100+ Must-Read Books In 2022.
Books are cool. Learning is cool. They are the bargain of the century. Throughout the year we make a note of the books that we come across. That you tell us about. And we turn that into our annual list. Here it is in all its imperfection.
WELL-BEING.
Big Feelings
By Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
Having big feelings doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. It means you are human. This book helps us to understand our emotions.
How To Stay Safe Online
By Seyi Akiwowo
A powerful, comprehensive guide for digital self-care and allyship. This book teaches us how to spot and respond to online abuse.
How Are You, Really
By Jenn Kutcher
To put it simply, this book is for the one who is ready to live a life outside the tired cliche of “having it all.”
Menopausing
By Davina McCall
A book of clear facts so that women can make informed decisions about their experience, removing fear, shame and misinformation around menopause.
I Wish I Knew
By Donna Ashworth
A beautiful collection of poems to help guide us through life. Ashworth shares lessons learnt from her struggles and gratitude on each page.
Extra Time
By Camilla Cavendish
Explores how different countries are responding to the challenges brought about by an ageing population, with a positive approach to longevity.
Life Time
By Russell Foster
Learn about your body clock and how attuning to your natural circadian rhythm can improve your sleep, health and quality of life. Insightful, practical advice.
Grounded
By Ruth Allen
We all have a different experience with nature. Grounded helps us learn how we can benefit from a deeper connection with it and our own wild voice.
This Is Your Mind on Plants
By Michael Pollan
In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on plant drugs and our relationship to them.
Reconnection
By Miles Richardson
This timely book offers simple, practical, positive steps for how we can all reconnect with nature and work towards a better world.
Wonder Drug
By Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli
Two doctors team up to explain how serving others is a secret superpower. Kinder people not only live longer, they live better.
MONEY.
Secrets of Sand Hill Road
By Scott Kupor
Whether you’re trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how venture capitalists think.
The Pinch
By David Willetts
In this fascinating and provocative book, Willetts shows how the baby boomers took their children’s future, and why they should give it back.
Your Epic Money Adventure
By Scott Pape
Displayed in a unique visual format, your kids will roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and learn the value of money the old-fashioned way.
Citizens
By Jon Alexander
The headlines of our time are enough to make anyone feel helpless. But when we start to think and act like Citizens, not Consumers, everything changes.
Investing To Save The Planet
By Alice Ross
How can your money make a difference? Learn how you can turn your savings and pensions, however big or small, into a force for change.
Austrian School for Investors
By Rahim Taghizadegan, Ronald Stoeferle and Mark Valek
The financial system is shaking. The Austrian School’s approach provides a needed respite for investors caught in inflationary treadmills.
21 Lessons
By Gigi
A reflective personal journey of lessons learned by falling down the rabbit hole. Like Bitcoin, these lessons aren’t a static thing, they are evolving.
Debt
By David Graeber
An encyclopaedic journey through global history with stories of grand civilisations, revealing more about human condition than you might imagine.
The Fiat Standard
By Saifedean Ammous
An explanation of the technology behind the current analog global monetary system. Examining the 20th century monetary technology and its many failures.
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
By Ray Dalio
A timely addition, putting into perspective the ‘Big Cycle’ driving the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history.
Doughnut Economics
By Kate Raworth
Exploring the mindset and ways of thinking for humanity to thrive in the 21st century, and drawing together insights from diverse economic perspectives.
Bitcoin is Venice
By Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers
What if a global, digital, open-source, programmable currency was monetising from zero? A crash course through the errors of modern economic theory.
CREATIVITY.
Subtract
By Leidy Klotz
Our mindset is always to add more to achieve more. But what if that was not true. What if you could achieve more, but with less.
Kindling Magazine
By Kinfolk
A new magazine for people with children from the team who make Kinfolk. A place to explore the fresh perspectives that come with raising a child.
Jean Jullien
By Jean Jullien
The debut monograph on the globally-lauded artist, filled with his joyful, witty paintings, illustrations, collaborations, and more.
