Human Culture

A deeply researched warning about how the digital economy threatens artists' lives and work—the music, writing, and visual art that sustain our souls and societies—from an award-winning essayist and critic There are two stories you hear about earning a living as an artist in the digital age...

The author of The New York Times bestseller This is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture and “will leave you awestruck.” (The New York Times) Daniel J. Levitin’s astounding debut bestseller, This is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted...

“This is the management book of the year. Clear, powerful and urgent, it's a must read for anyone who cares about where they work and how they work.” —Seth Godin, author of This is Marketing “This book is a breath of fresh air. Read it now, and make sure your boss does too.”...

Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.

Taking us on an incredible journey across centuries and galaxies, accompanied by his characteristic wit, Professor Luke O’Neill explains how it all began, how it will all end and everything in between. Listeners will benefit from Luke’s insatiable curiosity for life when they dive into this ultimate journey through life and death. Among other fascinating facts, you’ll discover the science behind how we got to be so smart, why sex with a caveman was a good idea, the science of finding love, why we follow religions and how robots will become part of everyday life.

In their groundbreaking book, Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever uncovered a startling fact: even women who negotiate brilliantly on behalf of others often falter when it comes to asking for themselves. Now they’ve developed the action plan that women all over the country...

“Mine” is one of the first words babies learn, and by the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether we are buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you, reclining, or the squished laptop user behind you? Why is plagiarism...

A bold manifesto arguing that the most complex challenges we face today—as individuals, businesses, and a society—require us to ask deeper questions, not seek easier answers “With this beautifully written book, Seth Goldenberg awakens the gifts we all possess: wonder, optimism, and the...

The groundbreaking science of how and why we talk, and how this ability impacts every area of our lives Humans are the only species that can transform internal ideas into talk, whether through speech, writing, or sign language. But why do we have this almost magical, special talent? It turns out...

From award-winning journalist Jessica Barrett, an honest and urgent look at our housing crisis and lessons from around the world that will make better homes for all Canadians. After living in Vancouver for her entire adult life, Jessica Barrett packed up her apartment, quit her dream job as a...

Glaciers figure prominently in both ancient and contemporary narratives around the world. They inspire art and literature. They spark both fear and awe. And they give and take life. In The Age of Melt, environmental journalist Lisa Baril explores the deep-rooted cultural connection between humans and ice through time.

A dramatic reading of stories and quotations from Brandon Stanton’s photography book Dear New York, the inspiration for the groundbreaking Grand Central Station installation. While the book pairs photographs with firsthand accounts from their subjects, this audio companion features different...

Researcher and lecturer Carl Lorenz Cervantes explores the timeless wisdom, ancestral worldviews, and spiritual tools of Filipino psychology and culture—and offers Indigenous ways of knowing for all readers, Filipino and non-Filipino alike. Drawing from folklore, language, ethnography, and...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND THE ECONOMIST “Slaughter’s gift for illuminating large issues through everyday human stories is what makes this book so necessary for anyone who wants to be both a leader at work and a fully engaged parent at home...

An illuminating look at the surprising upside of ambiguity—and how, properly harnessed, it can inspire learning, creativity, even empathy Life today feels more overwhelming and chaotic than ever. Whether it’s a confounding work problem or a faltering relationship or an unclear medical...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST The definitive takedown of fatphobia, drawing on personal experience as well as rigorous research to expose how size discrimination harms everyone, and how to combat it—from the acclaimed author of Down Girl and Entitled “An elegant, fierce, and profound...

A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the...

Two of the biggest design problems in Artificial Intelligence are how to build robots that behave in line with human values and how to stop them ever going rogue. One under-explored solution to these alignment and control problems might be to examine how these are already addressed in the design of humans. Robot Souls looks at developments in AI and reviews the emergence of ideas of consciousness and the soul. It places our 'junk code' in this context and argues that it is time to foreground that code, and to use it to look again at how we are programming AI.

In Places of the Heart, Colin Ellard explores how our homes, workplaces, cities, and nature - places we escape to and can’t escape from - have influenced us throughout history and how our brains and bodies respond to different types of real and virtual space. As he describes the insight he and other scientists have gained from new technologies, he assesses the influence these technologies will have on our evolving environment and asks what kind of world we are, and should be, creating.

Tabletop games are ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary because they're everywhere: played in bars and cafés, churches and casinos, through sunless winters in polar research stations and in the sweltering summer heat of Tanzanian villages and streamed live over Twitch to millions of viewers. And they're extraordinary for precisely the same reason: they're everywhere, in every civilization, everywhere in the world across all recorded human history. In Across the Board, tabletop game aficionado Tim Clare takes us through that history and across those civilizations.