The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.**“Even though I’ve never attempted the New York Times crossword puzzle or solved the Rubik’s Cube, I couldn’t put down The Puzzler.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Better T...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.What makes puzzles—jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus—so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they’re among the fundamental ele...

**A frank, hands-on guide to using AI at work, unpacking for the curious and skeptical alike the “24 Laws” of AI and revealing strategies that businesses of every size can use to free up time, innovate, and add to the bottom line—from a Wall Street Journal tech columnist“The antidote to AI panic. Read it. You’ll breathe easier.”—Scott Galloway, NYU Stern School of Business professor and co-host of Pivot with Kara Swisher“A clear, practical, and hype-free g...

Award-winning writer, columnist, and journalists Carl Zimmer selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in 2022.“What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more ...

Winner of the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, HAD I KNOWN contains the most provocative, incendiary, and career-making pieces by bestselling author, essayist, political activist, and "veteran muckraker" Barbara Ehrenreich (The New Yorker).A self-proclaimed "myth buster by trade," Barbara Ehrenreich has covered an extensive range of topics as a journalist and political activist, and is unafraid to dive into i...

**A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceShortlisted for the 2018 FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year AwardA brilliantly reported, global look at universal basic income—a stipend given to every citizen—and why it might be necessary in an age of rising inequality, persistent poverty, and dazzling technology.**Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your bank account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has bec...

**"Listening to Godfrey-Smith's exploration of animal consciousness will rattle every nook and cranny of your brain with an onslaught of interesting questions...the author leaves listeners with a radical new perspective." —AudioFile on MetazoaThis program is read by the author.The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet.**If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our spe...

A science-based, practical blueprint for cultivating a life—at work and at home—full of belonging, joy, and vitality, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture CodeWhat is a meaningful life, and how do we make one? How do certain communities foster closeness, fulfillment, happiness, and energy?In Flourish, bestselling author and leading culture expert Daniel Coyle trains his eye on the groups and people who demonst...

Supercharge your speech to get what you want out of every conversation with this fun and practical guide to verbal vividness.An eye-opening guide on how we talk and write to one another, Word Wise explores 400+ of the most common cases of word trash (filler words, hyperbole, and abstractions) and word power (verbs of action, ear candy, onomatopoeia). Examining social media, the language of Donald Trump, AI language researc...

“The Erie Canal rubbed Aladdin’s lamp. America awoke, catching for the first time the wondrous vision of its own dimensions and power.”—Francis Kimball, American architectThe technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn’t just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination ...

A daring and intimate exploration of how genetics complicates our ideas about blame, punishment, and moral responsibility, from acclaimed psychologist and author of The Genetic Lottery Kathryn Paige Harden.“An extraordinary book, the very best of science writing, because it is about not just science—it is memoir, history, bleeding-edge genetics, and a completely original take on original sin.”—Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Every...

A splendid and luminous celebration of one of nature’s most perfect and mysterious creatures—the hawk—from the New York Times bestselling author of the “astoundingly beautiful” (NPR) The Soul of an Octopus.When Sy Montgomery went to spend a day at falconer Nancy Cowan’s farm, home to a dozen magnificent birds of prey, it was the start of a deep love affair. Nancy allowed her to work with Jazz, a feisty, four-year-old, female Harris’s hawk with a w...