At A Distance
By Apartamento
At a Distance, a podcast of conversations focused on long-view, planetary-scale concerns, was born. 100 conversations curated into a book.
Design Emergency
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Two of the world’s most influential design figures. Meet the visionary designers whose innovations and ingenuity give us hope for the future.
The Year I Stopped To Notice
By Miranda Keeling
Inspired by her popular Twitter account, Keeling’s observations of the magic, humour, strangeness and beauty in ordinary life through the changing seasons.
It’s What I Do
By Lynsey Addario
A memoir of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theatre of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped Addario’s life.
21st Century Houses
By Dominic Bradbury
People dream of commissioning an architect to design their perfect home. Having a space built around your needs, interests and desires can be life-changing.
Lo — TEK. Design By Radical Indigenism
By Julia Watson
In an era of high-tech and climate extremes, we are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. Enter this design movement.
Ugo Rondinone
By Laura Hoptman, Erik Verhagen, et al.
The definitive monograph on the work of one of the most prolific, versatile, and exciting artists of the last three decades.
Unashamed
By Harry Baker
A collection of poems taken from Baker’s live performances that have captivated audiences and sold out shows up and down the country.
You Are A Fish
By Nick Liddell
Featuring original and witty illustrations, this book is for anybody with an interest in how to elevate brands from merely average to sublime.
ENVIRONMENT + SUSTAINABILITY.
Leading By Nature
By Giles Hutchins
Exploring the tools and techniques to help us lead organisations capable of transforming and thriving in a fast-emerging future.
Regenesis
By George Monbiot
Regenesis weaves the poetry of soil into the politics of farming to shake the ground on which we all grow. An urgent and exhilarating journey.
Green Ideas Series
By Naomi Klein, Timothy Morton et al.
In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement. These words have defined the environmental movement today.
Less Is More
By Jason Hickel
The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause.
Rewilding The Sea
By Charles Clove
This essential read is propelling us to rethink our relationship with nature and reveals that saving our oceans is easier than we think.
This Is A Good Guide
By Marieke Eyskoot
If there’s anything that this time has made very clear, it’s that we can’t continue as we are. Change is needed, but how? This book has the answers.
The Carbon Almanac
Foreword by Seth Godin
A source of reliable and easily understandable knowledge on climate change that you can share to create meaningful impact, right now.
Be the Ultimate Friend of the Earth
By Lucy Siegle
Tackling 10 big topics involved in our quest to reach net zero through stories, revealing questions, and probing our understanding of what we can all do.
Saving Us
By Katharine Hayhoe
This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology.
What We Owe The Future
By William MacAskill
A guide for making the future better. Humanity’s written history spans only 5000 years. Our future could last for millions more or end tomorrow.
The Climate Book
By Greta Thunberg
You might think securing a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all odds is impossible. But there is hope.
PRODUCTIVITY.
Chill and Prosper
By Denise Duffield-Thomas
Feeling burned-out by your business? Sick of the ‘hustle and grind’ culture of your industry? There’s a better way. Get over your perfectionism.
Discipline is Destiny
By Ryan Holiday
Drawing on the stories of historical figures we can emulate as pillars of self-discipline. Without self-discipline, all our plans fall apart.
When I Say No, I Feel Guilty
By Manuel J. Smith
Are you letting your kids get away with murder? Are you embarrassed by praise or crushed by criticism? Learn the answers in this book.
Wanting
By Luke Burgis
A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires.
The First 90 Days
By Michael Watkins
Strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter, whilst conquering the challenges of transitions no matter where you are in your career.
How to Make Work Not Suck
By Carina Maggar
A straight-talking guide to the real world of work. Discover genuinely useful advice that will help find confidence in reaching your career goals.
Making Decisions
By Ed Smith
A unique approach to finding success in a fast-changing and increasingly data-reliant world. Whatever the power of data, humans aren’t finished yet.
