I’m pleased to share what I consider the most promising, must-read nonfiction titles scheduled for release in June 2024. These titles make up our first group of nominees for Season 25 of the Next Big Idea Club.
Our Next Big Idea Club curators—Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink—will narrow the list down to a handful of finalists and, ultimately, two official season selections.
Authors will also be invited to create a “Book Bite”, a 15-minute audio self-recording that features five key insights from their book. Imagine chatting with a stranger on an airplane—only that person just happened to write a fascinating nonfiction book!
And now, the June 2024 titles are…
Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net
By Jessica Calarco
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences. View on Amazon
Negotiating While Black: Be Who You Are to Get What You Want
By Damali Peterman
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A real-world, one-of-a-kind resource for anyone who has ever been underestimated, overlooked, or misunderstood at the negotiating table. View on Amazon
Build Like a Woman: The Blueprint for Creating a Business and Life You Love
By Kathleen Griffith
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
From the self-made businesswoman and founder of the global platform Build Like A Woman comes the essential resource to unleash your business, take up space, and create your dream life. View on Amazon
How to Love Someone Without Losing Your Mind: Forget the Fairy Tale and Get Real
By Todd Baratz
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A brutally honest guide that cuts through the bullsh*t and sky-high expectations of modern love to help you build healthier and more fulfilling relationships, from the creator of viral Instagram account YourDiagnonsense. View on Amazon
The Laws of Connection: The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network
By David Robson
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
This groundbreaking study reveals how social connections are far more important than we thought, showing us the steps we can take to build better relationships and improve our lives. View on Amazon
Everything and Nothing at Once: A Black Man’s Reimagined Soundtrack for the Future
By Joél Leon
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
With incisive, searing prose, Everything and Nothing at Once deconstructs what it means to be a Black man in America. View on Amazon
The Death of Truth
By Steven Brill
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
How did we become a world where facts have lost their power to hold us together? Best-selling journalist Steven Brill documents the forces and people that have created and exploited this world of chaos and division—and offers solutions. View on Amazon
Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change
By Nicole Vignola
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Discover the neuroscience of a better you in this revolutionary book that teaches you how to rewire your brain to achieve peak mental wellbeing. View on Amazon
World Class: Purpose, Passion, and the Pursuit of Greatness On and Off the Field
By Grant Wahl
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
The definitive collection of beloved late journalist Grant Wahl’s work—a masterclass in the art of sportswriting. View on Amazon
Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine
By Joanna Kempner
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
How a group of ordinary people, debilitated by excruciating pain, developed their own medicine from home-grown psilocybin mushrooms—crafting near-clinical grade dosing protocols—and fought for recognition in a broken medical system. View on Amazon
Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water
By Amorina Kingdon
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes. View on Amazon
Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation
By Tom McGrath
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Yuppie values had an undeniable impact on the world—from gentrification and an obsession with career success to an indulgent materialism. Most significantly, their me‑first mindset helped create the largest income inequality in a century. View on Amazon
This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist’s Path from Grief to Wonder
By Alan Townsend
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A compassionate, vulnerable, and transformative exploration of the nurturing and spiritual power of scientific wonder, as illuminated through the tragic dual cancer diagnoses of author Dr. Alan Townsend’s wife and daughter. View on Amazon
The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions
By Amanda Bellows
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A fascinating new history of America, told through the stories of a diverse cast of ten extraordinary adventurers, from Sacagawea to Matthew Henson to Sally Ride, who pushed the boundaries of discovery and determined our national destiny. View on Amazon
Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy
By Francis Barry
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Bringing together two of America’s unifying loves—road trips and Abraham Lincoln—Frank Barry takes readers on a thought-provoking journey into the heart of our democracy and the soul of our country. View on Amazon
What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
By Prentis Hemphill
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level. View on Amazon
Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever
By Joseph Cox
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
How an enormous sting operation revealed the fundamental problems of policing in such a vast and high-speed economy. This is a caper for our modern world, where everyone is connected and no one is completely free. View on Amazon
Our Next Reality: How the AI-powered Metaverse Will Reshape the World
By Alvin Wang Graylin
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Over the last 100 years, technology has changed our world. Over the next decade it will transform our reality. View on Amazon
The Captive Imagination: Addiction, Reality, and Our Search for Meaning
By Elias Dakwar
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
A profound, humane, and revolutionary new framework for understanding and addressing addiction. View on Amazon
Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes: Odes to Being Alive
By James Parker
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
From the vertiginously talented Atlantic staff writer James Parker, a collection of uproarious prose odes that show how to find gratitude in unexpected places. View on Amazon
Why War?
