Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing) 

by Salman Khan

The world of education is going to be one of the areas that is massively transformed for the better by AI. Sal shares with us the innovative approaches that can help us get there.

Discourses of the Elders: The Aztec Huehuetlatolli A First English Translation

by Sebastian Purcell

Discourse of the Elders is the first English translation of a Huehuetlatolli—a series of discourses, written in Nahuatl, a Uto-Aztecan language predominantly spoken by peoples of central Mexico, from an older person to a young person. This fascinating translation teaches the Nahuatl notion of “rootedness,” and encourages an appreciation for the beauty that exists in the simple, often overlooked, details of our everyday lives. There is much practical wisdom in these pages to help navigate this “slick and slippery” Earth, and this book also provides an interesting and accessible introduction to Nahuatl philosophy.

HEARTS ABLAZE: A Fire in the Mountains

by Joe Carvalko

Fires have ravaged so much of our lands and disrupted so many lives in recent years. Here is a compendium of reflections about recent fires that burned 300,000 acres in New Mexico. Carvalko, whose father-in-law owns pastureland in the region, takes us on a personal journey, presenting a message of hope and survival for the peoples and pastures who have been on this land over the last 500 years. We learn about the importance of community, and the spirit that never tires of rebuilding.

The Broken Script: Delhi Under the East India Company and the Fall of the Mughal Dynasty 1803-1857 

by Swapna Liddle

There are a lot of works focused on the 1857 uprising of Indian soldiers against the British East India Company and its aftermath, which continues to reverberate across South Asia. Written in precise, unromantic prose, The Broken Script describes the half-century of humiliation and harassment that preceded the uprising. It is a tale of petty ambition, thwarted princes, spies, and a culture ripped apart before it could be re-molded.

Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe

by Philip Plait

If your summer travel, like mine, is more of the armchair variety, why not go interstellar with this vividly imagined tour of various sites in the universe, from the moon to Pluto and beyond to newly discovered exoplanets? This fascinating and funny narrative was thoroughly transporting.

New Capitals: Building Cities From Scratch

by Nick Hannes

We’ve entered yet another historical era in which states seek to demonstrate their power and values—for domestic and international audiences—through the construction of new cities and capitals. Nick Hannes’ photos and Dorina Pojani’s accompanying essay capture these experiments in urbanism and geopolitics.

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom

by Ilyon Woo

This page-turner tells the true story of a young couple’s gender-bending escape to freedom during the height of the American slave empire. Ilyon Woo reaches back across time and expertly recreates all the drama and intimacy of Ellen and William’s daring flight northward. But more than that, she paints a sweeping portrait of a country divided over slavery, and of the everyday indignities and violence inflicted on Black people—and their persistent efforts to resist and to liberate themselves.

At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China 

by Edward Wong

Edward—a colleague of mine at the Times—weaves together his father’s history in the Red Army, his own experience covering China as a journalist, and the rise of Xi Jinping into a gripping summer narrative. The emergence of China as an explicit adversary of the United States and Xi’s ideological turn against capitalism surprised Washington. But not Edward, who takes the reader along on his own journey to trace his father’s history and understand how current-day China is changing. Bringing memoir and political analysis together is a tough challenge, but Edward does it well and I was left feeling much smarter about China—America’s most difficult foreign policy challenge.

Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones

by Elizabeth Winder

Parachute Women celebrates the unsung heroines behind 1960s male rock legends—specifically the Rolling Stones. It’s thrilling to learn how Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithful, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger provided entrées into social worlds the Stones were desperate to infiltrate. They also greatly influenced the Stones’ artistic, intellectual, and fashion evolutions. Unsurprisingly, the women were rarely credited for their contributions, often dismissed and demonized for indulging in the rock star life of their male counterparts. Parachute Women gives them their due—right down to acknowledging that before Pallenberg came along, “Keith Richards and Brian Jones still wore pants bought by their mothers.”

