, Kirkus Reviews
“Riveting...Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.” —Time
"A tour de force of narrative nonfiction.” —The Wall Street Journal
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. …”
Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm, Isabella Tree
“…‘A poignant, practical and moving story of how to fix our broken land, this should be conservation's salvation; this should be its future; this is a new hope’ – Chris Packham
Winner of the Richard Jefferies Society / White Horse Book Shop Award for Nature Writing
In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the ‘Knepp experiment’, a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife.
Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. …”
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life, Richard Carlson
“.. 'Don't Sweat the Small Stuff has the power to change our individual and collective lives. I am deeply grateful to Dr Richard Carlson and his beloved wife Kristine for their wisdom and compassion in bringing transformational practices and perspectives to millions of readers.' Shauna Shapiro, author of The Art and Science of Mindfulness
Many of us would like to live our lives in a calmer and less stressful way, and to be able to let go of our problems. This book can show you how to stop letting the little things in life drive you crazy.
Dr Richard Carlson teaches us, in his gentle and encouraging style, simple strategies for living a more fulfilled and peaceful life. We can all learn to put things in perspective, and by making the small daily changes he suggests, including surrendering to the fact that sometimes life isn't fair, and asking yourself, 'Will this matter a year from now?', Dr Richard can help everyone to see the bigger picture.
Repackaged to inspire and guide a new generation, this is a Mind, Body and Spirit classic. …”
The Titanium Economy: How Industrial Technology Can Create a Better, Faster, Stronger America, Asutosh Padhi, Gaurav Batra, Nick Santhanam
“… A Wall Street Journal bestseller
The future of the American economy is hiding in an unlikely place: the manufacturing sector
While Silicon Valley titans dominate headlines, many of the fastest-growing, most profitable companies in the United States are firms you’ve likely never heard of, such as HEICO, Trex, and Casella. These booming companies belong to a burgeoning sector—industrial tech—that offers surprising hope to workers, consumers, and investors alike.
Their role: to make a range of products—aerospace parts, for example, or recycled plastic lumber—that quietly form the backbone of America’s biggest industries.
In an age of instability, industrial tech is a cornerstone of our economic future. In this book, McKinsey veterans Asutosh Padhi, Gaurav Batra, and Nick Santhanam reveal the “titanium economy,” a modern, reinvented industrial sector complete with high-paying, domestic jobs;, soaring stock prices;, and critical infrastructure. They dispel the myth that the best of American manufacturing is behind us and illuminate an opportunity for a brighter future—if we can seize it. …”
CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest, Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra
“… CEO EXCELLENCE, by McKinsey senior partners Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller and Vikram Malhotra is a unique and timely business book which will draw on 25 years of research and interviews with top leaders of some of the world's most respected companies. The resulting book will demonstrate that while the role of CEO is unique within every organisation, it is surprisingly similar across companies even in disparate industries. Furthermore, the best CEOs approach their role with distinct mindsets and practices.
This book is about truly world class leadership, showing how the best CEOs think, adapt and approach challenges (never more relevant than in this extraordinary time). It will show why a brilliant CEO can have such an immense impact, and demonstrate how to model yourself and your performance on the very best - so that your turn to lead comes sooner, and is more successful. …”
Happy readings!
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