Secondhand Science, Politics & Ideas Bargain Book Box SP2893

Secondhand Science, Politics & Ideas Bargain Book Box SP2893

Twenty books for the curious non-fiction reader — politics, psychology, science, economics, and the history of human folly — from some of the sharpest minds writing for a general audience. Start anywhere and you will not want to stop.

1. Politics by Other Means: Politicians, Prosecutors, and the Press from Watergate to Whitewater (Third Edition) — Benjamin Ginsberg and Martin Shefter — a forensic account of how legal and media warfare replaced electoral competition in American politics.
2. The Year I Got Everything I Wanted: A Spiritual Crisis — Cameron Conant — a memoir of success, dissatisfaction, and the crisis that came when everything was supposed to be fine.
3. Introducing Freud — Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate — a lively and authoritative graphic introduction to Freudian theory and its lasting influence.
4. Sharing the Wealth: Workers and the World Economy — Ethan B. Kapstein — an economist argues that the benefits of globalisation must be shared more broadly to avoid political catastrophe.
5. We Are What We Think: A Journey through the Wisest and Wittiest Sayings in the World — James Geary — a witty anthology of aphorisms and the ideas behind them.
6. How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Practical Ways to Make a Real Difference — Joanna Yarrow — a practical and readable guide to individual climate action.
7. Looptail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business — Bruce Poon Tip — the founder of G Adventures on how conscious business can create real change.
8. The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches — ed. Brian MacArthur — the great speeches of the century from Churchill, Kennedy, Mandela, King, and many more.
9. Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency — Charlie Savage — a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's definitive account of the legal and security decisions of the Obama years.
10. The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home — Dan Ariely — the behavioural economist's follow-up to Predictably Irrational, equally surprising.
11. More Information Than You Require — John Hodgman — the second volume of Hodgman's utterly invented and extremely funny complete world knowledge.
12. How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions — Francis Wheen — a delightful and razor-sharp dismantling of the nonsense that passes for wisdom in public life.
13. Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion and Euthanasia — Ronald Dworkin — the legal philosopher's careful and compassionate argument about the sanctity of life and the limits of state power.
14. The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness — Katie Booth — a complex, revelatory account of Bell's campaign to eliminate sign language and what it cost Deaf communities.
15. The Storied City: The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past — Charlie English — the story of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts and the race to rescue them from jihadist destruction.
16. ICE: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration — ed. Clint Willis — first-hand accounts of polar expeditions, from Shackleton to the present day.
17. What to Eat — Marion Nestle — an absolutely indispensable guide, according to Michael Pollan, to every food decision you make in the supermarket.
18. The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolutions — Freeman J. Dyson — the great physicist argues that three technologies will transform the next century's poorest communities.
19. Y: The Descent of Men — Steve Jones — the author of Almost Like a Whale on the Y chromosome, its deterioration, and what it means for the future of men.
20. Kin: Family in the 21st Century — Marina Kamenev — a nuanced exploration of what family means today and the many forms it has come to take.