The Poet and the Silk Girl: A Memoir of Love, Imprisonment, and Protest

by Satsuki Ina

One of the most compelling accounts of the forced removal, unjust incarceration, and family separation experienced by the Japanese American community during WWII. Born in an American concentration camp, Satsuki Ina weaves her own experiences into conversation with her parents’ wartime letters and father’s haiku poetry from behind barbed wire to show how family history is a part of the very fabric of the struggle to belong in America. Brilliantly reveals how the past, present, and future are interlinked.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir 

by Marcus Samuelsson with Veronica Chambers

Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson’s journey to become one of the greatest chefs of all time. It’s an unforgettable story of food, family, and love that takes us from Marcus’ native Ethiopia to Sweden to America and beyond.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie’s Knife, which I recently finished, is a powerful meditation on survival and resilience from one of our best living writers. I’ve been reading Mr. Rushdie for many years and have only gained more respect for him through the way he writes about trauma and violence in this book. Amazing.

The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

by Pico Iyer

This book moved me because it strives to see beyond immediate conflicts and seeks underlying human connections. The message mirrors my work advocating for the inherent right to education for all children and my belief in the power of education to bridge divides and foster understanding. Iyer’s book doesn’t necessarily provide a definition of paradise but helps us recognize that there will always be hope if we acknowledge our shared humanity. By exploring how different cultures and religions envision paradise amidst turmoil, Iyer underscores the importance of empathy and the interconnectedness of all human experiences.

Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora

by Sarah Ladipo Manyika

This book of conversations with prominent people in the African diaspora is a moving and insightful view into the similarities and differences among people of African descent. The author’s skillfully crafted interviews give a candid and unique window into the challenges and triumphs of people whose inner lives and thoughts have not always been available to the public. At a time when the world is still grappling with anti-Blackness, this is a much-needed human dialogue.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

by David Grann

The title says it all—shipwreck, mutiny, and murder. What’s not to like? There are so many great details and anecdotes in this book that I’ll be dining out on them for a long time.

Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments

by D. Watkins

Books by D. Watkins were essential reading in my efforts to explore and understand Baltimore. His latest, the memoir Black Boy Smile, should be required reading for fathers, sons, and anyone on a journey of self-reflection and self-improvement. It’s raw and honest—an inspirational story of resilience that you won’t be able to put down.

Finding Me: A Memoir

by Viola Davis

It’s a story of how one of my favorite actresses overcame racism, sexism, and a childhood of poverty with resiliency and a hefty dosage of badassness. It touched me in all the ways a good book should by using storytelling to grab both my heart and mind.

But here’s a tip—don’t read it. Listen to it. What a treat it is listening to Viola tell her own story.

Time Is a Mother

by Ocean Vuong

This collection of poems is many things all at once: a eulogy, a joyous dance, and a soft pastel. Vuong’s ability to bend and reveal new meanings in words is unmatched. I can only read a few pages at a time before I’m exhausted with joy and the weight of a range of emotions.

The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

by Pico Iyer

The veteran travel writer, here as a secular seeker, journeys to troubled but fabled paradisiacal destinations—Varanasi, Kashmir, Qom, Jerusalem, Mount Baldy, and others—looking for spiritual transcendence. A global soul and a beautiful writer, Iyer asks where one can find transcendence in a world of suffering and difficulty.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

by Claire Dederer

Born out of her 2017 Paris Review essay, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?,” Dederer is back with a remarkable book that asks this question as an audience member, as a fan, and even as the young woman who identified with these profoundly talented male artists. What is our role as readers, moviegoers, artists, and women at this moment in our culture, where biography is everything and everywhere? Dederer makes the digging, the questioning, the articulation of contradictions and complexities between artist and audience so engaging, so lively, it’s a conversation that you definitely want to get in on.

City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

by Susan Hartman

I am in love with the city of Utica, New York. Like many Rust Belt cities, Utica lost population through deindustrialization and an exodus to the Sun Belt. But Utica has been utterly transformed by waves of refugees, from Vietnam, Bosnia, Myanmar, and now Somalia—the city is 25% refugee (compared to less than 1% of Americans nationwide). City of Refugees is the story of three families and their struggles and triumphs: three different versions of the American dream, and one complex but inspiring narrative of a city transformed by welcoming help from around the globe.

Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing

by Tris Dixon

Damage is the most accessible read that provides a history of the pain and punishment side of boxing. We know about the NFL and concussive head trauma, but in boxing, concussion is also a very, very serious problem.

Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”

by Héctor Tobar

Latinos exist in our collective imagination largely as caricatures: maids and gardeners; self-sacrificing parents; a brown mob surging across the border; perpetual immigrants. It takes a writer of significant talent to tell a narrative so bright and beautiful that it breaks through these flattened depictions. Tobar’s cuentos get at the vibrant diversity, the joy, the pain, the richness, and the sorrow of being Latino in the U.S., as well as the limits of belonging.