Redesigning Work
By Lynda Gratton
Based on 30 years of research into the technological, demographic, cultural and societal trends, Gratton presents her innovative framework for redesigning work.
Digital Body Language
By Erica Dhawan
Ambiguous text-messages. Weird punctuation you can make head nor tail of. How did we lose our innate capacity to understand each other?
Inside Voice
By Lake Bell
Discovering how a vital piece of our identity, our voice, serves as an x-ray of our personal histories. Bell explores this topic in the most deeply personal way.
Plays Well With Others
By Eric Barker
The surprising science behind why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong. From our highs to our lows, our relationships determine a lot.
FOOD + DRINK.
Sea Salt
By The Lea-Wilson Family
After 20 years of making award-winning sea salt, the Lea-Wilson family have put together recipes showcasing an often misunderstood and misused ingredient.
Breadsong
By Kitty Tait and Al Tait
A story of 14 year old Kitty Tait who suffered from depression and anxiety, and withdrew from the world until she found baking. These are her favourite recipes.
Glucose Revolution
By Jessie Inchauspé
Drawing on science and her own pioneering research, biochemist Inchauspé offers simple hacks to help you reverse your symptoms.
Plants for Soil Regeneration
By Sally Pinhey and Margaret Tebbs
A beautifully illustrated guide to the plants which farmers, growers and gardeners can use to improve soil structure and restore fertility.
Spoon-Fed
By Tim Spector
Taking a revelatory look at the misinformation about the food we eat, by questioning policies in short and accessible bite-sized chapters.
The Anti Inflammation Cookbook
By Amanda Haas and Dr. Bradly Jacobs
Eating certain foods and avoiding others can be a highly effective way to diminish and manage inflammation. 65 delicious, simple recipes.
The Whole Vegetable
By Sophie Gordon
130 creative plant-based recipes organised by season. This book shares several enticing ways to get the most out of your fruit and vegetables.
Ottolenghi Test Kitchen
By Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi
Exploring all the tools and skills needed to build up your creative repertoire and refill your shelves and fridges, and accessorise your next meal.
Home Food
By Olia Hercules
This charming and extremely personal book offers irresistible recipes, charming storytelling and boundless heart no matter where we are from.
Doctors and Distillers
By Camper English
Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same.
The Veg Box
By Stephen and David Flynn
Take 10 of the most common veg and 10 delicious ways to cook them. A cookbook laid out by veg rather than meals, aiming to tackle food waste.
Big Has HOME
By Hasan Semay
Grounded, honest and talented North-London based chef shares the dishes, the places and the people that have made him who he is today.
SPORT + ADVENTURE.
The Girl Who Rowed The Ocean
By Alastair Humphreys
Step aboard and join a life-changing adventure of a girl who rowed the ocean. A book based on Humphrey’s experience of the Atlantic.
Life Lived Wild
By Rick Ridgeway
Ridgeway shares his stories about relationships with fellow travellers and their commitments to protecting the wild places they shared.
A Sailor, A Chicken, An Incredible Voyage
By Guirec Soudée (translated by David Warriner)
When Soudée was 21 years old, he bought a 30-foot sailboat and set out across the Atlantic, with only his companion a plucky pet hen, Monique.
How (Not) To Be Strong
By Alex Scott
From the football cages of East London to broadcasting to millions. Inspiring memoir of strength and resilience from former Arsenal captain.
The Rise
By Mike Sielski
More than a basketball book. This is an exploration of the identity and making of an icon and the effect of his development on those around him.
Lioness
By Beth Mead
Empowering and inspirational. Mead shares the challenges that shaped her, her journey to the top, and the life events that made her stronger.
Atlas of Improbable Places
By Travis Elborough
The truths and myths behind these hidden lairs, forgotten cities and improbable wonders that are as varied as the destinations themselves.
