The Imagination Muscle By Albert Read

Credit: The Imagination Muscle

Overview

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Albert Read reveals how we can harness the imagination in our day-to-day lives and why, in the new age of technology, it is more pressing than ever that we do so. He explores where to find ideas, how to foster skills in observation and connection, and how to be more attentive to the fluxes of our own minds. After all, as Read expertly outlines, the imagination is our supreme gift, our biggest opportunity, our greatest source of fulfillment and our most vital asset for the future. The book is illustrated throughout with approximately 60 images. Read more here. Credit: Hachette Book Group; The Imagination Muscle. 

Curiosity Redefines the Limits

Credit: Curiosity Redefines the Limits

Overview 

In Curiosity Redefines the Limits, business leader and innovator Rod Adkins delivers a compelling roadmap for turning life’s questions into fuel for growth, leadership, and impact. From his early days as a precocious child in Miami to the executive ranks of IBM and influential roles on global boards, Rod’s journey proves that curiosity isn’t just a trait—it’s a strategy. This insightful book combines personal storytelling with actionable insights to help readers harness curiosity in every chapter of life. Whether you’re facing career decisions, navigating adversity, or redefining what success means to you, Curiosity Redefines the Limits will inspire you to ask better questions, stay open to learning, and lead with purpose. Credit: Amazon; Rodney Adkins.

No One Succeeds Alone

 

Credit: No One Succeeds Alone

Overview

No one expected a dreadlocked fifteen-year-old who cared more about his DJ business than his homework to grow up to become one of the youngest-ever White House fellows, create multiple nonprofits, and found a multibillion-dollar company. But Robert Reffkin, raised by an Israeli immigrant single mother, disowned by his maternal grandparents for being Black, and abandoned by his father, has always defied the odds. Read more here. Credit: Robert Reffkin.

Agatha Christie By Nancy West

 

Credit: Agatha Christie

Overview

Inside, you’ll get an intimate glimpse into the life, mind, and works of the Mother of the Cozy Mystery. Featuring quotes about (and from) the literary genius and excerpts from her suspenseful stories, this beautifully crafted literary biography is a celebration of Christie’s literary brilliance and timeless creations. With each page, you’ll learn all there is to know about the bestselling novelist of all time, from her early years to her lasting impact on pop culture. Whether you’re a longtime admirer of Christie or just beginning your literary adventure, uncover the unexpected mysteries behind the “Queen of Crime” with Agatha Christie! Credit: Simon & Schuster; Nancy West.

The Courage To Be Disliked

Credit: The Courage to Be Disliked

Overview

The New York Times bestselling TikTok sensation with more than 13 million copies sold worldwide, The Courage to Be Disliked is a transformative and practical guide to personal happiness and self-fulfillment.

Now you can unlock your full potential and free yourself from the shackles of past traumas and societal expectations to find true personal happiness. Based on the theories of renowned psychologist Alfred Adler, this book guides you through the principles of self-forgiveness, self-care, and mind decluttering in a straightforward, easy-to-digest style that’s accessible to all. 

The Courage to Be Disliked unfolds as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, who, over the course of five enriching conversations, realizes that each of us is in control of our life’s direction, independent of past burdens and expectations of others. Read more here. Credit: Simon and Schuster.

Focal Point By Brian Tracy

 

Credit: Focal Point By Brian Tracy

Overview

The true secret of high achievers is that they know how to find their "focal point," the one thing they should do, at any given moment, to get the best possible results in each area of their lives. 

Bestselling author and motivational speaker Brian Tracy brings together the very best ideas on personal management into a simple, easy-to-use plan. Focal Point helps readers analyze their lives in seven key areas and shows them how to develop focused goals and plans in each.

This best-selling guide provides timeless truths that have been discovered by the most effective people throughout the ages, answering questions like:

In Focal Point, Tracy provides timeless truths that answers questions such as:

- How can I get control of my time and my life?

- How can I achieve maximum career success and still balance my personal life?

- How can I accelerate the achievement of all my goals?

Focal Point shows you how to develop absolute clarity about what they want, and how they can achieve supreme satisfaction, both personally and professionally.

