Learning how to think for ourselves and rethinking how organizations are built and governed, reimagining collective rituals and reimagining civilization itself; These are the vital tasks the books we're recommending this week have set for themselves, and each author meets the moment. 

All four are available online and bookshop shelves today. Unless otherwise noted, all descriptions of the books below come from the publisher.

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The Art of Thinking: How the Great Philosophers Can Stimulate Our Ability to Think Critically by José Carlos Ruiz, published by Diversion Books

A celebrated Spanish philosopher draws on the timeless lessons of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics to show how ancient wisdom can sharpen our critical thinking and help us live with clarity today.

For more than two millennia, philosophy has been a guide to the good life. Now, Spanish philosopher José Carlos Ruiz shows how the insights of the Great Philosophers remain urgent and usable today.

Accessible and engaging, The Art of Thinking is where The Daily Stoic meets How to Think: timeless philosophy adapted into an accessible, modern manual for critical thinking and personal growth. It brings philosophy out of the classroom and into everyday life:

• Stoicism offers strategies for coping with adversity and suffering.
  
• Socrates and Plato teach the art of maieutics—asking the right questions to uncover truth.
  
• Aristotle reveals how to reduce anxiety and cultivate virtue by aligning knowledge of ourselves with the world around us.

In an age crowded with self-help quick fixes, Ruiz argues that true progress lies not in following someone else’s formula, but in learning how to think for ourselves—critically, contextually, and with confidence. Drawing on the legacy of ancient philosophy, The Art of Thinking provides practical tools to shed prejudice, break bad habits, and make decisions more likely to succeed.

Ecocivilization: Making a World That Works for All by By Jeremy Lent, published by Melville House

“One of the greatest thinkers of our age" (The Guardian) presents a new way of living—one modeled on nature’s design instead of capitalism's—for fans of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Doughnut Economics.

It has often been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism—and yet that is what the historical moment urgently calls for. As climate chaos, inequality, and social fragmentation intensify, humanity faces an imminent choice: continue with a system built on extraction and endless growth, or reimagine civilization itself. Incremental policy improvements are no longer enough—we need a deep transformation of our current civilization to continue to survive.  

In Ecocivilization, leading thinker Jeremy Lent offers that reimagination, grounded in proven design principles of ecosystems and in humankind's evolved inclination toward justice, mutuality, and dignity.

What unfolds is a robust framework incorporating Lent’s own expertise, and the lived experiences of those on the ground already putting ecological civilization’s core tenets into practice—justice, mutuality, diversity, and symbiosis. 

From the global economy to universal housing and income, from infrastructure to agriculture, every major aspect of our society could be redesigned to work together as a coherent whole, setting the conditions for all people to flourish. Ecocivilization shows how this future on a regenerated Earth is not only desirable, but entirely feasible.

Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great by Eric Ries, published by Authors Equity

From Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup, comes a bold and urgently needed rethink of how organizations are built—and why success itself so often turns companies against the people and principles that made them worth building in the first place.

For decades, we've explained corporate corruption as a problem of bad actors, moral weakness, or isolated scandals. But that story doesn't match reality. Again and again, companies founded with strong ideals drift toward short-term thinking, extractive behavior, and mission abandonment—often despite the best intentions of the people inside them.

Incorruptible argues that this failure is not primarily ethical. It is structural.

As organizations grow, the systems that govern them—ownership, incentives, charters, accountability, and decision-making—quietly reshape behavior. When those systems are poorly designed, even principled leaders are pushed toward outcomes they never wanted. Success itself becomes a form of financial gravity, bending companies away from their original purpose.

Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, investors, and institution builders, Ries shows how these failures arise predictably—and how they can be prevented. He reframes corporate governance not as bureaucracy or compliance, but as a creative and strategic act at the heart of building enduring, mission-controlled companies.

At a moment when trust in business is eroding, Incorruptible offers a clear-eyed diagnosis and a practical blueprint for change.

Success alone will not protect what matters most. Only incorruptible design can.

Get more information and bonus materials at incorruptible.co.

A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World--and How It Can Save Us by Bruce Feiler, published by Penguin Press

One of our great decoders of human connection chronicles the astonishing rise of new rituals around the world—and offers a road map for restoring togetherness with gatherings you’ll love.

Since time immemorial, humans have turned to ritual to connect us in periods of change. Until today. Birth rituals and coming-of-age rituals have plummeted; fewer than half of Americans are married; only one in three is buried. “It took us ten thousand years to establish cultural norms around how we mark collective life transitions,” writes Bruce Feiler. “It took us fifty years to dismantle them.” Can this threat to society be reversed?

To find out, Feiler went on a round-the-world ritual road trip, attending—and participating in—life rituals in sixteen countries on six continents. These spectacles, some rarely seen, include a mass baptism in the Vatican, a tribal bride price negotiation in South Africa, an adolescent tooth filing in Bali, six weddings in Las Vegas, and ten funerals in Ireland.

Beyond the decline in traditional rituals, Feiler discovered that we are in the midst of a ritual renaissance that is pushing back against apathy, loneliness, and digital saturation. Fed up with top-down scripts, everyday people, from boomers to Gen Z, are reimagining collective rituals at a remarkable pace, inventing fresh ways to gather around life, love, health, and family—and forging thriving communities in the process.

As he did with Life Is in the Transitions, Feiler also collected stories of a hundred ritual designers and built a first-of-its kind database of ideas to make gatherings more effective—from creating sacred space to mediating conflict to generating “wows” that guests will talk about forever.

From a master storyteller uncovering a thrilling phenomenon hiding in plain sight, A Time to Gather is both a stirring adventure and practical manual. It’s a landmark guide to modern ritual; a tool kit for turning everyday moments into unforgettable celebrations; and an invitation to reconnect and rejoice—together.