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Tag: 2010s

  • Becoming

    Michelle Obama divides her memoir into three parts: Becoming Me, Becoming Us and Becoming More. The first recalls a close family in a small apartment on Chicago's South Side, a father with multiple sclerosis who never missed work, and the teachers and doubters she met on the way to Princeton and Harvard Law School.

    The second part follows her career at a Chicago law firm, where she was assigned to mentor a summer associate named Barack Obama, and her move into public service and hospital administration. She writes candidly about marriage counselling, a miscarriage and IVF, and her deep reluctance about her husband's political ambitions.

    The final part covers the 2008 campaign and life in the White House: raising two daughters under constant scrutiny, launching initiatives on childhood nutrition and military families, and being judged as the first Black First Lady. The writing is warm and conversational. The book sold more than ten million copies within months of publication and was followed by an accompanying documentary.

    Book details

    AuthorMichelle Obama
    First published2018
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreMemoir
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)448
    SettingChicago and Washington, D.C.

    Themes

    • Identity
    • Race
    • Family
    • Public life
    • Ambition

    Who should read it

    Readers interested in American politics, women's leadership or an intimate account of family life in the White House.

    If you liked this, try

    • A Promised Land
    • Long Walk to Freedom
    • I Am Malala

  • Steve Jobs

    Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson, already the biographer of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, to write his life story, and then gave him extensive access while promising not to control the result. Isaacson conducted more than forty interviews with Jobs over two years and spoke with over a hundred friends, relatives, competitors and former colleagues. The book appeared weeks after Jobs died in October 2011.

    It follows Jobs from his adoption and childhood in the orchards of what became Silicon Valley, through the founding of Apple with Steve Wozniak, his ousting in 1985, the years at NeXT and Pixar, and his return to rescue Apple. Isaacson details the creation of the Macintosh, the iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad, and Jobs's long battle with pancreatic cancer.

    The portrait is admiring but unsparing. It shows the reality distortion field, the obsession with design and simplicity, the fusion of technology and the liberal arts, and also the cruelty to colleagues and the troubled relationship with his first daughter. The book became one of the best-selling biographies ever and the basis for a feature film.

    Book details

    AuthorWalter Isaacson
    First published2011
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBiography
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)656
    SettingSilicon Valley, California

    Themes

    • Innovation
    • Design
    • Leadership style
    • Ambition
    • Technology

    Who should read it

    Anyone interested in Apple, product design or the complicated personality behind some of the most influential consumer technology.

    If you liked this, try

    • Elon Musk
    • Shoe Dog
    • Becoming Steve Jobs

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

    Mark Manson built an audience as a blogger before turning his irreverent style into this bestseller. His argument is that relentless positivity and the pressure to feel good all the time make people more anxious, not less. Since everyone must care about something, the real skill is choosing a small number of values worth caring about and letting the rest go.

    Manson draws on stories from his own aimless twenties, a friend's death, and figures such as the Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who kept fighting in the Philippine jungle for decades after the war ended. He distinguishes good values, which are reality-based and controllable, from bad ones such as pleasure, material success or always being right. He encourages readers to take responsibility for their problems even when not at fault, to be uncertain about their own beliefs, and to accept rejection and mortality.

    The tone is profane, funny and deliberately anti-guru, which made the book a hit with readers who distrust conventional self-help. Underneath the attitude, many of its ideas echo Stoicism, Buddhism and existential psychology. Its short chapters and conversational asides make it a quick read, and it became one of the best-selling self-help titles of its decade, spawning a film and a follow-up book on hope.

    Book details

    AuthorMark Manson
    First published2016
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreSelf-help
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)224

    Themes

    • Values
    • Responsibility
    • Acceptance of pain
    • Failure
    • Mortality

    Who should read it

    Readers tired of upbeat self-help who want a frank, humorous push to prioritise what actually matters to them.

    If you liked this, try

    • Everything Is F*cked
    • The Obstacle Is the Way
    • The Power of Now

  • Ikigai

    Ikigai is a Japanese word often explained as a reason to get up in the morning. Hector Garcia, a Spanish writer long resident in Japan, and novelist Francesc Miralles set out to understand why the village of Ogimi in northern Okinawa has so many centenarians, and whether a sense of purpose has something to do with it. Their interviews with elderly residents form the heart of the book.

    The authors weave those conversations together with short overviews of ideas they connect to long life: the eighty-percent rule of stopping eating before full, a diet rich in vegetables and tofu, gentle daily movement such as radio taiso, tai chi and qigong, close-knit mutual-support groups called moai, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow. They also touch on logotherapy and Morita therapy as Western and Japanese approaches to meaning.

