Book Summaries 2024

Many people want to be more innovative. But how do you generate good ideas? And do you execute to make them real? Originals studies the habits and practices of innovators so you too can innovate. You’ll learn the most important factor in generating more good ideas, how procrastination can actually help you generate better ideas, and how to rally an organization to your new idea.

In When They Win, You Win , employee experience expert Russ Laraway explains that employee engagement in the workforce is at an all-time low, but it’s not the employees who are at fault; it’s their managers. Poorly trained, ineffective managers are everywhere, and they’re costing companies billions of dollars every year. However, Laraway says he has the solution: By developing a few key leadership...

Nobody likes small talk, right? That may be so, but it doesn’t make small talk any less important as an overture to the more interesting topics you actually want to talk about. In Better Small Talk, social interaction specialist Patrick King argues that small talk is a critical part of any conversation and that you need to master the art of small talk to have better, more meaningful conversations....

In The Man Who Solved the Market , business journalist Gregory Zuckerman tells the story of Jim Simons, a former mathematician who became one of the most successful hedge fund managers in history. He founded his hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, in the late 1970s. What set Renaissance apart was Simons’s insight that price fluctuations within financial markets followed recognizable and predicta...

Do you want to better understand nonverbal communication? Do you wish you could read people’s emotions using their body language? In The Dictionary of Body Language , retired FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro offers a reference guide that explains a wide breadth of body language cues, creating a foundation for studying nonverbal communication. Navarro argues that with this knowledge, you can improve y...

In Bigger Leaner Stronger , personal trainer Michael Matthews argues that you can get the physique you want without a trendy diet or a brutal workout. According to Matthews, all it takes is a simple and scientific approach to nutrition and exercise that uses two strategies: flexible dieting (a diet that allows you to lose fat, gain muscle, and eat the foods you love) and progressive tension overlo...

No, you’re not a bad parent. And your kids are actually good kids—parenting is just hard. Do you wish it came with a manual? Clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside might be just what you need. Good Inside is a parenting manual to help you make changes in your child’s behavior while building a positive relationship with them. Most parenting advice sees children’s behavior as a problem to...

Jim VandeHei’s high school guidance counselor laid it out clearly: VandeHei wasn’t cut out for college. In 1990, you could find him proving the counselor’s case emphatically, preferring beer to books and delivering pizzas to mapping out career plans. He attended a two-year school before smuggling himself into the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where after a year he had racked up a 1.4 GPA and wa...

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind Vishen Lakhiani [sPause sec=2 ePause] The Code of the Extraordinary Mind is a blueprint of laws to break us free from the shackles of an ordinary life. It makes a case that everything we know about the world is shaped by conditioning and habit. And thus, most people live their lives based on limiting rules and outdated beliefs about pretty much everything—love, w...

In The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp argue that many leadership models are unsustainable because they don’t prioritize self-management and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. This causes leaders to burn out, lose their passion, and succumb to an unhealthy culture of competition and greed. As a result, employees disengage, turnover soars, a...

If you’ve ever struggled to leave a lousy job or a toxic relationship, psychologist Henry Cloud has advice for you. In Necessary Endings , Cloud argues that pulling out of a bad situation is often the best way to move forward with your life. According to Cloud, we should view the endings in our lives positively, as those endings enable us to begin to live the lives we want. Cloud offers strategies...

According to psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, pop psychology has given us a wrong—and dangerous—impression of the brain’s two hemispheres. In The Master and His Emissary , McGilchrist rebuts the popular misconception that the brain’s left hemisphere is dominant because it’s responsible for logical thinking and problem-solving, while the right hemisphere is used only for creative endeavors. Against t...

The cynical view of the financial world says that Wall Street is run by a special breed of traders who exploit investors’ collective fear and greed to enrich themselves however they can, without any care for the havoc they might wreak. In Liar’s Poker , Michael Lewis backs up this opinion with a first-hand account of the pursuit of ill-gotten riches at the Salomon Brothers investment firm during t...

In today’s fast-paced world, our lives increasingly revolve around productivity, efficiency, and work. It’s now normal for many people to answer emails during dinner and pack their days with as many tasks as possible. Yet in Do Nothing , radio journalist Celeste Headlee argues that by trying to do too much, people are working less efficiently because the human brain isn’t designed to multitask or...

The modern world lures us into giving away our freedom, argues early retiree Jacob Lund Fisker. The vast majority of adults are caught in an unfulfilling cycle of consumerism: They sell decades of their lives to employers so they can buy consumable goods and status symbols that don’t make them happy. Luckily, Fisker says, it’s possible to break out of this system: He did this by learning how to su...

Why is it so hard to stop eating your favorite chips? What are the implications of supermarkets containing aisle after aisle of sodas, frozen meals, and packaged snacks—and only tiny produce sections? In Ultra-Processed People , professor and infectious disease doctor Chris van Tulleken argues that ultra-processed food—everything from breakfast cereals to fast food, candy, and lunch meats—is destr...

How does detective Sherlock Holmes consistently crack the toughest cases? Is his extraordinary intellect purely fictional, or is it possible to emulate his way of thinking to enhance your critical thinking and problem-solving skills? In Mastermind , psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova demystifies Holmes's legendary intellect. She argues that with self-awareness and practice, you can cultiv...

Defining creativity has historically been challenging because creatives are often walking contradictions—they’re introverted yet outgoing, focused yet easily distracted, and sensitive yet resilient. According to Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, this is because creativity isn’t a characteristic itself , but rather the effect of a collection of different characteristics . The authors’ resea...

If you’ve been struggling to concentrate, journalist Johann Hari wants you to know that you’re not alone—and the struggle isn’t your fault. In Stolen Focus , Hari makes the case that we have a societal attention crisis: We’re all losing our ability to concentrate, which means we can't progress on our individual goals, and we can’t collectively confront the major challenges humanity faces. Hari arg...

Most people think of willpower as a virtue, an admirable trait that we strive for but don't always achieve. But science tells a different story. Willpower—the ability to exercise self-control when you need it—is an instinct that's wired into our brains. Yet it seems like willpower vanishes at crucial moments, like when your coworker shows up with a box of donuts. To harness your innate willpower,...

Daniel Goleman argues that attention is a complex and underappreciated cognitive resource in our modern society overrun with distractions. In Focus , he explores how you can understand, strengthen, and effectively use your attention to lead a more fulfilling and productive life, as well as to connect better with others and have a positive impact on the world. A renowned psychologist and New York T...

How can you be more productive and creative? Most of us assume that the answer lies, at least in part, in managing our time better. But in Hyperfocus , productivity expert Chris Bailey presents an alternate hypothesis: To focus in a world full of ever-increasing distractions, you must learn not just how to manage your time but also how to manage your attention. Bailey explains why your current met...

Like most people, you’re probably easily distracted by wandering thoughts or social media updates while trying to be productive. In Deep Work , Cal Newport teaches you how to develop your focus and resist distractions so that you can rise to the top of your field and drive toward your most important goals. He contends that focus is like a mental muscle : Through deliberate training, you can streng...

In today’s tech-dependent, app-centered, notification-ruled world, it’s easier than ever to get distracted from what’s really important—your values, your relationships, and your work. In Indistractable , Nir Eyal develops a four-part model for gaining the modern-day superpower of “indistractability.” You’ll learn how your distractions start internally , why your schedule should be based on your va...

Do you often feel that there isn’t enough time to finish all the projects you’d like to get done? Does it seem that when you try to concentrate, your attention gets pulled in a thousand directions? Many authors agree that the ability to focus—to concentrate on an individual task—is key to success and fulfillment, not just in your career but also in your personal life. They also agree that focus is...