The
books on this list fall into a very exclusive category -- books
that aren't just worth reading, but books that are worth owning.
Some of them might even change the way you look at the world.
Unless otherwise noted, the summaries are excerpted from the
books themselves -- either the cover flaps or the introduction.
All book titles contain a link to the appropriate page at amazon.com
This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.
Despite the sophistication of his arguments, Surowiecki presents them in a wonderfully entertaining manner. The examples he uses are all down-to-earth, surprising, and fun to ponder. Why is the line in which you’re standing always the longest? Why is it that you can buy a screw anywhere in the world and it will fit a bolt bought ten-thousand miles away? Why is network television so awful? If you had to meet someone in Paris on a specific day but had no way of contacting them, when and where would you meet? Why are there traffic jams? What’s the best way to win money on a game show? Why, when you walk into a convenience store at 2:00 A.M. to buy a quart of orange juice, is it there waiting for you? What do Hollywood mafia movies have to teach us about why corporations exist?
The Wisdom of Crowds is a brilliant but accessible biography of an idea, one with important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, conduct our business, and think about our world.
A
Fine Balance. Rohinton Mistry
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall
the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures
all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The
government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose
upheavals four strangers -- a spirited widow, a young student
uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who
have fled the caste violence of their native village -- will
be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and
an uncertain future.
As the characters
move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love,
A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit
in an inhuman state.
"Astonishing.
. . . A rich and varied spectacle, full of wisdom and laughter
and the touches of the unexpectedly familiar through which
literature illuminates life." --Wall Street Journal
"Monumental.
. . . Few have caught the real sorrow and inexplicable strength
of India, the unaccountable crookedness and sweetness, as
well as Mistry." --Pico Iyer, Time
"Those
who continue to harp on the decline of the novel . . . ought
to consider Rohinton Mistry. He needs no infusion of magic
realism to vivify the real. The real world, through his eyes,
is magical." --The New York Times
Buddhism:
A Concise Introduction. Huston Smith and Philip Novak
Beginning with the life of the Buddha and continuing through
the current emergence of Buddhism in the West, the internationally
revered world religions authority Huston Smith and award-winning
teacher Philip Novak -- an expert in historical and contemporary
Buddhism and a longtime Buddhist practitioner himself -- explore
all aspects of this 2,500-year-old religious tradition in all
its rich variety: its history, the central doctrines and practices,
and its evolution and continuing development. With consummate
expertise and respect for Buddhism in all its manifestations,
Huston Smith and Philip Novak reveal the vital wisdom that makes
Buddhism so appealing not only throughout Asia but increasingly
in the Western world.
Going well beyond the masterful presentation of Buddhism in
the bestselling The World's Religions, Huston Smith and his
premier student Philip Novak offer an expert, contemporary,
yet highly readable and incisive guide to the heart of this
vibrantly diverse and rapidly growing tradition, one that has
an increasing presence and importance on the American scene.
Smith is universally regarded as the leading authority on the
world's religious traditions, and Novak is an award-winning
professor of world religions and a Buddhist practitioner immersed
in the contemporary worlds of American and Asian Buddhism.
Smith and Novak
respectfully cover the essential teachings, practices, and historical
development of Buddhism in all its rich variety. Beginning with
the life and legend of the Buddha, Buddhism explores core Buddhist
doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path,
nirvana, and emptiness. The authors go on to discuss the split
between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Vipassana -- the Theravadin
Way of Insight, the continued divisions of Mahayana into Pure
Land, Zen, and the quite distinct Vajrayana/Tantric tradition
of Tibetan Buddhism. The second half of the book follows the
global migration of Buddhism and its continuing diversification
and development in the West, especially in America. This compelling
work by two great scholars -- a legendary teacher and his long-time
student and colleague -- is the most insightful, up-to-date,
and accessible introduction to this great and immensely appealing
religious tradition available today.