Credit: Focal Point; Brian Tracy International.

Suicidal Empathy By Gad Saad

Credit: Suicidal Empathy; Gad Saad

Overview

What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique of maladaptively irrational altruism that has gripped our culture. This mind parasite hijacked the empathy module of our progressive elite, leading to a catastrophic miscalibration of moral priorities. The results are everywhere: from coddling violent criminals to protecting rapists to branding self-defense as toxic behavior. We are witnessing a civilization in rapid decline. Lunatic policies are instituted because we prioritize the feelings of ostensibly marginalized groups over The Truth, criminals over victims, and squatters over homeowners. This is not humane; it’s an active dismantling of the pillars that keep us safe and free. Credit: Suicidal Empathy; Gad Saad.

P.S. Perfect timing for this book's arrival! This aligns with the few Sasha Talks topics addressed in the recent years. #foodforthought  #growth  #society  #realitycheck

Fierce Conversations By Susan Scott

Credit: Fierce Conversations

 Overview

The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott wants you to succeed. To do that, she explains, you must transform everyday conversations at work and at home with effective ways to get your message across and get what you want. In this guide, which includes a workbook and The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations, Scott teaches you how to: 

* Overcome barriers to meaningful communication

* Expand and enrich relationships with colleagues, friends, and family

* Increase clarity and improve understanding

* Handle strong emotions on both sides of the table

* Connect with colleagues, customers and family at a deep level

Credit: Fierce Conversations; Fierce Inc.

Lying By Sam Harris

 

Credit: Sam Harris

Overview

Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption—even murder and genocide—generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. He focuses on “white” lies—those lies we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfort—for these are the lies that most often tempt us. And they tend to be the only lies that good people tell while imagining that they are being good in the process. Credit: Lying; Sam Harris.

Enter Talking By Joan Rivers

 

Credit: Enter Talking,
By Joan Rivers; Richard Meryman

Overview

Joan Rivers describes her bitter and bizarre rise to stardom, from her earliest memories that she belonged onstage, through her independent struggle in Manhattan, to the evolution of her one-person show and the winning of public and critical acclaim. Credit: Enter Talking; Abe Books.

First Things First

 

Credit: First Things First

Overview

Time management tips: Stephen R. Covey's First Things First is the gold standard for time management books. His principle-centered approach for prioritizing gives you time management tips that enable you to make changes and sacrifices needed in order to obtain happiness, and retain a feeling of security. First Things First: The Interactive Edition takes Dr. Covey's philosophy and remasters the entire text to include: videos, infographics, analysis and more. Credit: Stephen R. Covey; First Things First.

You with the Sad Eyes By Christina Applegate

 

Credit: You with the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate

Overview

Actor-producer Christina Applegate has been onscreen since she was 1 year old (in Days of Our Lives, of course). The Emmy winner’s most recent role as co-star in the exceptional tragicomedy Dead to Me showed her astonishing range, but by the series finale, Applegate had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Applegate has always kept it real, and her memoir will “dive into the darker moments underpinning her outward success.” Credit: You with the Sad Eyes; BookPage.

Bullshit Jobs By David Graeber

 

Credit: Bullshit Jobs

Overview

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After a million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are millions of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation. Credit: Bullshit Jobs; David Graeber.

How Not to Be Wrong By Jordan Ellenberg

 

Credit: How Not to Be Wrong

Overview

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Credit: Book Culture; Jordan Ellenberg.

The Happiness Files By Arthur C. Brooks

Credit: The Happiness Files, Arthur C. Brooks

 

Overview

Imagine if your life were a startup. How would you lead it and shape it to be most successful?  That’s the question behind The Happiness Files, a rich selection of enlightening and instructive essays by Arthur Brooks, known worldwide for his inspiring yet practical wisdom and advice in his weekly column for The Atlantic and in his bestselling books, From Strength to Strength and Build the Life You Want (coauthored with Oprah Winfrey).  The simple answer, as Brooks wisely explains, is to manage your life in a way that leads to truly valuable rewards: love, enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning—in other words, happiness. Credit: Arthur C. Brooks.

