Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft


Lyndall Gordon - 2005
    A brilliant, unconventional rebel vilified for her strikingly modern notions of education, family, work, and personal relationships, she nevertheless strongly influenced political philosophy in Europe and a newborn America. Now acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon mounts a spirited defense of this courageous woman whose reputation has suffered over the years by painting a full and vibrant portrait of an extraordinary historical figure who was generations ahead of her time.

Screw You Dolores


Sarah-Kate Lynch - 2014
    She started with great expectations by shopping for shoes in Paris, attempted to build her character by going solo, counted her friends on the fingers of both hands, remembered a dodgy handshake with Hugh Jackman, joined a laughing yoga group in Mumbai, drank too much rosé and ate too much salt.By the end of the year she was, much to her own surprise, in possession of a clean bill of health and the secret to happiness. No, not THE SECRET. That’s not even a secret anymore. Another one, which is also now no longer a secret because in the endearing, hilarious Screw You Dolores, she shares it with you.

Peace Is Every Breath: A Practice for Our Busy Lives


Thich Nhat Hanh - 2011
    His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.In this much-anticipated follow-up to his bestselling classic, Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh—one of the most revered spiritual leaders in the world today—offers an insightful guide to living a fuller life. In this deeply insightful meditation, the world-renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master, poet, scholar, and peace activist illuminates how each of us can incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. In the tradition of The Art of Happiness and Living Buddha, Living Christ, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Breath opens a pathway to greater spiritual fulfillment through its patient examination of how we live our lives.

Be More Pirate: Or How to Take On the World and Win


Sam Conniff - 2018
    Business Book of the Month" Financial Times"A Modern Life Bible" Shortlist MagazineA model for how to break the system and create radical change" The London Evening Standard- - - - Mischief, Purpose, PowerPirates didn’t just break the rules, they rewrote them. They didn't just reject society, they reinvented it. Pirates didn’t just challenge the status-quo, they changed everyf*ckingthing. Facing a self-interested establishment, a broken system, industrial-scale disruption and an uncertain future, pirates rebelled against an unfair world and change it for good. Now, you can follow in their footsteps.Be More Pirate unveils the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates, drawing parallels between the tactics and teachings of legends like Henry Morgan and Blackbeard with modern rebels, like Elon Musk, Malala and Banksy. With takeaway sections and a Featuring takeaway sections and a guide to build you own pirate code 2.0, Be More Pirate will show you how to leave your mark on the 21st century. Whatever your ambitions, ideas and challenges, Be More Pirate will revolutionize the way you live, think and work today, and tomorrow.[BACK INSIDE COVER PRINT]‘Be More Pirate feels so important as it looks to history to help us grip the future.’ Martha Lane-Fox, do you have a specific bio Martha would like us to use? ‘A refreshing, entertaining and inspiring perspective on work, leadership and why we do what we do ... it’s a call for a more radical rethink of where we’re going wrong, and where we’re going next.’ Bruce Daisley, Host of the Number 1 Business Podcast ‘Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat’

Run Like a Mother: How to Get Moving--and Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity


Dimity McDowell - 2010
    Of course, real achievement is a healthy mix of inspiration and perspiration, which is why the authors have grounded Run Like a Mother in a host of practical tips on shoes, training, racing, nutrition, and injuries, all designed to help women balance running with their professional and personal lives.

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World


Cal Newport - 2019
    Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world.In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction.Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.

The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get: An Entrepreneur's Memoir


Joe Ricketts - 2019
    Joe Ricketts always had the gift of seeing what others missed. The son of a house builder, he started life as a part-time janitor, but by the age of thirty-three he saw the chance to challenge the big brokerage firms by offering Americans an inexpensive way to take control of their own stock trading. Nowadays, we take for granted that Main Street is playing right there on Wall Street, but Ricketts made that happen. His company, begun with $12,500 borrowed from friends and family, took off like a rocket thanks to an early embrace of digital technology and irreverent marketing. But Ameritrade also faced a series of near-disasters: the SEC almost shut him down; his partners tried to force him out because of his relentless risk-taking; penny brokers swindled the company; the crash of 1989 nearly cost him everything; and he was almost shut down again when a customer committed massive fraud. By the time of the dot-com bust, he had proven that his strategy based on frontier values could survive just about anything. The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get offers a view inside Joe Ricketts’ mind, giving readers a visceral understanding of how entrepreneurs think and act differently from the rest of us—how they see the horizon where we just see a spreadsheet. As unvarnished as the prairie he comes from, Ricketts also talks honestly about his shortcomings as a manager, the career sacrifices his wife made for his business, the complexity of being a father, and the pain of splitting with his mentor and of his brother’s death from AIDS. Overcoming these and other challenges, he built a company now worth $30 billion. A must-read for anyone who’s ever dreamed of starting their own business, The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get is the ultimate only-in-America story.