Playing Through the Pain
By Dan Good
The powerful story of an athlete who changed baseball forever, being the first player to confess to having used performance-enhancing steroids.
Unlost
By Gail Muller
A rollercoaster of pain, laughter and recovery. Muller shows us that even in our darkest times, it’s possible to find our inner grit, face our fears and feel hopeful.
Beyond Possible
By Nimsdai Purge
What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination? An incredible journey of an elite soldier conquering 14 of the world’s toughest peaks.
The Captain Class
By Sam Walker
The secret to winning is not what you think it is. It’s not the coach. It’s not the star. It’s not money. It’s not a strategy. It’s something else entirely.
BUSINESS.
The World Is On Fire But We’re Still Buying Shoes
By Alec Leach
A manifesto for a slower, more intentional approach to fashion. This pocket-sized paperback is full of infographics, diagrams and quotes.
Traffic Secrets
By Russell Brunson
The big secret about traffic on the Internet is you don’t really have to create it. The challenge is to figure out where they are and provide value.
Endineering
By Joe MacLeod
There is a gap in the consumer lifecycle that needs attention. Endineering explores how to reveal new opportunities and design for better consumer endings.
Twelve And A Half
By Gary Vaynerchuk
Exploring twelve essential emotional skills that provides today’s leaders with critical tools to acquire and develop these traits.
The Monocle Book of Entrepreneurs
By Monocle
A handbook designed to encourage, inspire and perhaps even gently prod readers into taking the plunge and starting something for themselves.
The Choice Factory
By Richard Shotton
Before you can influence decisions, you need to understand what drives them. Investigating how behaviour is shaped by psychological shortcuts.
The Rise of the Rest
By Steve Case
A journey into the startup communities that are transforming cities nationwide. Includes dozens of stories of struggle and achievement.
Build
By Tony Fadell
An advice encyclopaedia. A mentor in a box. You don’t need to reinvent how you lead and manage, just what you make.
Hook Point
By Bredan Kane
How to stand out in a 3-second world by breaking down the most effective strategies to generate new opportunities, innovate and scale your business.
Power to the People
By Vijay Vaitheeswaran
How the coming energy revolution will transform our lives. Turn energy business upside down and perhaps even save the planet.
I See Something Special In You
By Timo Kiuru
This book is about more than business, it’s about the experience that make us who we are and the challenges that bring out the best in us.
When They Win You Win
By Russ Laraway
Managers are failing, and no one is helping. A leadership approach that delivers more engaged employees and better business results.
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
By Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp
You’ll never see leadership the same way again .These 15 commitments are a distillation of decades of work with CEOs and other leaders.
Unreasonable Hospitality
By Will Guidara
Through sparkling stories of Guidara’s journey through the restaurant industry, this book urges us to find the magic in what we do.
3 Word Rebellion
By Dr Michelle Mazur
A simple approach to creating not only a message that works to grow your business 24/7, but a movement that’s bigger than your business.
Flying Lead Change
By Kelly Wendorf
Underneath the challenges of our modern age, we find a common cause of disconnection from each other, the earth, and lives of purpose.
TECHNOLOGY.
Rapid Google Ads Success
By Claire Jarrett
If you want to get more leads than you could have ever expected, this book is for you. A toolbox of condensed experience with practical methods and checklists.
Imaginable
By Jane McGonigal
By seeing what’s coming, you can adapt to new challenges, reduce anxiety, and build hope and resilience. Learn to imagine the unimaginable.
Four Favorite Tools
By Kevin Kelly
The 150 best past responses from the Cool Tools podcast are presented in this book. Enjoy 300 pages of concentrated goodness and tool fandom.
The Metaverse
By Matthew Ball
From the leading theorist of the Metaverse comes the definitive account of the next internet. What does the Metaverse means for all of us?
The Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion and Scam Techniques
By Martina Dove
Providing an in-depth explanation of not only why we fall for scams but how fraudsters use technology and other techniques to manipulate others.