BLINDSPOTTING By Martin Dubin

Credit: BLINDSPOTTING By Martin Dubin

 

Overview

 Blindspotting: How To See What's Holding You Back as a Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. As leaders, we all hit a point when things stop going well. A problem emerges that we think we can handle but discover we can't. The tools that got us this far somehow stop working. We don't understand; what are we missing?

What we don't see is what we can't see: we have blindspots. It's a known fact that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems. Other times, where we see normal, effective behavior, others see tremendous deficits. Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can’t move forward or deliver on our goals as leaders.

The good news is that you can learn to do your own blindspotting. Clinical-psychologist-turned-entrepreneur-turned-business-coach Martin Dubin has spent years learning when and how leaders get in their own way, and he has turned that experience into a deeply practical blueprint to help you identify your professional blindspots and work to overcome them. Blindspotting provides a framework for understanding six types of blindspots, then takes you inside coaching sessions with profoundly relatable leaders going through the process of learning to recognize their own blindspots. Along the way, you get the practical guidance you need to identify and manage those same blindspots in yourself, unlocking high performance and great leadership. Credit: BLINDSPOTTING by Martin Dubin. 

Killing Kryptonite By John Bevere

 

Credit: Killing Kryptonite

 Overview

What’s your kryptonite? For so many Christians, frustration and fatigue set in as they try time and again to get free from what holds them back. God never intended for it to be this way. He destined you to be victorious in every area of your life, and more than that, He gives you the power to overcome whatever comes against you. In Killing Kryptonite, best-selling author John Bevere opens up about his own story, revealing key biblical truths that moved him from a life of struggle to a life of breakthrough. You can enjoy a life of intimacy and connection with God. You can have a vibrant, powerful faith that impacts the world around you. But first, you have to face off with spiritual kryptonite. This book is not for the faint of heart. But if you’re ready to embrace a journey of radical transformation, this message is for you. Are you ready to kill your kryptonite and step into the life you were born for? Credit: Messenger International; Amazon.

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

 

Credit: The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday

Overview

Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. Credit: The Daily Stoic; Book.

The Sweaty Startup By Nick Huber

Credit: The Sweaty Startup By Nick Huber

 Overview

Filled with common sense and practical, actionable, advice, Nick Huber’s book reveals that you don’t have to be a genius with a world-changing idea to build a business empire and become a multi-millionaire. Business media, television and movies, and top college courses all tell entrepreneurs the same thing: To succeed in business, you need to have a revolutionary idea. To them, success is about changing the world through constant innovation. But the truth is, 99.999 percent of businesses that pursue this strategy will fail.

In The Sweaty Startup, Nick Huber shows us that you don’t need a ton of money, a brilliant new idea, complex technology, or extreme scale to succeed. There is another way to do business and find success by keeping things simple. Nick encourages readers to pursue opportunities with good odds, low risk, and moderate rewards that will set you up for a successful life, not just a successful business. Forget about mastering your craft, Huber advises. Focus on mastering sales, hiring, and delegation instead. It’s not about doing what you love or pursuing your passion. It’s about following the path of least resistance and executing on a proven idea in a proven market to win. Read more at Harper Collins.

We Can Do Hard Things

 

Credit: We Can Do Hard Things

Every day, Glennon Doyle spirals around the same questions: Why am I like this? How do I figure out what I want? How do I know what to do? Why can’t I be happy? Am I doing this right? The harder life gets, the less likely she is to remember the answers she’s spent her life learning. She wonders: I’m almost fifty years old. I’ve overcome a hell of a lot. Why do I wake up every day having forgotten everything I know?

Glennon’s compasses are her sister, Amanda, and her wife, Abby. Recently, in the span of a single year, Glennon was diagnosed with anorexia, Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Abby’s beloved brother died. For the first time, they were all lost at the same time. So they turned toward the only thing that’s ever helped them find their way: deep, honest conversations with other brave, kind, wise people. They asked each other, their dearest friends, and 118 of the world’s most brilliant wayfinders: As you’ve traveled these roads—marriage, parenting, work, recovery, heartbreak, aging, new beginnings—have you collected any wisdom that might help us find our way? Read more here. Credit: Penguin Random House.