An
Education For Our Time. Josiah Bunting III
John Adams - billionaire industrialist, high-tech pioneer, war
hero - lies dying of cancer at the age of 71. In the months
before his death, Adams, through a series of letters to his
lawyer, sketches a blueprint for the ideal American college,
He will endow the college with his entire fortune, ensuring
that his vision will become reality. Set in the High Plains
of Wyoming, the college will open its doors in the fall of 2000.
The new college
will be radically unlike any that exists today. As Adams writes,
"The things our country requires are simply not the things
our colleges are prepared to deliver. So let us have our shot."
His purpose: To
train "virtuous and disinterested leaders" for a nation
that needs them desperately, men and women "whose bent
is to command not to chatter, to lead not to criticize, to serve
not to whine, and to give rather than calculate the cost."
The
Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning
of Life. Jean-Francois Revel, John Canti (Translator), Matthieu
Ricard
The Monk and the Philosopher is a collection of father-son dialogues
between Jean-François Revel, a French philosopher and journalist
famous for his leadership in protests of both Christianity and
Communism, and Matthieu Ricard, his son, who gave up a promising
career as a scientist to become a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas.
The conversations recorded in this book took place during 10
days at an inn in Katmandu. The range of their subjects is immense:
What is Buddhism? Why does it have such appeal to many in the
West? Why do Buddhists believe in reincarnation? What are the
differences between Buddhist and Christian monastic life? How
do science and individualism make authentic Buddhist practice
difficult for Westerners to achieve?
--Michael Joseph Gross (amazon.com
review)
Nothing
Special: Living Zen. Charlotte Joko Beck (with Steve
Smith) A companion to the underground bestseller Everyday Zen,
Nothing Special shows how to awaken to your daily life
and discover the ideal in the everyday. Here is an unparalleled
opportunity to site with a fully contemporary Western master
and learn in the authentic Buddhist tradition -- through dialogue
between teacher and student.
All
the King's Men. Robert Penn Warren Set in the '30s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces
the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character
who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of
Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic
man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and
caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for
power. The model for 1996's best selling political novel, Primary
Colors, and as relevant today as it was fifty years ago,
All the King's Men is one of the classics of American
literature.
American
Psycho. Brett Easton Ellis Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent.
He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement
the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot
begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own
American Dream.
American Psycho
is set in a world (Manhattan) and an era (the Eighties) recognizably
our own. The wealthy elite grows infinitely wealthier, the poor
and disturbed are turned out onto the streets by the tens of
thousands, and anything, including the very worst, seems possible.
Even so, Bateman, who expresses his true self by torture and
murder, prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could
bear to confront.
Buddhism
Plain and Simple. Steve Hagen The observations and insights of the Buddha are practical
and eminently down-to-earth, dealing exclusively with awareness
in the here and now. Buddhism Plain and Simple offers
readers these fundamental teachings, stripped of the cultural
trappings that have accumulated around Buddhism over the past
twenty-five centuries. The newcomer will be inspired by the
clear, simple principles found in Buddhism Plain and Simple,
and those familiar with Buddhism will welcome this long-needed
overview.
Narcissus
Leaves the Pool: Familiar Essays. Joseph Epstein Joseph Epstein's sixth collection of personal pieces winningly
and brilliantly rounds off more than two decades of his writing
under the name Aristides for The American Scholar. "The
trick with these essays," he recently wrote, "is to
tale what seems a small or mildly amusing subject and open it
up, allow it to exfoliate, so that by the end something arises
that might be larger and more intricate than anyone - including
the author - had expected." Among the things that arise
here are naps, Gershwin, name-dropping, long books, growing
older, talent versus genius, Anglophilia, and surgery. These
are essays about the head and the heart.
One
Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber Ken Wilber As one who has written extensively about the interior life,
meditation, and psychotherapy, Ken Wilber naturally arouses
the curiosity of his readers. People wonder about his meditation
practice, his schedule of reading and writing, and assorted
details of his personal life. In response to this curiosity,
this diary of a year in the life of Ken Wilber offers an unprecedented
entree into his private world - as well as a further exploration
into his essential thought on the perennial philosophy.
