Business
When McKinsey Comes To Town, Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe ( paperback 2023)
£10.99
A TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022**
An explosive expose of a firm whose work has made your world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous. McKinsey & Company have earned billions consulting for almost every major corporation in the world - and countless governments, including yours. Shielded by NDAs, their practices have remained hidden - until now.
In this propulsive investigation, prize-winning journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe reveal the disturbing reality. McKinsey's work includes ruthless cuts to the NHS, troubleshooting for Big Oil, incentivising the prescription of opioids, executing Trump's immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages) as well as advising some of the world's most unsavoury despots. 'A story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm' OBSERVER'Makes you so angry...the evidence the authors winkle out is astonishing' SUNDAY TIMES 'Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE'
Permacrisis : A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, Gordon Brown and others ( paperback April 2024)
£10.99
Do you feel like we're in a permacrisis? Chances are you feel some anxiety about the state of the world. Gordon Brown, Mohamed A. El-Erian and Michael Spence certainly did.Three of the most internationally respected and experienced thinkers of our time, these friends found their pandemic Zooms increasingly focused on a cascade of crises: sputtering growth, surging inflation, poor policy responses, an escalating climate emergency, worsening inequality, increasing nationalism and a decline in global co-operation. They shared their fears and frustrations. And the more they talked, the more they realised that while past mistakes had set the world on this bumpy course, a better path leading to a brighter future exists.
Informed by their different perspectives, they sought a common goal: achievable solutions to fix our fractured world. This book is the product of that thinking. At the heart of today's permacrisis are broken approaches to growth, economic management, and governance.
While these approaches are broken, they are not beyond repair. An explanation of where we've gone wrong, and a provocative, inspiring plan to do nothing less than change the world,
The Art of Winning, Dan Carter (paperback from July 2024)
£22.00
The Art of Winning : Ten Lessons in Leadership, Purpose and Potential
Ten timeless truths on leadership, purpose and potential - from the unique culture of the All Blacks, and the mind of a living legend. You might think success at the highest level insulates you from self-doubt. But nothing could be further from the truth.
In this book, I take you inside a journey that has forced me to look inwardly in a way I've never had to before. It's been challenging, frustrating, rewarding and left me full of gratitude. Whether you're a leader on a steep learning curve, a person navigating change in their life or just someone of any age trying to get that little bit better every day, I hope that my experience can spur you on to greater heights.
For the first time, sporting legend Dan Carter distils his two decades at the frontiers of high-performance into his 'perfect ten' lessons. You won't find conventional wisdom here, but hard-learned truths, including:- Why great leaders are made, not born, and why they must constantly evolve- How to forge a winning team culture- Why embracing your past can be every bit as important as looking towards your future- Why empowering others leads to the best decisions- Why confidence and self-belief are nothing without humility and a beginner's mindsetHonest, surprising and inspiring, The Art of Winning converts a legendary career into timeless lessons for readers in any walk of life. Step inside the unique culture of the All Blacks - and inside the mind of a legend.
Chaos Kings : how Wall Street traders make billions in the new age of crisis, Scott Patterson ( hardback August 2023)
£16.99
For fans of The Black Swan and written by a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter, this is a fascinating deep dive into the world of billion-dollar traders and high-stakes crisis predictors who strive to turn extreme events into financial windfalls. There's no doubt that our world has gotten more extreme. Pandemics, climate change, superpower rivalries, technological disruption, political radicalisation, religious fundamentalism - all threaten chaos that put trillions in assets at risk.But around the world, across a wide variety of disciplines, would-be super-forecasters are trying to take the guesswork out of what formerly seemed like random chance. Some put their faith in 'black swans' - unpredictable, catastrophic events that can't be foreseen but send exotic financial instruments screaming in high-profit directions. Most famous among this group of big-bet traders are those who run the Universa fund, who, on days of extreme upheaval, have made as much as $1 billion.
Author Scott Patterson gained exclusive access to Universa strategists and met with savvy seers in a variety of fields, from earthquake prediction to counterterrorism to climatology, to see if it's actually possible to bet on disaster - and win. Riveting, relevant, and revelatory, this is a must-read for anyone curious about how some of today's investors alchemise catastrophe into profit.
The Tools, Phil Stutz ( paperback March 2023)
£12.99
Change can begin right now. Learn to bring about dynamic personal growth using five uniquely effective tools- from psychotherapist Barry Michels and psychiatrist Phil Stutz, subject of the Netflix documentary Stutz, directed by Jonah Hill. Can you imagine what your life would be like if you could tap into a new source of power - one that has been inside you all along - to solve your own problems and become the master of your life?The Tools is an extraordinary psychological model based on the proven methods of Hollywood's greatest psychotherapists.Phil Stutz and Barry Michels have over 60 years of psychotherapeutic experience between them. Together they have helped their A-list clients work through whatever has held them back - be it insecurity, trauma, anger, lack of willpower, negativity or avoidance - to achieve their greatest work and find a deep level of fulfilment. Now, at last, the acclaimed clinicians are sharing their methods in this eye-opening and empowering book.