Asian American Histories of the United States

by Catherine Ceniza Choy

This book will change the way you see. It delves into anti-Asian hate, resistance movements, and erasure with urgency and insight. Asian American Histories of the United States is an expansive and revelatory book that I wish every American would read.

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell

A book that tries to make some sense of why people believe some crazy things. Montell focuses on the language element of all sorts of cultish behavior, from people’s love of CrossFit and Lululemon to creepy sex cults. This book gives me some hope that critical thinking might enter the conversation by a side door!

Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters

by Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp

Roberts and Lamp do a great job of summarizing different narratives associated with globalization without taking a position on the legitimacy of any particular approach. In our hyper-polarized world, it is refreshing to read something balanced, and also pertinent to our current reset with China.

My Heart Is Bound Up with Them: How Carlos Montezuma Became the Voice of a Generation

by David Martínez

Arizona State University professor David Martínez (Akimel O’odham) uses letters from the university’s Carlos Montezuma Special Collection to reconstruct the story of Wassaja, a Yavapai boy who was abducted by Pima Scouts and sold in 1871, at the age of 5. Renamed Carlos Montezuma and taken away from Arizona, Montezuma became the first Native American student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the second Native American to earn a medical degree at Chicago Medical College. Witnessing great injustice while working as a reservation physician, Dr. Montezuma became an advocate for the rights of sovereign native nations and a critic of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the damage the reservation system did to the lives and cultural heritage of the Indigenous of the continent. Professor Martínez brings the full force of his academic training, critical thinking, and Native ways of knowing to the project, crafting a biography that is as fascinating as it is historically accurate.

Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

by Howard W. French

Born in Blackness is an amazing look at Africa and the Black diaspora, with colonialism as the protagonist. French, a friend and former colleague at the New York Times, knows his stuff and his book offers readers a very different narrative than what readers might be accustomed to regarding Africa and Black people.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know

by Adam Grant

Think Again, which I have now purchased for my team at work, provides compelling stories and data about the power of changing one’s mind and being open to revisiting prior assumptions. Grant’s tone and humor, balanced by sound research, invite the reader to rethink and unlearn—skills that are critical to remaining adaptive, curious, and humble amid the chaos of the modern chatter of rigidly held beliefs. A great guide for thinking and living.

Take Back Your Mind: Buddhist Advice for Anxious Times

by Lodro Rinzler

This is the fourth book by my meditation teacher, who writes about concepts of love, surrender, and service in ways that are accessible and actionable. These last few years have produced stress and anxiety brought on by attempts to navigate the pandemic and to persevere toward greater social justice. This book was exceptionally helpful in reminding me of the false “trap of doubt,” which prevents me from tending to my own basic goodness, letting go of causes beyond my control and moving forward with open-heartedness and compassion.

A Promised Land

by President Obama

If you have not yet read A Promised Land, do so immediately. More than just learning about the life of our former president, you’ll find yourself thinking over questions about morality, our political system, and the future of the American Dream.

Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.)

by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas

I highly recommend Humor, Seriously to anyone who cares about human behavior, leadership, or enjoying life as a human. The 2021 book, by Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker and stand-up comedian Naomi Bagdonas, chronicles all the ways in which levity (in many forms) makes people more creative, more productive, more likeable, and more respected. The best part is that the book itself is actually laugh-out-loud funny. It walks the walk, citing good research and providing practical tips—without ever taking itself too seriously.

Cosmogony: Stories

by Lucy Ives

Through idiosyncratic scenes, dry wit, time travel, and keen observations, Ives’ work reveals that some of our friends do indeed date demons, that superficial ideals of professionalism and the dialogue therein shape so much of daily life. Jump into the world of Lucy Ives and discover a place where society reveals itself as the business casual freak show it truly is.

Social Justice Parenting: How to Raise Compassionate, Anti-Racist, Justice-Minded Kids in an Unjust World

by Dr. Traci Baxley

In Social Justice Parenting, Dr. Baxley suggests something that resonated with me—that parenting is a form of activism. Many of us who have influence in raising kids are actively committed to social change and are on our own personal journey toward antiracism. This book encouraged me to take a fresh look at my responsibility as a parent. It offers a guide to doing this work with family, to nurture a better future for and by our kids.

