Authors Christmas Recommendations 2024 - Part I
Welcome to a special series of posts in the run up to the holiday season! I asked some of the lovely authors that have previously appeared on the site about their Christmas book recommendations for this year. They graciously replied with some fantastic book picks! Hopefully these book recommendations might help you with your own Christmas shopping gift ideas too! :-)
Q. Is there a smart thinking book that you are looking forward to reading this Christmas, or one you would like to give or receive as a gift?
Kate Kitagawa
How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers by Tim Harford.
This book is on my list to read, as I worked with the author.
How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
Description from Bookshop.org:
In How to Make the World Add Up, Tim Harford draws on his experience as both an economist and presenter of the BBC's radio show 'More or Less' to take us deep into the world of disinformation and obfuscation, bad research and misplaced motivation to find those priceless jewels of data and analysis that make communicating with numbers so rewarding. Through vivid storytelling he reveals how we can evaluate the claims that surround us with confidence, curiosity and a healthy level of scepticism. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about understanding the world around them.
( U.S. Title: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics )
Buy On:
Blackwells £9.78 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Bookshop.org US $18.60 Waterstones £10.99(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Mathematics
Description from Bookshop.org:
Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality.
From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky, we meet these fascinating trailblazers and see how they contributed to our global knowledge today.
Along the way, the mathematics itself is explained extremely clearly, for example, calculus is described using the authors' home baking, as they pose the question: how much cake is in our cake? This revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of mathematics is as entertaining as it is important.
Buy On:
Bookshop.org UK £19.00 Blackwells £15.99 Waterstones £20.00(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Tadhg Hickey
Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis.
Get a copy for everyone you remotely care about. It's Das Kapital for the TikTok generation. Technofeudalism is a terrifying but weirdly warm (it's written as a kind of socialist love letter to Yanis' late father) treatise on our descent into cyber serfdom, and some workable suggestions as to how we emancipate.
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
Description from Bookshop.org:
Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism. The perfect Christmas gift for the political visionaries in your life.
In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world's feudal overlords – replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.
But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.
Buy On:
Blackwells £9.39 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Bookshop.org US $18.59 Waterstones £9.49(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man
Description from Bookshop.org:
It was love at first taste for fifteen-year-old Tadhg Hickey when he drank a can of Scrumpy Jack on the night of his exam results. Straight away it provided a cure for that constant feeling of 'something wrong, something not quite right', a way of numbing anxiety and childhood trauma. He realised he was extraordinarily good at drinking and energetically threw himself into a life of pubs, parties and staying pissed, while also managing to become a comedian. But alcohol had the last laugh ...
A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man shows us the often-hilarious lengths of self-deception an alcoholic will go to, the horrific consequences of addiction and the redemptive process of recovering from this deadly but ultimately treatable illness, and remaining sober. A deeply touching memoir and with a side of self-help, Tadhg's easy-going writing style belies his serious message - that each of us has the power to change our lives.
Buy On:
Directly From Author £14.00Bookshop.org UK £13.29 Blackwells £16.99 Waterstones £16.99
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Keggie Carew
Cry of the wild: tales of sea, woods and hill by Charles Foster.
I’m going to recommend the moving and astonishing and quite brilliant 'Cry of the Wild: Life through the eyes of eight animals' by Charles Foster.
Cry of the wild: tales of sea, woods and hill
Description from Bookshop.org:
What is it like to live in a world built by humans? These eight genre-blending stories reveal the complexity, beauty and fragility of wild lives - a brilliantly modern twist on classics like Watership Down and Tarka the Otter.
We have long since isolated ourselves from our fellow animals, banishing them into exile and dominating the land they once roamed. But still they endure on the edges of our existence: a fox grown strong on pepperoni pizza from the dustbins of the East End, a rabbit dodging a bullet, a gannet diving through an oil slick.
In spellbinding prose, Charles Foster gives us a bird’s eye view, or indeed an orca’s or an otter’s, of the wonders and struggles of the natural world.
At once exhilarating and deeply moving, Cry of the Wild reconnects us with our animal side and brings us face to face, or whisker to whisker, with eight creatures (including humans) that we have pushed to the fringes, imploring us to change our ways.
Buy On:
Blackwells £9.39 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Bookshop.org US $20.45 Waterstones £16.99(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Beastly: A New History of Animals and Us
Description from Bookshop.org:
BEASTLY is shortlisted for the 2023 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation.
Beastly is the 40,000-year story of our changing kinship with the animal world - from the smallest microbe to the largest creature that ever lived. Exploring this relationship through history, culture, ecology, science and inspiring examples, Carew makes the passionate case that animals are the key to the planet’s health, but only if we can save them.
In Beastly, author Keggie Carew seeks to re-enchant readers with the wild world, reframing our understanding of what it is like to be an animal and what our role is as humans. She throws readers headlong into the mind-blowing, heart-thumping, glittering pageant of life, and goes in search of our most revealing encounters with the animal world throughout the centuries. How did we domesticate animals and why did we choose sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, and chickens? What does it mean when a gorilla tells a joke or a fish thinks? Why does a wren sing? Beastly is a gorgeously written, deeply researched, and intensely felt journey into the splendor, mystery, and genius of animals and the long, complicated story of our interactions with them as humans.