    The book is short, light and practical, closer to a gentle wellness guide than a research study. Its popularity outside Japan helped spread the four-circle ikigai diagram, though that Venn diagram is a Western addition rather than a traditional Japanese concept. Each chapter closes with simple suggestions readers can try at home.

    Book details

    AuthorHector Garcia and Francesc Miralles
    First published2016
    Original languageSpanish
    Translated byHeather Cleary
    GenreSelf-help
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)208
    SettingOgimi, Okinawa, Japan

    Themes

    • Purpose
    • Longevity
    • Community
    • Flow
    • Simple living

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a gentle, easy introduction to Japanese ideas about purpose, healthy ageing and everyday wellbeing.

    If you liked this, try

    • Man's Search for Meaning
    • The Blue Zones
    • Flow

  • The Lean Startup

    Eric Ries drew on his own startup failures and on lean manufacturing ideas from Toyota to propose a scientific approach to entrepreneurship. He defines a startup as a human institution creating a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty, a definition that includes teams inside large companies and government agencies as well as garage ventures.

    The core of the method is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. Instead of spending months on a perfect launch, teams release a minimum viable product, measure how real customers behave, and use that evidence to test their leap-of-faith assumptions. Ries introduces innovation accounting, actionable rather than vanity metrics, split testing, small batches and continuous deployment, and the disciplined choice to pivot when the data says the strategy is wrong.

    Examples range from IMVU, the company Ries co-founded, to Dropbox, Intuit and Zappos. The vocabulary of the book quickly entered the mainstream of product management, and its ideas now underpin accelerator programmes, corporate innovation labs and agile product teams around the world. Ries later built on the approach in The Startup Way, aimed at established companies.

    Book details

    AuthorEric Ries
    First published2011
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBusiness
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)336

    Themes

    • Experimentation
    • Validated learning
    • Product development
    • Uncertainty
    • Iteration

    Who should read it

    Founders, product managers and corporate innovators who want a disciplined way to test ideas before investing heavily in them.

    If you liked this, try

    • Zero to One
    • The Startup Owner's Manual
    • Inspired

  • Zero to One

    Zero to One grew out of a course on startups that PayPal co-founder and investor Peter Thiel taught at Stanford in 2012; student Blake Masters's class notes became the basis of the book, and he is credited as co-author. Its title captures Thiel's central distinction: copying what already works takes the world from one to n, while genuine innovation takes it from zero to one.

    Thiel argues that competition is overrated and that great companies are monopolies, built by dominating a small niche and expanding outward through proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale and branding. He asks founders a provocative interview question about which important truth few people agree with them on, and criticises indefinite optimism that expects a better future without a concrete plan.

    Chapters also cover the power law in venture returns, the importance of founding teams and sales, the role of secrets, and how humans and computers might complement each other. The tone is aphoristic and opinionated, which has made the book both a Silicon Valley favourite and a frequent target of debate.

    Book details

    AuthorPeter Thiel
    First published2014
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBusiness
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)224

    Themes

    • Innovation
    • Monopoly
    • Contrarian thinking
    • Startups
    • The future

    Who should read it

    Founders, investors and anyone interested in how Silicon Valley thinks about building companies that create new markets.

    If you liked this, try

    • The Lean Startup
    • The Hard Thing About Hard Things
    • Good to Great

  • Deep Work

    Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown, distinguishes deep work, focused effort that pushes your abilities to their limit, from shallow work such as email, meetings and logistical tasks that can be done while distracted. His thesis is that deep work is becoming more valuable in the knowledge economy precisely as networked tools make it harder to do.

    The first half makes the case using examples from academics, writers and executives, along with research on attention residue and the satisfaction of concentrated effort. The second half offers four rules: work deeply through deliberate scheduling philosophies, embrace boredom rather than reaching for a phone, quit or curb social media by judging tools on their real benefit, and drain the shallows by budgeting time for low-value tasks.

    Newport writes in a practical, slightly contrarian voice and includes concrete tactics such as time-blocking every hour of the day and setting a firm shutdown ritual. The book helped popularise digital minimalism and is often recommended to programmers, researchers and students who feel fragmented by constant notifications.

    Book details

    AuthorCal Newport
    First published2016
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreSelf-help
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)296

    Themes

    • Focus
    • Distraction
    • Knowledge work
    • Social media
    • Craftsmanship

    Who should read it

    Knowledge workers, students and creators who feel their attention is scattered and want a disciplined way to produce their best work.

    If you liked this, try

    • Digital Minimalism
    • Atomic Habits
    • Flow