Essential Labor: Mothering for Social Change

by Angela Garbes

Angela Garbes has given us the definitive explanation for something we all share: the sense that something is not right about our society’s treatment of parenting. Garbes shows us what’s broken about the exploitation of care and reveals how what’s essential about mothering can fix not just family life, but society.

The Trayvon Generation

by Elizabeth Alexander

In this collection of lyrical essays, poet Elizabeth Alexander, who spoke to and for the nation as inaugural poet in 2009, turns her attention to the “American nightmare of racism and racist violence.” Examining Confederate monuments, poems, history textbooks, visual art, and music videos with equal care and attention, Alexander moves toward the universal through the particular. A portion of a painting or a teenager’s exuberant dance might lead to explorations of white supremacy, or to meditations on Black resilience and Black joy. As beautiful as it is heartbreaking, The Trayvon Generation strikes me as the kind of book only a poet could write.

The Rightful Place of Science: Infrastructure in the Anthropocene

by Mikhail Chester and Braden Allenby

This book offers a fresh perspective on how game-changing practitioners should think about the future of the built environment. Chester and Allenby show how the design of sustainable, resilient, and timeless infrastructure can manifest in transformative societal benefits and outcomes. Get ready!

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket

by Hilma Wolitzer

This new collection of short stories by Hilma Wolitzer, mother of author Meg Wolitzer, features more than a dozen stories, most of which were initially published in the 1960s and 1970s in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire. In them, Wolitzer shares wry observations of domestic life in pre-Roe America that simultaneously reveal another era and resonate today. The collection includes more recent stories by Wolitzer, too, like the “The Great Escape,” which places readers in NYC in the early months of the pandemic, reintroducing us, with great affection, to characters from earlier stories, now in their 90s like the author herself.

The Mountbattens: The Lives and Loves of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten

by Andrew Lownie

The Mountbattens is an interesting look into the ultimate power couple of the last century, who had a marriage in “other people’s beds” (a quote by Mountbatten himself). While this is not a heavy read, it is a perfect airplane or beach book for anyone who is a bit of an Anglophile, offering a peek inside the machinations of the royal family and insight into some of the most significant events of the Second World War and its consequences—which are still very much with us today.

THE PRECIPICE: EXISTENTIAL RISK AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY

by TOBY ORD

Before 2020, few Americans realized that a global pandemic could upend our lives and world so quickly. The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the urgent need for disaster prevention and investments in resilience, especially for our most vulnerable communities. The Precipice is a timely and thoughtful look at major risks we face today, set in the context of humanity’s astounding progress over the last 2,000 years. It is a sobering topic, but leaves the reader hopeful that we are capable of exceptional things. I’m confident that if we work together to rebalance our priorities, we can equip ourselves to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

CRUELTY AS CITIZENSHIP: HOW MIGRANT SUFFERING SUSTAINS WHITE DEMOCRACY

by CRISTINA BELTRÁN

Before I dove into this book, I had a chance to hear the author speak about her research, and the ways in which she linked democracy, race, and the pleasures of cruelty convinced me that I needed to read this book right away. I did. A short text, Cruelty as Citizenship contextualizes contemporary xenophobia in historical terms, including the lynchings of Mexican Americans, and argues that democracy in the U.S. is based on white people having a right to perpetuate violence against people of color. It’s a devastating and critical read. 

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE: L.A. IN THE SIXTIES

by MIKE DAVIS AND JON WIENER

L.A. is fantasyland and quickly makes myth of everything, including its own history. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener’s encyclopedic history of L.A. in the ’60s opened my eyes to how thoroughly fabulized my own understanding of this fractious decade has been. Davis and Wiener also showed me that L.A. is a time machine. It’s where the future is born. The core conflicts around race and class and out-group demands for rights and opportunity that set L.A. on fire in the 1960s are the very same ones that are convulsing the country as a whole today. Back to the future indeed. 