A
Brief History of Everything. Ken Wilber A Brief History of Everything is an altogether friendly
and accessible account of men and women's place in a universe
of sex, soul, and spirit, written by an author of whom New
York Times reporter Tony Schwartz says: "No one has
described the path to wisdom better than Ken Wilber."
Wilber offers
a series of striking and original views on many topics of current
interest and controversy, including the gender wars, modern
liberation movements, multiculturalism, ecology and environmental
ethics, and the conflict between this-worldly and otherworldly
approaches to spirituality. The result is an extraordinary
and exhilarating ride through the Kosmos in the company of one
of the great thinkers of our time.
Arrogant
Capital. Kevin Phillips Washington - mired in bureaucracy, captured by the money
power of Wall Street, and dominated by 90,000 lobbyists, 60,000
lawyers, and the largest concentration of special interests
the world has ever seen - has become the albatross that our
Founding Fathers feared: a swollen capital city feeding off
the country is should be governing. Using history as
a chilling warning, Kevin Phillips compared the paralysis in
today's Washington to that of formerly mighty and arrogant capitals
like Rome and Madrid. Unchecked, Washington will - like
other great powers before it - lead the country to its inevitable
decline and fall.
The
Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art
of Livin'. Bill Zehme
Masterfully assembled within are the most personal details and
gorgeous minutiae of how the role of Frank Sinatra was played
in everyday life ... Matters of the heart and heartbreak, coolness
and swank, friendship and leadership, drinking and cavorting,
brawling and wooing, tuxedos and snap-brims, talking the lingo
and ring-a-ding-dinging -- here is a stunning exploration of
the Sinatra mystique.
He ruled the world on his own terms, inspiring other mortals
to ponder their own lives and wonder, What would Frank do?
The answers are here at last. Capturing the timeless romance
and classic style of the fifties and sixties, when Sinatra was
at the peak of his heroic powers, The Way You Wear Your Hat
is a fresh, insightful look at the man and the way he swaggered.
Class:
A Guide Through the American Status System. Paul Fussell
In Class Paul Fussell explodes the sacred American myth
of social equality with eagle-eyed irreverence and iconoclastic
wit. This best-selling, superbly researched, exquisitely observed
guide to the signs, symbols, and customs of the American class
system is always outrageously on the mark as Fussell shows us
how our status is revealed by everything we do, say, and own.
He describes the houses, objects, artifacts, speech, clothing
styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from
the top to the bottom and everybody -- you'll surely recognize
yourself -- in between. Class is guaranteed to amuse
and infuriate, whether your class is so high it's out of sight
(literally) or you are, alas, a sinking victim of prole drift.
The
Good Life and its Discontents. Robert J. Samuelson This is the story of the postwar American Dream. I call
our era -- from the end of the Second World War until now --
the age of entitlement. By entitlement, I mean the set of popular
expectations that arose about the kind of nation we were creating
and what that meant for all of us individually.
We had a grand vision. We didn't merely expect things to get
better. We expected all social problems to be solved. We expected
business cycles, economic insecurity, poverty, and racism to
end. We expected almost limitless personal freedom and self-fulfillment.
For those who couldn't live life to its fullest (as a result
of old age, disability, or bad luck), we expected a generous
social safety net to guarantee decent lives. We blurred the
distinction between progress and perfection.
Up to a point, we made progress on all fronts. But of course,
we did not fully attain any of our goals, because they all required
perfection. Our most expansive hopes were ultimately unrealistic.
We transformed the American Dream into the American Fantasy.
How this happened is the subject of this book.
Amusing
Ourselves to Death. Neil Postman
Television has conditioned us to tolerate visually entertaining
material measured out in spoonfuls of time, to the detriment
of rational public discourse and reasoned public affairs. In
this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the
real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers
compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught.
Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism
to the show-business demands of the television age, we must
recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the
ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve our highest goals.
