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Recommendations based on Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking Americaby Matt Taibbi
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A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
An examination of American history from a perspective of marginalized people.
In the book, Zinn presented a different side of history from the more traditional "fundamental nationalist glorification of country". Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen ... (Goodreads)
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
by George Packer
An exploration of America's political and economic decline over the last few decades.
A riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single ... (Goodreads)
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
How an unconventional approach to baseball changed the competitive landscape.
Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball , had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every ... (Goodreads)
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
by Jon Krakauer
A gripping narrative of the 1996 expedition on Mount Everest that resulted in tragedy.
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. ... (Goodreads)
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
by Michael Lewis
A journey through the economic crisis in Europe and the United States, and its global implications.
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects ... (Goodreads)
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
An exploration of the two systems of the mind, and how they influence decision-making.
In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow , Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and ... (Goodreads)
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A study of the role of randomness in life, and how it can lead to unexpected events.
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear ... (Goodreads)
Cosmos
by Carl Sagan
Voyage through the vastness of space, unlocking the mysteries of the universe.
Cosmos has 13 heavily illustrated chapters, corresponding to the 13 episodes of the Cosmos television series. In the book, Sagan explores 15 billion years of cosmic evolution and the development of ... (Goodreads)
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
by Charles C. Mann
A fascinating account of the global changes that occurred after Columbus' voyage, including the exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds.
From the author of 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas—a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 ... (Goodreads)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander
Exploring the roots and reality of systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system.
"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting ... (Goodreads)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond
Tracing the origins of human civilizations through the lens of geography, technology, and biology.
"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: ... (Goodreads)
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
by Brian Greene
A groundbreaking exploration of the multiple universes that may exist beyond our own.
From the best-selling author of, The Elegant Universe, and, The Fabric of the Cosmos, comes his most expansive and accessible book to date—a book that takes on the grandest question: Is ours the only ... (Goodreads)
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
by David Graeber
A history of money and debt, exploring the roots of our current financial system.
Before there was money, there was debt Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul ... (Goodreads)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn
An analysis of how scientific progress is made, and the role of paradigms and paradigmatic shifts.
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, ... (Goodreads)
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
by Rachel Maddow
Investigation of the US military's unchecked growth and its consequences for American democracy.
"One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security ... (Goodreads)
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
by Paul Theroux
An exploration of Africa, from the ancient wonders of the Nile to the modern marvels of the Cape.
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In ... (Goodreads)
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
Exploration of the modern food chain, examining the impact of food choices on our health and the environment.
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire , how we answer it today, at ... (Goodreads)
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
by Jonathan Haidt
Exploring the underlying moral foundations of political and religious beliefs and how they shape our views.
An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780307377906 can be found, here., Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about ... (Goodreads)
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
by Malcolm Gladwell
An exploration of unlikely success stories, examining conventional wisdom and biases.
In his #1 bestselling books The Tipping Point , Blink , and Outliers , Malcolm Gladwell has explored the ways we understand and change our world. Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the ... (Goodreads)
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A letter to his son, exploring the realities of racism in America.
“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American ... (Goodreads)
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves
by Andrew Ross Sorkin
An examination of the 2008 financial crisis, how it was caused, and how it was dealt with.
The book provides an overview of the financial crisis of 2007–08 from the beginning of 2008 to the decision to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The book tells the story from the ... (Wikipedia)
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman
Critique of mass media and its role in shaping public opinion.
In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense ... (Goodreads)
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
Exposes the flaws of urban planning, advocating for a more organic approach.
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great ... (Goodreads)
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by James W. Loewen
Exposing the inaccuracies in American history textbooks and exploring the forces that shaped them.
“Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book. It is both a refreshing antidote to what has passed for history in our educational system and a one-volume education in ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
by Carl Sagan
A critical look at superstition and pseudoscience, advocating for the power of science and reason.
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? ... (Goodreads)
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
A humorous and unflinching account of life in restaurant kitchens, exploring the culture and camaraderie of the culinary world.
A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute ... (Goodreads)
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
by Steven Pinker
Investigation into the causes of violence and the reasons why it has decreased in modern society.
Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that ... (Goodreads)
Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin
A collection of essays exploring the complexities of race, identity, and society in America through the lens of Baldwin's personal experiences.
Since its original publication in 1955, this first nonfiction collection of essays by James Baldwin remains an American classic. His impassioned essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, ... (Goodreads)
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg
Uncovering the science of habit formation and how to use it to achieve success.
A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns ... (Goodreads)
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Examination of how technology is impacting the way we think and process information.
“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also ... (Goodreads)