HIS VERY BEST: JIMMY CARTER, A LIFE

by JONATHAN ALTER

As a student (and practitioner) of leadership, I read His Very Best so I could learn from President Carter’s life accomplishments and lessons. He was an imperfect person and politician and, unfortunately, the hostage crisis in Iran and an energy crisis at home defined his presidency in a negative way for many Americans. However, his disciplined, compassionate (rooted in his strong religious beliefs), and innovative leadership focus led to more peaceful relationships between the U.S. and other countries (especially in the Middle East). And his progressive ideas led to powerful legacies such as the U.S. Department of Education and the now-critical solar energy sector. Carter’s long post-presidential life has, in many respects, been a model for how to dedicate one’s unique leadership experiences to advance the greater good throughout the world.

JUST AS I AM: A MEMOIR

by CICELY TYSON

Cicely Tyson personifies Black Girl Magic. The Academy-, Tony-, and three-time Emmy Award-winning actor and trailblazer, known for her work in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Woman Called Moses, and Roots, reflects on her life and career spanning more than seven decades, transforming from the church girl who once rarely spoke a word to one of the most prolific actresses of the century. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about this icon.

CHILDREN OF THE LAND: A MEMOIR

by MARCELO HERNANDEZ CASTILLO

In lyrical, introspective prose, this memoir by poet, activist, and DACA recipient Marcelo Hernandez Castillo shows us America from the perspective of undocumented immigrants and their kin—people who experience the border not just as a physical barrier, but as a deeply embodied technique of psychological domination. The hyper-visible border contrasts with the invisibility and constant vigilance it imposes on the author’s family: its function is “to be carried in the imaginations of migrants deep into the interior of the country, in the interior of their minds.” In addition to chronicling the author’s long-term struggles to navigate immigration policies that divide his family and his psyche, Children of the Land evokes the beauty of landscapes on both sides of the border in which Hernandez Castillo can never feel fully present.

I’M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM: AN ASIAN AMERICAN WOMAN’S POLITICAL JOURNEY

by MAELEY TOM

As an Asian American woman in government and politics, we don’t often get to read stories of people who look like us. Tom’s story is beautiful and encompasses a life of resilience, strength, and powerful lessons we can all apply in our own lives and professional careers. I hope more people read about her journey—she’s a trailblazer not just for Asian Americans but for all women wanting to break glass ceilings. 

BALLAD OF THE BULLET: GANGS, DRILL MUSIC, AND THE POWER OF ONLINE INFAMY

by FORREST STUART

Based on three years of in-depth research on Chicago gangs, Ballad of the Bullet tells the story of how poor urban youth in Chicago use social media to profit from portrayals of gang violence, and the questions this raises about poverty, opportunities, and public voyeurism.

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: A GRAPHIC NOVEL HISTORY

by DAVID F. WALKER
ILLUSTRATED by MARCUS KWAME ANDERSON

The Black Panther Party has always been controversial, but here is a chance to get a more nuanced account of their impact. Did you know they had a free breakfast program for children? Did you know they had a free medical clinic? Did you know the FBI targeted them? In this graphic novel, readers see the power of young people envisioning a different world. Sure, this story is complicated, with heaps of ego, hubris, competition, force, and brutality. But this book is about love, too. It is about how a group of young men and women wanted a better life for Black people and did everything within their power to get it. This book is also a parable for how to do that work better today. If you want a fuller story about this often-maligned group, this is your book. Get it!

THE SUM OF US: WHAT RACISM COSTS EVERYONE AND HOW WE CAN PROSPER TOGETHER

by HEATHER MCGHEE

My favorite book of the year shows how racism costs EVERYONE and offers some solutions for all of us!

LAST CHANCE TEXACO: CHRONICLES OF AN AMERICAN TROUBADOUR

by RICKIE LEE JONES

If there ever was a memoir about someone down to her last strike with two outs in the ninth who used that last swing to change her life forever, then this is it. Along with her former soulmate Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones is among Los Angeles’ foremost troubadours, and she tells her life story with the kind of gusto for detail that makes her songs stand out. For anyone feeling like they drew the short end of life’s stick, this memoir shows how it’s possible to hit a grand slam with the butt end.

THE MONOCLE BOOK OF GENTLE LIVING: A GUIDE TO SLOWING DOWN, ENJOYING MORE AND BEING HAPPY

This book feels more like a magazine, which isn’t a surprise as it’s from the publishers of Monocle magazine. The last year has been quite stressful for many of us, and this encourages us to slow down and be happy. I liked the little practical tips around just living life and the nudge to try new things. The book has little essays and you can flip between the sections that interest you the most. “Get lost” was one of my favorites.