Zero to One by Peter Thiel (2014)

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark (2017)

The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology, according to Max Tegmark, an MIT professor in mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle? What sort of future do you want? This book doesn't shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues, from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.

Lying by Sam Harris (2011)

As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption - even murder and genocide - generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie.

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes (2010)

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers with deep connections in politics and industry ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott (2017)

Radical candor is the sweet spot between managers who are obnoxiously aggressive on one side and ruinously empathetic on the other. It's about providing guidance, which involves a mix of praise as well as criticism, delivered to produce better results and help employees achieve their goals. Great bosses have strong relationships with their employees, and Scott has identified three simple principles for building better relationships with your employees: make it personal, get (sh)it done, and understand why it matters. Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom (2014)

Superintelligence asks the questions: what happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful - possibly beyond our control. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move.

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll (2016)

Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level - and then how each connects to the other. The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)

Adam Smith's masterpiece, first published in 1776, is the foundation of modern economic thought and remains the single most important account of the rise of, and the principles behind, modern capitalism. Written in clear and incisive prose, The Wealth of Nations articulates the concepts indispensable to an understanding of contemporary society. Robert Reich's Introduction both clarifies Smith's analyses and illuminates his overall relevance to the world in which we live. As Reich writes, "Smith's mind ranged over issues as fresh and topical today as they were in the late eighteenth century - jobs, wages, politics, government, trade, education, business, and ethics." - Commentary by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner

You Can Negotiate Anything: The World's Best Negotiator Tells You How To Get What You Want by Herb Cohen (1980)

Herb Cohen believes the world is a giant negotiating table and, like it or not, you're a negotiator. Whether you're dealing with your spouse, boss, department store, bank manager, children, solicitor, or best friend, in every encounter with other people, negotiation is always taking place. And how well you handle those encounters determines whether you prosper happily or suffer frustration and loss. With his helpful and sensible approach, Cohen shows that negotiating is a process you can understand and predict, and most importantly, that it's a practical skill you can learn and improve upon.

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Two more added to the IdleGuy.com Library this month:

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche by Friederich Neitzche