Doing Busy Better: Enjoying God's Gifts of Work and Rest


Glynnis Whitwer - 2017
    When they are busy, they feel guilty for not playing with their kids or having a quiet time of prayer and Bible study. When they try to rest, they feel guilty because there's so much left to do. It's an endless cycle of overwork and exhaustion. Yet inside every woman's heart is a longing for true rest. It's there because God designed us that way--but it seems out of reach.Enough is enough. Our lives probably aren't going to get less busy, especially if we're in a demanding season of life, but we can do busy better. In this burden-lifting book, Glynnis Whitwer helps women examine their hearts and their schedules in order to seek a healthy and holy balance between--and enjoyment of--both work and rest. She shows readers how to prioritize their goals and their time, how to be present in the moment as Jesus was, and how to find the freedom of true soul rest. Most importantly, she shows women that their worth is found not in their accomplishments but in the love of the One who made them for work and for rest.

Help Me!: One Woman’s Quest to Find Out if Self-Help Really Can Change Her Life


Marianne Power - 2018
    For years she lined her bookshelves with dog-eared copies of definitive guide after definitive guide on how to live your best life. Yet one day she woke up to find that the life she dreamed of and the life she was living were not miles but continents apart. So she set out to make a change. Or, actually, to make every change.Marianne decided to finally find out if her elusive perfect life—the one without debt, anxiety, hangovers or Netflix marathons, the one where she healthily bounced around town with perfect teeth to meet the cashmere-sweater-wearing man of her dreams—lay in the pages of those books. So for a year she vowed to test a book a month, following its advice to the letter, taking the surest road she knew to a perfect Marianne.As her year-long plan turned into a demented roller coaster where everything she knew was turned upside down, she found herself confronted with a different question: Self-help can change your life, but is it for the better?

The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships


John M. Gottman - 2001
    . . . John Gottman has decoded the subtle secrets that can either enrich or destroy the quality of our ties with others.” Daniel B. Wile, Ph.D., author of After the Fight: Using Your Disagreements to Build a Stronger Relationship“John Gottman is our leading explorer of the inner world of relationships. In The Relationship Cure, he has found gold once again.”William J. Doherty, Ph.D., author of Take Back Your Marriage: Sticking Together in a World That Pulls Us Apart“When he says his five steps will help you build better connections with the people you care about, you know that they have been demonstrated to work.” E. Mavis Heatherington, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of VirginiaFrom the country’s foremost relationship expert and New York Times bestselling author Dr. John M. Gottman comes a powerful, simple five-step program, based on twenty years of innovative research, for greatly improving all of the relationships in your life—with spouses and lovers, children, siblings, and even your colleagues at work. In The Relationship Cure, Dr. Gottman:* Reveals the key elements of healthy relationships, emphasizing the importance of what he calls “emotional connection”* Introduces the powerful new concept of the emotional “bid,” the fundamental unit of emotional connection* Provides remarkably empowering tools for improving the way you bid for emotional connection and how you respond to others’ bids

