The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a nonfiction work by Thomas L Friedman, a New York Times foreign affairs reporter turned opinion columnist. Friedman has won three Pulitzer Prizes for General Non-Fiction and won the National Book Award for From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), his memoir about reporting Middle East relations. He is also notable for his 2005 book, The World Is Flat, which focuses on many of the same themes as The Lexus... Read The Lexus and the Olive Tree Summary

In 2009, Peter Singer, philosopher and ethicist at Princeton University, published The Life You Can Save, a short treatise on the obligations of affluent persons to alleviate the suffering of those experiencing extreme poverty on a global scale. By this time in his career, Singer had spent several decades on ethical questions related to global poverty. In 1972, he produced a seminal essay in the field, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” After a much more recent... Read The Life You Can Save Summary

The Magic of Thinking Big (1959) by David J Schwartz, PhD, is a self-help book on using the power of belief to achieve great things. Starting with the premise that people become what they believe they can be, the book suggests that one pursue their biggest dreams with the viewpoint that they will achieve them. The text offers pointers on overcoming fear, obtaining value from setbacks, getting along better with others, taking the initiative at... Read The Magic Of Thinking Big Summary

English historian E.P. Thompson (1924-1993) published his social history book The Making of the English Working Class (1963) while serving as Senior Lecturer at Leeds University. A veteran of the Second World War, Thompson graduated from Cambridge University, where he joined the Communist Party. Though he left the Party in disgust over the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, Thompson remained committed to Leftist ideals such as internationalism and anti-capitalist egalitarianism. Written in part from a... Read The Making of the English Working Class Summary

In The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1983), Arlie Russell Hochschild explores the concept of emotional labor, or employers’ requirements for employees to manage and display certain emotions as part of their job. She focuses on the commodification of emotions, particularly in service industries, and examines its gendered nature and psychological impacts, revealing the social and economic implications of such demands on workers and society.This guide refers to the 2003 Twentieth Anniversary Edition published... Read The Managed Heart Summary

The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus, published in 1925, is the second book by Bruce Barton, an American advertising executive. A nonfiction bestseller in 1925, The Man Nobody Knows is a revisionist portrayal of Jesus as a kind of CEO who created a world-altering organization with a small group of carefully selected men. Barton’s book controversially refers to Jesus as an executive who created parables that were influential advertisements and used... Read The Man Nobody Knows Summary

In The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy (1996) researchers Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko present their findings about the habits, lifestyles, and financial behaviors of American millionaires. While most picture millionaires as the nation’s highest earners and most conspicuous spenders, Stanley and Danko argue that most of them accumulate wealth through hard work, frugality, disciplined saving, and long-term investing. The Millionaire Next Door outlines the seven factors that Danko... Read The Millionaire Next Door Summary

IntroductionThe Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (2019) is a memoir by Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s second largest charitable organization. Equal parts mission statement and memoir, Melinda Gates interweaves data and personal stories to describe her 20 years of philanthropic work alongside her then-husband, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft. This guide refers to the 2019 edition published by Flatiron Books. SummaryThe Moment of Lift... Read The Moment of Lift Summary

Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, originally published in 1999, is a self-help book that fits snugly into the “business fable” pool of literature, which includes books containing motivational advice intended primarily to assist people in their careers or to improve specific aspects of the workplace, like management culture. This book tells the story of Julian Mantle, a workaholic lawyer who leaves his career to go on a journey of discovery in India... Read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary

The Mushroom at the End of the World is a work of cultural anthropology by Dr. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, published by Princeton University Press in 2015. Tsing is a cultural anthropologist who has previously published works on Southeast Asia. Thematically, her work focuses on culture, marginalization, environmentalism, gender, and political economy. She is currently a professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.The Mushroom at the End of the World is a sweeping... Read The Mushroom at the End of the World Summary

First published in 1975 and reissued in a 20th anniversary edition in 1995, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a classic work of nonfiction on computer science project management by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. The book draws lessons from Brooks’s experience managing IBM’s System/360 computer project and its massive corresponding software, OS/360, in the 1960s. The 1995 edition gives the 15 chapters of the 1975 as originally printed, adding four new chapters. The... Read The Mythical Man-Month Summary

The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is the 2016 sequel to John Perkins’s best-selling Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), which reveals how American corporations and the US government use major development contracts to control third-world nations. Though autobiographical in nature, The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an easy read with the feel of an adventure or spy novel. The book includes chapters on how Americans can act against... Read The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Summary

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph (2014) is a self-help book by American author Ryan Holiday. Holiday identifies three aspects of confronting obstacles: “Perception,” “Action,” and “Will.” Weaving Stoic philosophy with historical and contemporary anecdotes, Holiday argues that people can turn obstacles into opportunities by changing their perceptions of their problems. Holiday points to role models such as former American president and general Dwight D. Eisenhower, American aviator... Read The Obstacle is the Way Summary

Frank Norris’s novel The Octopus: A Story of California was published in 1901, 21 years after the event it fictionalizes; the Mussel Slough Tragedy resulted from a dispute between settlers and the Southern Pacific Railroad that left seven people dead. The dispute arose over land titles, owned by the Southern Pacific, for land that had been developed by settlers who believed the Railroad would sell them the leased land for its pre-development prices. After the... Read The Octopus Summary

Gary Keller’s nonfiction book The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (2012) conveys Keller’s business, life principles, and advice on goal setting, prioritization, focusing, and discovering purpose. As the founder and chairman of the board of the global real estate corporation Keller Williams Realty, Inc., Keller has devoted much time and attention to distilling principles for professional success, personal well-being, and overall fulfillment. He co-authored the book, along with others, with Jay... Read The One Thing Summary

The Open Society and Its Enemies is a two-volume analytical work in the field of political philosophy. This book advocates for the development of an open society—focused on individualism, humanitarianism, and universalism—within the framework of liberal democracy. The Open Society is one of the best-known works of the 20th century. It was written during the Second World War and was initially published in 1945 by Routledge in two separate volumes, followed by several subsequent editions... Read The Open Society and Its Enemies Summary

The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State is an 1884 book by the Marxist philosopher Friedrich Engels. For decades, Engels had been arguing that the abolition of the modern state and its replacement with communism would entail not only the end of capitalism and workers gaining control over the economic means of production but also the abolition of the monogamous family. In Engels’s most famous work, the 1848 Communist Manifesto co-authored with... Read The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Summary

The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability (1994) by Craig Hickman, Tom Smith, and Roger Connors is a self-help guide to accountability as a strategy for getting results at the workplace. The book is especially geared toward business leaders, but it also has appeal for employees at all levels at any organization. The authors often extend their arguments into the realm of popular culture. As the title suggests, the authors integrate themes... Read The Oz Principle Summary

The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less: How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction (2004) is a nonfiction book by American psychologist Barry Schwartz. Schwartz argues that modern Americans are facing a “choice overload” in everything from clothing and grocery items to deeper decisions about work, romance, and identity. Rather than liberating Americans from their constraints, this myriad of options burdens them with time-consuming analysis, regret, self-doubt, and social comparison, and even... Read The Paradox of Choice Summary

The Pelican Brief is a 1992 novel by the American writer John Grisham. The legal thriller tells the story of Darby Shaw, a young law student who uncovers a vast conspiracy. The book was adapted into a film in 1993 starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.Other works by this author include The Client, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, Skipping Christmas, and Playing For Pizza.Plot SummaryAn assassin named Khamel kills two Supreme Court Justices. Though the Justices... Read The Pelican Brief Summary