New Releases | January 10, 2023

Looking for your next great read? We're here to help! Each week, our marketing team—Dylan Schleicher (DJJS), Gabbi Cisneros (GMC), Emily Porter (EPP), and Jasmine Gonzalez (JAG)—highlights four newly released books we are most excited about. 

Book descriptions are provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted.

This week, our choices are:

The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer, Riverhead Books (DJJS) 

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst—or just across the ocean—if only we can find eyes to see it. 
  
Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now? 
  
For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

Money and Love: An Intelligent Roadmap for Life's Biggest Decisions by Myra Stober and Abby Davisson, HarperOne (GMC) 

Americans are experiencing the most significant shift in work-life balance in decades, marked by remote work, the Great Resignation, and a mass reconfiguring of family dynamics and social/professional networks. In this comprehensive guide, Stanford Professor Emirita Myra Strober and career development expert Abby Davisson give you the insight and advice to make the right choices when facing life’s big choices. Money and Love explores many consequential questions, such as: Should I move in with this person? Should I quit my job? When is the “right time” to have another child? And numerous other daunting decisions familiar to us all.

Pairing engaging narratives with hard data, Money and Love is an essential toolkit for making intelligent decisions that can help you build the foundation for a more rewarding life. Most guides view money and love as separate issues; Strober and Davisson emphasis they are interdependent and show you how to consider them jointly using the 5Cs: Clarify, Communicate, Choices, Check-in, and Consequences. Their framework offers simple and effective steps that will empower you to make the best strategic decisions today and for the rest of your life. 

The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us by Adam Kirsch, Columbia Global Reports (JAG) 

Should we welcome the end of humanity? 

In this blistering book about the history of an idea, one of our leading critics draws on his dazzling range and calls our attention to a seemingly inconceivable topic that is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity’s reign on earth is imminent, and that we should welcome it. Kirsch journeys through literature, philosophy, science, and popular culture, to identify two strands of thinking: Anthropocene antihumanism says that our climate destruction has doomed humanity and we should welcome our extinction, while Transhumanism believes that genetic engineering and artificial intelligence will lead to new forms of life superior to humans. 

Kirsch’s introduction of thinkers and writers from Roger Hallam to Jane Bennett, David Benatar to Nick Bostrom, Patricia MacCormack to Ray Kurzweil, Ian McEwan to Richard Powers, will make you see the current moment in a new light. The revolt against humanity has already spread beyond the fringes of the intellectual world, and it can transform politics and society in profound ways—if it hasn’t already. 

What Do You Want Out of Life? : A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters by Valerie Tiberius, Princeton University Press (EPP) 

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money—or work for justice? To run marathons—or sing in a choir? To have children—or travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we really want, or how to define success. Blending personal stories, philosophy, and psychology, this insightful and entertaining book offers invaluable advice about living well by understanding your values and resolving the conflicts that frustrate their fulfillment. 

Valerie Tiberius introduces you to a way of thinking about your goals that enables you to reflect on them effectively throughout your life. She illustrates her approach with vivid examples, many of which are drawn from her own life, ranging from the silly to the serious, from shopping to navigating prejudice. Throughout, the book emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness, reminding us of the profound influence other people have on our lives, our goals, and how we should pursue them. At the same time, the book offers strategies for coping with obstacles to realizing your goals, including gender bias and other kinds of discrimination. 

Whether you are changing jobs, rethinking your priorities, or reconsidering your whole life path, What Do You Want Out of Life? is an essential guide to helping you understand what really matters to you and how you can thoughtfully pursue it.