Buy On:
Blackwells £8.99 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Bookshop.org US $26.04 Waterstones £10.99(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Niall Kishtainy
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman.
I enjoyed Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks, so would look forward to reading his new one.
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
Description from Bookshop.org:
Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life Oliver Burkeman calls ‘imperfectionism’. How can we embrace our non-negotiable limitations? Or make good decisions when there’s always too much to do? What if purposeful productivity were often about letting things happen, not making them happen?
Reflecting on ideas drawn from philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores practical tools and shifts in perspective. The result is a bracing challenge to much familiar advice, and a profound yet entertaining crash course in living more fully.
Buy On:
Blackwells £18.99 Bookshop.org UK £18.04 Bookshop.org US $25.11 Waterstones £14.99(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London
Description from Bookshop.org:
London is a city of dreamers. A city of possibility and experiment. A city of fervent imaginings and courageous aspirations. For centuries, it has been the capital of utopian thought. The Infinite City tells this history for the first time.
In his soaring new book, Niall Kishtainy draws us into the imaginative worlds of Thomas More, the Diggers, William Morris and Extinction Rebellion protestors. He introduces us to thinkers like Thomas Spence who threw coins stamped with the words ‘YOU FOOLS’ into the alleys of Holborn. To Ada Salter who was the first woman borough councillor in London and ignited the Bermondsey Revolution. To ninety-two-year-old Dolly Watson who became the queen of Claremont Road in Leytonstone during the Reclaim the Streets protests in the 1990s. These are inspiring tales of people who drew might from the city around them and fought for their ideologies in an increasingly transforming world.
Beginning in the sixteenth century and stretching from the contemporary transformation of the East End docklands to the COVID lockdowns, The Infinite City shows how London’s spirit has been one of visionary imagination amid relentless change and innovation.
Buy On:
Blackwells £9.99 Bookshop.org UK £23.75 Waterstones £10.99(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Julia Ebner
Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World by Harvey Whitehouse.
My absolute favorite that I will give to friends and family as a Xmas gift this year is Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World by Harvey Whitehouse.
Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World
Description from Bookshop.org:
How our evolved psychology has shaped the past, present and future of humanity.
Each of us is endowed with an inheritance. A set of ancient biases, forged through countless millennia of natural and cultural selection, which shape every facet of our behaviour.
For generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights, driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized religions, more expansive empires. But now, for the first time, it is failing us. We find ourselves careering towards a future of unprecedented political polarization, deadlier wars, and environmental destruction.
In Inheritance, renowned anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse offers a sweeping account of how our evolved biases have shaped humanity’s past and imperil its future. Unveiling a pioneering new way of viewing our collective history – one that weaves together psychological experiments, on-the-ground fieldwork, and big data – Whitehouse introduces three biases that shape human behaviour everywhere: conformism, religiosity, and tribalism.
These biases have catalysed the greatest transformations in human history, from the birth of agriculture and arrival of the first kings to the rise and fall of human sacrifice and creation of multiethnic empires. Yet today, they are driving us to ruin. Taking us deep into New Guinea tribes, Libyan militias, and predatory ad agencies, Whitehouse shows how the tools we once used to manage our biases are breaking down, with devastating implications for us all.
By uncovering how human nature has shaped our collective history, Inheritance reveals a surprising new path to solving our most urgent problems. The result is a powerful reappraisal of the human journey; one that transforms our understanding of who we are, and who we could be.
Buy On:
Blackwells £20.00 Bookshop.org UK £23.75 Bookshop.org US $32.55 Waterstones £25.00(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Going Mainstream: How extremists are taking over
Description from Bookshop.org:
Incels. Anti Vaxxers. Conspiracy theorists. Neo-Nazis. Once, these groups all belonged on the fringes of the political spectrum. Today, accelerated by a pandemic, global conflict and rapid technological change, their ideas are becoming more widespread: QAnon proponents run for U.S. Congress, neo-fascists win elections in Europe, and celebrity influencers spread dangerous myths to millions. Going Mainstream asks the question: What is happening here?
Going undercover online and in person, UK counter-extremism expert Julia Ebner reveals how, united by a shared sense of grievance and scepticism about institutions, radicalised individuals are influencing the mainstream as never before. Hidden from public scrutiny, they leverage social media to create alternative information ecosystems and build sophisticated networks funded by dark money.
Ebner's candid conversations with extremists offer a nuanced and gripping insight into why people have turned to the fringes. She explores why outlandish ideas have taken hold and disinformation is spreading faster than ever.
Going Mainstream is a dispatch from the darkest front of the culture wars, and a vital wake-up call.
Buy On:
Blackwells £10.23 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Waterstones £10.99(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Huge thanks to Kate, Tadhg, Keggie, Niall, & Julia for their great Christmas book picks!
Watch out next week for Part II of the series next week with more author recommendations :-)
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Cornerstone, Vintage Publishing, Transworld Publishers Ltd, Little, Brown Book Group, Penguin Books Ltd, Bonnier Books Ltd, Canongate Books, HarperCollins Publishers.
< Home