By Richard Overy
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight. View on Amazon
The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life’s Deepest Secrets
By Thomas Cech
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Exploring the most transformative breakthroughs in biology since the discovery of the double helix, a Nobel Prize–winning scientist unveils the RNA age. View on Amazon
Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections
By Anna Goldfarb
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
It’s never been easier to shed friendships, which is precisely why we need a new approach to keeping them strong. Anna argues that we need to update our approach to friendships in a way that accounts for the hyper-fluid society we live in. View on Amazon
The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers
By Zeke Hernandez
Publication Date: June 4, 2024
Most books making a case for immigration tell you that immigration is good for immigrants. This book is all about how newcomers benefit you, your community, and your country. View on Amazon
The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines
By Matt Beane
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
From one of the world’s top researchers on work and technology comes an insightful and surprising guide to protecting your skill in a world filling with AI and robots. View on Amazon
The Trolls of Wall Street: How the Outcasts and Insurgents Are Hacking the Markets
By Nathaniel Popper
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
The dramatic story of an improbable gang of self-proclaimed “degenerates” who made WallStreetBets into a cultural movement that moved from the fringes of the internet to the center of Wall Street, upending the global financial markets and changing how an entire generation thinks about money, investing, and themselves. View on Amazon
Money and Promises: Seven Deals That Changed the World
By Paolo Zannoni
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
Spanning many countries, political systems, and historical eras, this book shows that at the heart of banks is an intricate exchange of debts and promises that shaped the modern world as we know it. View on Amazon
Good Judgment: Making Better Business Decisions with the Science of Human Personality
By Richard Davis
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
An organizational psychologist teaches how to select the right employees and business partners, assess investment opportunities shrewdly, resolve conflicts better and faster, and optimize performance on the job using the science of personality. View on Amazon
Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life
By Eric Weiner
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiring and practical lessons in a book that’s part biography, part travelogue, part personal prescription. View on Amazon
Make Art or Die Trying: The Only Art Book You’ll Ever Need If You Want to Make Art That Changes the World
By Stuart Semple
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
A guide to harnessing the power of creative ideas to create art and change in your life and community. View on Amazon
The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging
By Julia Hotz
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
In this combination of diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery, journalist Julia Hotz helps us discover lasting and life-changing medicine in our own communities. View on Amazon
Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
By Renée DiResta
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
A brilliant, original analysis of the radical shift in the dynamics of power and influence, revealing how the machinery that powered the Big Lie works to create bespoke realities revolutionizing politics, culture, and society. View on Amazon
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform our Lives, Work, and World
By Jamie Metzl
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
The definitive account of the technological precipice on which we stand and the map to where we go from here. View on Amazon
The Hacker Mindset: A 5-Step Methodology for Cracking the System and Achieving Your Dreams
By Garrett Gee
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
For the countless people feeling trapped in their jobs and whose talents aren’t being fully utilized, this book offers a wake-up call to break free from the constraints of ordinary employment and achieve true financial freedom. View on Amazon
Playing from the Rough: A Personal Journey through America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses
By Jimmie James
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
The story of one man’s quest to become the first person to play each of America’s 100 greatest golf courses in a single year, an odyssey that brings him face to face with the gulf between his impoverished childhood in the Jim Crow South and the successful executive he became. View on Amazon
Just Add Water: My Swimming Life
By Katie Ledecky
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
A three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and world record-holder in individual swimming events, Ledecky shares what it takes to compete at an elite level. View on Amazon
Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap
By Louise Story & Ebony Reed
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A sweeping, deeply researched narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system through public and private actions that created today’s Black-white wealth gap. View on Amazon
The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life
By Leslie Zane
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
Award-winning Fortune 500 brand consultant and behavioral expert Leslie Zane shatters conventional marketing wisdom, showing readers how to tap into the hidden brain where instinct prevails, creating a powerful network of connections that drive people to buy your product, company, or vision. View on Amazon
The AI-Savvy Leader: Nine Ways to Take Back Control and Make AI Work
By David De Cremer
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
Leaders, don’t let AI get the best of you. View on Amazon
What’s Next Is Now: How to Live Future Ready
By Frederik Pferdt
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
The renowned global thought leader and Google’s first Chief Innovation Evangelist introduces a forward-thinking mindstate that will help you navigate ambiguity and uncertainty with intention, transform problems and challenges into profound opportunities, and create exactly the future you want to see. View on Amazon
Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World
By Kelly Clancy
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A wide-ranging intellectual history that reveals how important games have been to human progress, and what’s at stake when we forget what games we’re really playing. View on Amazon
Complicit: How Our Culture Enables Misbehaving Men
By Reah Bravo
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A thoroughly researched and deeply personal examination of how women unintentionally condone workplace abuse in a post-#MeToo world—and what we can do to change things for the better. View on Amazon
The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage
By Jonathan Turley
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A timely, revelatory look at freedom of speech—our most basic right and the one that protects all the others. View on Amazon
Nature of Our Cities, The: Harnessing the Power of the Natural World to Survive a Changing Planet
By Nadine Galle
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A stirring exploration of how innovators from around the world are combining urban nature with emerging technologies, protecting the planet’s cities from the effects of climate change and safeguarding the health of their inhabitants. View on Amazon
Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI
By Madhumita Murgia
Publication Date: June 18, 2024
A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial intelligence, revealing the perils and inequities of our growing reliance on automated decision-making. View on Amazon
Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
By Nicola Twilley
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
An engaging and far-reaching exploration of refrigeration, tracing its evolution from scientific mystery to globe-spanning infrastructure, and an essential investigation into how it has remade our entire relationship with food—for better and for worse. View on Amazon
The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
By Ray Kurzweil
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come. View on Amazon
Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV
By Emily Nussbaum
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
The rollicking saga of reality television—an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer. View on Amazon
Democracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps
By Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor & Josh Halloway
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
From your friends at Pod Save America and Crooked Media comes a useful and illustrated guide to saving American democracy just in time for the 2024 election and 2025 insurrection. View on Amazon
The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss
By Cody Delistraty
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
In this lyrical and moving story of the world of Prolonged Grief, journalist Cody Delistraty reflects on his experience with loss and explores what modern science, history, and literature reveal about the nature of our relationship to grief and our changing attitudes toward its cure. View on Amazon
Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory
By Solomon Brager
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
A moving and provocative graphic memoir exploring inherited trauma, family history, and the ever-shifting understanding of our own identities. View on Amazon
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