Between Grit and Grace: The Art of Being Feminine and Formidable


Sasha K. Shillcutt - 2020
    Between Grit and Grace will show you that success comes when you are comfortable living in the space between grit and grace—grit meaning being resilient and taking charge of your life (socially-acceptable masculine attributes), and grace meaning showing others mercy (socially-acceptable feminine trait). Author Sasha Shillcutt, MD, a nationally lauded, award-winning physician and speaker, will explain how to give yourself permission to disappoint nice people (and know that you are still a nice person anyway). You’ll learn how to stop apologizing for showing your strength and grit, and embrace your grace, too. This is where personal peace lives. Dr. Shillcutt, taught herself how to be a gritty, grace-filled leader and live authentically. Now, she wants to help other women be brave enough to do the same. Her passion is empowering and encouraging women to be brave enough in their professional and personal lives. She believes women cannot be too brave, too kind, too strong, too smart, too funny, too beautiful, or too authentic. Using real-life stories—ranging from women in law and medicine to women in education—the book explains how women can be feminine and formidable. Leadership and lipstick are not mutually exclusive. You’ll realize you can be bossy and caring, fearless and vulnerable, relentless and forgiving, smart and humble—and make it to the top. Across the space of ten chapters, you’ll learn how to navigate the forces that have shaped the modern workplace while doing so with grit and grace. When a woman lives authentically—she succeeds.

A Monk's Guide to Happiness: Meditation in the 21st Century


Gelong Thubten - 2019
    Thubten, a Buddhist monk and meditation expert who has worked with everyone from school kids to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Benedict Cumberbatch, explains how meditation and mindfulness can create a direct path to happiness.A Monk’s Guide to Happiness explores the nature of happiness and helps bust the myth that our lives and minds are too busy for meditation. The book can show you how to:- Learn practical methods to help you choose happiness- Develop greater compassion for yourself and others- Learn to meditate in micro-moments during a busy day- Discover that you are naturally ‘hard-wired’ for happinessReading A Monk’s Guide to Happiness could revolutionize your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, and help you create a life of true happiness and contentment.

Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days


James Wallman - 2019
    I couldn't put it down, I read it from cover to cover'CHRIS EVANSIf the most precious thing we have is time, the most highly prized expertise should be knowing how to spend it well. Yet, busier than ever, do we really understand which experiences bring us joy and success, and which don’t?After all, we’ve learned how to spot the difference between junk foods and superfoods. When you discover the equivalent rules for time, it’ll change how you live your life.In his first book since the era-defining Stuffocation, cultural commentator and bestselling author James Wallman investigates the persistent problem of wasted, unfulfilling time, and finds a powerful answer — a revolutionary approach to life based on the latest scientific discoveries. At its heart is the inspiring revelation that, when you play by the new rules, you can actively choose better experiences.Bursting with original stories, fresh takes on tales you thought you knew, and insights from psychology, economics, and culture, Time and How to Spend It reveals a seven-point checklist that’ll help you avoid empty experiences, and fill your free hours with exciting and enriching ones instead.This life-enhancing book will show you how to be the hero or heroine of your own story. You’ll learn how to avoid WMDs (weapons of mass distraction), and discover the roads that lead to flow. You’ll get more out of every minute and every day; your weekends will fizz and your holidays will be deeply nourishing. You’ll not only be living the good life, but building a truly great life.

Beginning Your Love Revolution


Matt Kahn - 2016
    Sharing some of the foundational teachings from his life-changing book, Whatever Arises, Love That, Kahn explores: • Why all beings at all times are worthy of love • How to acknowledge and honor your true innocent nature—your connection to the wholeness and perfection of the universe • Learning to lean into self-acceptance one “I love you” at a time • Healing mantras for inviting love into your heart “This will be an adventure that leads you directly into the depths of your being to the support you’ve always deserved,” teaches Matt Kahn. Join him to discover a spiritual paradigm that is nothing short of revolutionary. Continue your love revolution with Matt Kahn’s book, Whatever Arises, Love That.

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter


Liz Wiseman - 2010
    The first type drain intelligence, energy, and capability from the ones around them and always need to be the smartest ones in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, lightbulbs go off over people's heads, ideas flow, and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now, when leaders are expected to do more with less. In this engaging and highly practical book, leadership expert Liz Wiseman and management consultant Greg McKeown explore these two leadership styles, persuasively showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. In analyzing data from more than 150 leaders, Wiseman and McKeown have identified five disciplines that distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers. These five disciplines are not based on innate talent; indeed, they are skills and practices that everyone can learn to use, even lifelong and recalcitrant Diminishers. Lively, real-world case studies and practical tips and techniques bring to life each of these principles, showing you how to become a Multiplier too, whether you are a new or an experienced manager. Just imagine what you could accomplish if you could harness all the energy and intelligence around you. Multipliers will show you how.