Proof Of Stake
By Vitalik Buterin
This book reveals Buterin’s invention that will guide future generations of Ethereum’s community of radicals and builders.
The Digital Mindset
By Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley
A digital mindset will future-proof you, your career, and your organisation. Learn how to develop one with this book.
After Steve
By Tripp Mickle
A dramatic, untold story inside Apple after the passing of Jobs, and how the fading of the former and the rise of the latter led to Apple losing its soul.
How Technology Works
By DK
Discover the hidden workings of everyday tech with this graphic guide. This book demystifies the machinery that keeps the modern world going.
Mastering the Lightning Network
By Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Rene Pickhardt, and Olaoluwa Osuntokun
This practical guide explains how this advancement will enable the next level of scale for Bitcoin, increasing speed and privacy while reducing fees.
CHANGE-MAKERS.
Inspirational Women
By Samira Ahmed, Lydia Miller et al.
Published to celebrate Women’s History Month, and focusing on stories of pioneering women whose work has changed the course of British history.
Circular Design For Fashion
By Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Written in recognition of fashion’s huge potential to move towards a circular economy and in homage to its creatives.
Between The Mountain And The Sky
By Maggie Done
Showing us the goodness that is possible when a single person takes action to help another and, in the process, changes the lives of hundreds.
Love And Justice
By Laetitia Ky
A deeply personal story told through the powerful sculptures Ky creates with her hair, embracing Black culture and the fight for social justice.
A Visible Man
By Edward Enninful
From a childhood bedroom in Ghana to the ground zero of grunge in 1990s London, the unseen arbiter of fashion and culture tells his story.
#futuregen: Gwersi o Wlad Fechan
By Jane Davidson
Welsh version of Davidson’s book with new sections, outlining how Wales became the first country passing a law to safeguard the rights of future generations.
Hope In Hell
By Jonathon Porritt
A powerful call to arms from on of Britain’s most eloquent and trusted campaigners. This is one of the hardest book Porritt has written.
Private Truths, Public Lies
By Timur Kuran
Kuran uses theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena, and draws on diverse intellectual traditions.
Career and Family
By Claudia Goldin
This book traces how generations of women have responded to the problem of balancing career and family in the twentieth century.
The Green Grocery
By Richard Walker
The ultimate guide to helping all businesses to recognise the value of pursuing ethical policies and how to achieve them.
Tarzan Economics
By Will Page
The most important thing you can do in business is change the fundamentals of what you do, rather than fighting a battle that’s already lost.
The Nowhere Office
By Julia Hobsbawm
This book will help organisations understand how to use this extraordinary moment to completely rethink and reimagine the way they organise work.
Fen, Bog and Swamp
By Annie Proulx
A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play.
How Civil Wars Start
By Barbara Walter
A call-to-action to action for those who want to preserve multiethnic democracy and the values that America is supposed to stand for.
His Name Is George Floyd
By Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Reclaiming the life of the man from the political totem that his name has become. This book shines a light on systemic racism and inequality.
DO BOOK CO.
DO Bitcoin
By Angelo Morgan-Somers
A concise guide to digital currency that focuses on Bitcoin. Written in a jargon-free style by self-taught analyst and advisor.
DO Deal
By Richard Hoare & Andrew Gummer
Sharing a refreshed approach to negotiation. Whether it’s a creative partnerships, or building a reputation for getting the deal done.
DO Drama
By Lucy Gannon
The how and why of writing drama as a lively conversation with one of Britain’s most prolific and successful screenwriters.
DO Improvise 2.0
By Rob Poynton
This new approach to work and life, is an updated edition of our 2013 title with new material and new ‘improvised’ illustrations.
Propósito
By David Hieatt
Why you do something keeps you doing when the tough times come. And, they will. DO Purpose is now available in Spanish. Disfrutar!
Phew.
Thank you for making it all the way to the bottom of the list. Our aim is to share insightful and inspiring books that will help you on your journey from here, to where you want to be.
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