by Don Winslow

“The Border is a gut-punch crime novel that contrasts the desperation of illegal immigrants with the callous greed of drug lords and DC power brokers.”

—Norb Vonnegut (MBA 1986), founder of Second Opinion Wealth Management and author of five novels, including The Pell Heist (2018) and Windfall (forthcoming)

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

“The title in itself is captivating, and the topic remains overlooked. The author provides an insightful view into differences between confidence and competence while also recommending several ways to address the issue of incompetence at the ‘top.’ It’s a relevant discussion for so many of us who have experienced ineffective leadership and wondered, ‘How did you get there?’ ”

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—Jahn Karsybaev (GMP 26, 2019), CTO at ProSource IT and host of The Ivy Podcast

by Steven Pearlstein

“Pearlstein challenges what has become conventional wisdom about American capitalism at business schools across the country: that shareholder-driven capitalism is the best form of capitalism. Citing a wealth of recent research, he proposes that our current rules of capitalism are contributing to rising inequality, as the foundations of our country’s prosperity—from trust among people in society, worker productivity, equality of opportunity and economic mobility, even economic growth—are consequently all eroding and threatening the economic, civil, and political life of our democracy. Of course, Adam Smith makes an appearance, including his call for ‘fair distribution of economic rewards,’ as does Charles Darwin, who wrote that cooperative social behavior was a trait of survival and prosperity. Pearlstein ends with a beautiful quote from Robert Kennedy from 1968, that the GNP statistic our country so relies on captures ‘everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.’”

—Sheryl WuDunn (MBA 1986), coauthor (with Nicholas D. Kristof) of Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, forthcoming in January

by Matt Wallaert

“I love this book because Wallaert’s methodology of the Intervention Design Process is essentially design thinking, and it’s the framework that I live by to create, pilot, test, and iterate the products and insights underlying my business.”

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—Aishetu Fatima Dozie (MBA 2002), founder and CEO of Bossy Cosmetics

by Julie Yip-Williams

“This memoir is a journey into a life like no other. Born blind in Tam Ky, Vietnam, the author was dressed in the soiled clothes of her siblings when she was two months old (her family didn’t want to waste a good outfit) to be taken to an herbalist who would end her life—on orders from her grandmother. How she survived that day and the waning days of the Vietnam War, and made her way to America, Williams College, and Harvard Law School, seems like plenty of drama for one life and one book. But Yip-Williams had more to share, more to inspire. At 37, she was diagnosed with terminal metastatic colon cancer, dying at 42. But her insights, lessons, and thoughts on humanity during those five years are nothing short of gifts to the rest of us.”

—James Andrew Miller (MBA 1988), journalist, host of the podcast Origins, and author of four books, including Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency (2016)

by Melinda Gates

“Gates’s brave storytelling, interwoven with powerful data, calls attention to the many issues women continue to face in this world and what we can do to change this. It is a poignant manifesto that I find more necessary than ever.”

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—Tiffany Pham (MBA 2012), founder and CEO of Mogul, a global platform and community network for women; author of You Are a Mogul (2018) and Girl Mogul (2019)

by David Wallace-Wells

“This book is a beautifully written call to action that instantaneously absorbed me into a world that I was not, but should have been, familiar with. It simultaneously made me feel powerless about the current state of the world and yet empowered by how our work on signaling and persuasion can help enact urgently needed change.”

—Laura Huang, MBA Class of 1954 Associate Professor of Business Administration and author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, forthcoming in January

by Lori Gottlieb

“Gottlieb deftly weaves in rich storylines from her experience as a psychotherapist—not just to entertain or teach us about others but to beautifully and subtly teach us even more about ourselves.”

—Dr. Darria Long Gillespie (MBA 2005), ER doctor, TV host, health and wellness expert, mother of two, and author of Mom Hacks (2019)

“The decision to have Public Enemy’s Chuck D narrate was absolutely inspired. This series is a great lesson in what it means to innovate, and the mash-up of the birth of punk and rap is huge fun.”

—Professor Mihir Desai, cohost (along with Professor Youngme Moon and Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee), of the podcast After Hours

“Ten minutes of thoughtful news to start the day; I also love the work of Mike Pesca, who hosts Slate’s daily pod The Gist. For pure pleasure: Song Exploder, which backstories and deconstructs music hits. (The Fleetwood Mac one was so inspired.)”

—Roben Farzad (MBA 2005), host of Full Disclosure on NPR member station VPM and author of Hotel Scarface (2017)

“If you aren’t listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s fourth season of Revisionist History, you’re sorely missing out. Gladwell tells us why everything we thought about the history of heavy metal music, and law school admissions, and how mob families work, and chutzpah is wrong. (And teaches us to think like a Jesuit along the way.)”

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—Charles Duhigg (MBA 2003), Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and host of Slate’s new How To! podcast; author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

“It’s a true-crime podcast, but it doesn’t rely on the true-crime tropes or veer into conspiracy theories; the approach is very skeptical. The man at the center of the story was a motivational speaker, so he recorded himself a lot—which makes for really rich source material.”

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—Julia Kaplan (MBA 2017), business development lead at podcast network Gimlet Media

“Best tech commentary. I stay informed on the major news in tech while being entertained by the bickering and bantering of Recode’s Kara Swisher and NYU professor Scott Galloway.”

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—Minnie Ingersoll (MBA 2002), partner at TenOneTen Ventures and host of the LA Venture podcast

“As the human race has known since My Fair Lady, how you communicate determines how others perceive you. Grammar Girl teaches the ins and outs of good communication with humor and style.”

—Stever Robbins (MBA 1991), executive coach, consultant, cofounder, and host of Get-it-Done Guy podcast

“It’s a premium app for frequent-fliers that gives you the fastest, most granular data on your flights. I jet between meetings in NYC and SF a few times a month, so Flighty is my welcome wingman!”

—Alex Taussig (MBA 2009), partner at Lightspeed in Silicon Valley and author of the newsletter Drinking from the Firehose

“A remarkable, meaningful, and totally enjoyable and surprising show about the daily realities of life inside prison, shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration.”

—Jake Shapiro (OPM 45, 2014), CEO and cofounder of podcasting public benefit corporation RadioPublic, Podfund, and Matter.vc; former CEO and cofounder of PRX

“Curio selects articles from leading publications including the Financial Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, Monocle, and Bloomberg Businessweek (currently 41 in total) and presents them in audio form, narrated by one of several professional readers. For any busy person who loves great journalism from a range of sources it is a godsend: I often listen to articles while traveling, commuting, running, cooking, or walking the dogs, and without straining my eyes on a small screen. At $59.99 a year, Curio isn’t particularly cheap—but, for me, it represents great value.”

—Susan Denham Wade (MBA 1993), author of As Far as the Eye Can See: A History of Seeing (published September 2019 in the UK; forthcoming elsewhere later this year)

“After 66 countries, I’m a firm believer in the Visited app, which allows you to easily plot and plan the expansion of your horizons.”

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—Kwame Jackson (MBA 2000), speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant

“Free and unlimited storage of hi-res images—raw and JPG—for Prime members. Hard drives fail. Your memories deserve to be backed up in the cloud.”

—Christopher Michel (MBA 1998), photographer