Best of
Social
2022
Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life
Roxie Nafousi - 2022
. .AS SEEN ON THIS MORNING'The face of manifesting in Britain' THE TIMES'A roadmap for a more positive way of life' FINANCIAL TIMES________Written by self-development coach and 'Queen of Manifesting' Roxie Nafousi, this book is the essential guide to anyone and everyone wanting to feel more empowered in their lives. In just seven simple steps you can understand the true art of manifestation and create the life you have always dreamed of.Whether you want to attract your soulmate, land the perfect job, buy the home you have always wanted, or simply find more inner-peace and confidence, Manifest will teach you exactly how to get there . . .1. Be clear in your vision2. Remove fear and doubt3. Align your behaviour4. Overcome tests from the universe5. Embrace gratitude without caveats6. Turn envy into inspiration7. Trust in the universeA meeting of science and wisdom, manifesting is a philosophy and a self-development practice to help you reach for your goals, cultivate self-love and live your best life.Unlock the magic for yourself and begin your journey to turning your dreams into reality.
On Connection: 'Powerful' MATT HAIG
Kae Tempest - 2022
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'An authentically soothing, powerful, thought-provoker.'MATT HAIG'On Connection is medicine for these wounded times.'MAX PORTER'On Connection came to me when I needed it most, and reminded me that the links we have to places, people, words, ourselves, are what keep us alive.'CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMSThis is a book about connection. About how immersing ourselves in creativity can help us cultivate greater self-awareness and bring us closer to each other.Drawing on two decades of experience as a writer and performer, Kae Tempest champions the role of creativity - in whatever form we choose to practice it - as an act of love, helping us establish a deeper relationship to our true selves, and to others and the world we live in.Honest, hopeful and written with piercing clarity, On Connection is an inspiring personal meditation that will transform the way you see the world.'Persuasive and profound.'
OBSERVER
'Tempest's prose is crisp and thoughtful.'
NEW STATESMAN
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy
Symeon Brown - 2022
What if you could escape economic uncertainty by winning the internet's attention? What if you could turn the adoration of your social media followers into a lucrative livelihood?But as Symeon Brown explores in this searing exposé, the reality is much murkier. From IRL streamers in LA to Brazilian butt lifts, from sex workers on OnlyFans to fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes, these are the incredible stories that lurk behind the filtered selfies and gleaming smiles.Exposing the fraud, exploitation, bribery, and dishonesty at the core of the influencer model, Get Rich or Lie Trying asks if our digital rat race is costing us too much. Revealing a broken economy resembling a pyramid scheme, this incredible blend of reportage and analysis will captivate and horrify you in equal measure.
Seven Games: A Human History
Oliver Roeder - 2022
Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable.Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones.Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself.Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.
Still the Night Call
Joshua Senter - 2022
But just because he's quiet doesn't mean he's simple. In fact, Calem's internal voice eloquently leads us through his wondrous yet tortured past, his fears for the future of his beleaguered rural world, and his carefully laid plans to remedy the vicious Night Call that haunts his present. All he has to do is get through one last day on the farm, then he can free himself of being a straight, white, middle-aged man with nothing in his possession but a gun and a prayer. Through the eyes of Calem, STILL THE NIGHT CALL delves into the quickly diminishing world of Midwestern farmers whose livelihoods have become fodder for politicians and trade wars while their traditional values have become the subject of scorn and culture wars. The result is a struggling working class whose worth has been reduced to mirthless caricatures and economic dust, and who are desperately looking for hope anywhere they might find it.
How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain
Ryan North - 2022
Any supervillain is bound to have questions: What's the perfect location for a floating secret base? What zany heist will fund my immoral plans? How do I control the weather, destroy the internet, and never, ever die?In How to Take Over the World, bestselling author and award-winning comics writer Ryan North details a number of outlandish villainous schemes, drawing on known science and real-world technologies. Picking up where How to Invent Everything left off, his explanations are as fun and informative as they are completely absurd.As he instructs readers on how to take over the world, North also reveals how we can save it. This sly guide to some of the greatest challenges and existential threats facing humanity accessibly explores ways to mitigate climate change, improve human life spans, prevent cyberterrorism, and finally make Jurassic Park a reality.
The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology
Amy Webb - 2022
This fast-growing field—which uses computers to modify or rewrite genetic code—has created revolutionary, groundbreaking solutions such as the mRNA COVID vaccines, IVF, and lab-grown hamburger that tastes like the real thing. It gives us options to deal with existential threats: climate change, food insecurity, and access to fuel.But there are significant risks.Who should decide how to engineer living organisms? Whether engineered organisms should be planted, farmed, and released into the wild? Should there be limits to human enhancements? What cyber-biological risks are looming? Could a future biological war, using engineered organisms, cause a mass extinction event? Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel’s riveting examination of synthetic biology and the bioeconomy provide the background for thinking through the upcoming risks and moral dilemmas posed by redesigning life, as well as the vast opportunities waiting for us on the horizon.
How to Be Normal
Phil Christman - 2022
Essays include "How To Be a Man," "How To Be White," "How to Be Religious," "How To Be Married," "How To Be Midwestern," and more, including brilliant analyses of middlebrow culture, bad movies, Marc Fisher, and Christian fundamentalism. With exquisite attention to syntax and prose, Christman unites these essays by his radical openness to inquiry. In the hands of this probing, witty writer, even the most seemingly "normal" subjects blossom into explorations laced with curiosity and delight.A book that speaks to lovers of cultural criticism and gorgeous prose that engages with big ideas and small.