Introducing their five simple techniques, namely The Reversal of Desire, Active Love, Inner Authority, The Grateful Flow and Jeopardy, the authors clearly explain what they are plus how and when to use them. Astonishingly effective and beautifully simple - once you've learned a tool it takes only three to five seconds to use it - this book will give you everything you need to propel yourself forward to achieve your ambitions and be who you were born to be.
The Career Workbook, School of Life
£22.00
A thought-provoking and practical workbook with exercises to help you discover a career that is truly fulfilling. There are few questions harder or lonelier than, ‘What should I do with the rest of my working life?’ We are often simply meant to know the answer. But in private, some of us are acutely aware that we aren’t happy where we are and would love to find a way towards a job that is truly fulfilling.Tantalisingly, many of the answers we need to better direct our futures are inside us, but we need help getting them out, making sense of them and assembling them into a plan. This workbook contains a series of prompts, questions and essays designed to help us systematically understand more about our working identities and to guide us (with something like the skill of a great career therapist) towards an approach to work that will honour our talents and allow us to thrive.
MEGATHREATS, Nouriel Roubini ( paperback October 2023)
£12.99
Megathreats : The Ten Trends that Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
Roubini has surpassed even his high standards: the ten Megathreats he details are as scary as they are plausible. Forewarned is forearmed. Read and pay attention' Martin Wolf'Roubini cuts to the real problems like a hot knife through butter with a clarity of mind that is rare among economists.
I have never seen a more lucid and nuanced account of our financial condition. Not only will the reader be better off after reading this book, but the world will be a better place - Nassim Nicholas Taleb'We are heading towards the worst economic catastrophe of our lifetimes - unless we can defend against ten terrifying threats. World renowned economist Nouriel Roubini was nicknamed Dr.
Doom until his warnings of the 2008 housing crisis and Great Financial Crisis came true - when it was too late. Now he's back with much scarier predictions, ones that we ignore at our peril. There are no fewer than ten overlapping, interconnected threats that are so serious Roubini describes them as megathreats - with each one potentially amplifying the others.
From the worst debt crisis the world has ever seen, to governments pumping out too much money and causing inflation, to borders that are blocked to workers and many shipments of goods, to the rise of a new superpower competition between China and the US, to pandemics and climate change that strike directly at our most populated cities, to the threat to jobs coming from AI, we are facing not one, not two, but ten causes of disaster. Today, we are heading towards a Great Stagflation that will make the 1970s look moderate. There is a slight chance we can avoid it, if we come to our senses - but we must act now.
Narconomics, How to Run a Drug Cartel -Tom Wainwright (2017, paperback)
£14.99
Everything drug cartels do to survive and prosper they've learnt from big business - brand value and franchising from McDonald's, supply chain management from Walmart, diversification from Coca-Cola. Whether it's human resourcing, R&D, corporate social responsibility, off-shoring, problems with e-commerce or troublesome changes in legislation, the drug lords face the same strategic concerns companies like Ryanair or Apple. So when the drug cartels start to think like big business, the only way to understand them is using economics.In Narconomics, Tom Wainwright meets everyone from coca farmers in secret Andean locations, deluded heads of state in presidential palaces, journalists with a price on their head, gang leaders who run their empires from dangerous prisons and teenage hitmen on city streets - all in search of the economic truth.
Shoe Dog, Phil Knight (PAPERBACK, 2018)
£10.99
'A refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like ... It's an amazing tale' Bill Gates'
The best book I read last year was Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight. Phil is a very wise, intelligent and competitive fellow who is also a gifted storyteller' Warren Buffett
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan.
Selling the shoes from the boot of his Plymouth, Knight grossed $8000 in his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of start-ups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all start-ups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognisable symbols in the world today.
But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, he tells his story. Candid, humble, wry and gutsy, he begins with his crossroads moment when at 24 he decided to start his own business.
He details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream - along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls how his first band of partners and employees soon became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.
A memoir rich with insight, humour and hard-won wisdom, this book is also studded with lessons - about building something from scratch, overcoming adversity, and ultimately leaving your mark on the world.
Blood and Oil, by Bradley Hope ( Paperback 2021)
£10.99
If you've ever wondered what would happen if limitless money met limitless power, wonder no longer, it's all here...Terrifying, disturbing and ghastly' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland'
Blood and Oil is the explosive untold story of how Mohammed bin Salman and his entourage grabbed power in the Middle East and acquired a network of Western allies - including well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians - all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince.
Through astonishing interviews with powerful insiders, Blood and Oil tells how MBS's cabal played the Saudi economy and capitalised on the omnipotence of feudal power while effectively stamping out dissent, before allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out.
A story of breath-taking dealings that range from Riyadh to London, Paris to America, this is a thrilling and brutal investigation into extreme wealth, one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders, and the bid for Saudi transformation that is reverberating around the world. "This is as close to the truth, to the real story of the corruption, vulgarities, horrors, and lies of the Kingdom and its current despot as we are likely to get.
Never Split The Difference, by Chris Voss ( paperback )
£10.99
A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating - effective in any situation. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a kidnapping negotiator brought him face-to-face with bank robbers, gang leaders and terrorists. Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most - when people's lives were at stake.
'Filled with insights that apply to everyday negotiations.' Business Insider
'A stupendous book.' The Week'
Revised cover art November 2023
