From the author of Monkey Mind — a New York Times bestseller about anxiety — comes a book about the emotions we usually try to suppress. Anger, shame, envy, regret, jealousy, despair. Daniel Smith argues these aren't enemies to fight. They're messengers trying to tell us something. Smith is a psychotherapist, and this is part memoir, part intellectual exploration. He traces how our relationship with negative emotions has evolved — from the Seven Deadly Sins to modern psychology's sometimes equally damning classifications. There's a fascinating section on how the Inuit handle anger, which is radically different from how we do it in the West.
- You're interested in the intelligence behind negative emotions
- You've read Gabor Maté or Johann Hari and want more in that territory
- You're tired of "positive vibes only" self-help
From a psychopathy expert at the University of British Columbia. Leanne ten Brinke draws on the latest research to explain how dark personalities cause harm — and more importantly, she offers science-based strategies to identify and manage them. The question isn't whether these people exist — it's how do you protect yourself without becoming paranoid?
- You've ever felt manipulated and couldn't quite put your finger on why
- You're interested in the clinical side of dark personalities
- You liked Robert Greene's work on human nature
Ken Rideout grew up in a broken family outside Boston — drugs, crime, his stepfather incarcerated in the same prison where Ken worked as a guard at eighteen. Despite all of that, he broke free, made it to Wall Street, built a career — and then spent a decade addicted to opioids. The turning point came when he adopted a daughter from overseas. Running became his salvation. In three years, he went from a "running nobody" to the world's fastest marathoner over fifty. His mantra: win, or die trying.
- You loved Can't Hurt Me or Born to Run
- You need a book that'll get you off your ass
- You're drawn to stories of radical personal transformation
Paul Krugman calls Arindrajit Dube "the go-to guy on minimum wage." This book is a deep dive into one of the biggest questions of our time: why did wages for most workers freeze while productivity soared 70% and incomes at the top exploded? Dube has spent over two decades researching this. He shows the data, explains the mechanisms, and argues this wasn't inevitable — it can be reversed. He lays out the levers: corporate decisions, policy, power dynamics, social norms.
- You want to understand why wages haven't kept up with productivity
- You're interested in economics that isn't just doom and gloom
- You liked The Wealth of Nations and want the modern counterpart
From the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant — one of Bjorn's all-time favorite books. Jorgenson has done the same thing with Elon Musk: distilled his wisdom into something sharp and practical. This isn't a biography. It's a curated ideas compendium — Musk's own words organized into practical themes: engineering, product design, risk, hiring, focus, first-principles thinking. It's basically the operating manual for Elon Musk.
- You loved The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
- You want practical lessons from how Musk thinks and builds
- You prefer distilled ideas over long biographies
Where Jorgenson's book is tactical and aphoristic, Charles Steel goes deeper into Musk's belief system. Steel traces how an early existential crisis — shaped by trauma, neurodivergence, and the influence of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — led Musk to embrace uncertainty, obsess over first principles, and pursue meaning through expanding human consciousness.
Disclosure: This book was provided to me, but I bought and read both Elon books. My opinions are my own — always.
- You want to understand the philosophy behind Musk, not just the tactics
- You're interested in how fiction and ideas shape real-world ambition
- You want the companion piece to The Book of Elon