The act of reading trains the brain to maintain focus for longer periods, making it one of the best ways we can break free from our devices and the attention extraction economy that thrives on keeping us online. So, just the act of reading itself can change our lives, without even considering the effect of a book's contents on us. And picking a book to read together at work can help us slow down, refocus our collective attention on what matters most, and prioritize the long-term over instant gratification. So, make a plan to pick up a book and get offline for a while. 

All four of the following titles are great choices—available online and hitting bookshop shelves today. Unless otherwise noted, all descriptions of the books below come from the publisher.

Interested in buying multiple copies for your team, book club, or employee resource group? Follow the links below or give us a call to purchase the books, or check out our services for bulk book buyers to learn more about how we can help.

Anchored, Aligned, Accountable: A Framework for Transcending Bullsh*t and Transforming Our Lives and Work by Aiko Bethea, published by Random House

From one of our most visionary leadership coaches comes a bold new framework for successfully navigating complicated interactions at work, at home, and in all our relationships.

We’ve all had them—awkward interactions at work that could have gone differently, misunderstandings at home that led to avoidable blowups. But what if those uncomfortable moments could become opportunities for personal transformation?

Renowned leadership coach Aiko Bethea gives us an innovative and road-tested framework for learning to show up in any situation authentically and not as the people-pleasing or conflict-avoidant versions of ourselves that have become second nature to so many of us.

The framework lays out how to successfully navigate moments of conflict: first we must be anchored in our values and purpose, then our actions and principles must be aligned, and finally we must be accountable for our impact. With these three steps, we can remake ourselves and our connections with others, fostering constructive dialogue and creating opportunities for growth.

Throughout the book, Bethea draws on decades of real-life experience to show us the many forms that these scenarios can take, offering practical advice to help us lead from our most genuine selves and deepen relationships in every part of our lives. In doing so, she shows us how to transcend the bullshit we constantly encounter and meet each new day grounded in truth, connected to our values, and in control of not just what we do but who we become.

Eco Revolution: Climate Justice, Community, and the Fight for Our Planet by Maya Penn, published by Balance

A humanized and eye-opening journey through the past, present, and future of one of the most crucial topics of our time: Climate change.
 
This is a time unlike any other in human history. With the ever-growing threat of the climate crisis looming and putting the whole world on the edge of its seat, we have not only entered into a brand new once-in-a-generation era of social and environmental justice advocacy—but the deep-rooted overlap between environmental crises and inequities that have been spotlighted in an unprecedented elevation of awareness.
 
This book chronicles untold sustainability history, highlights the stories of unsung eco-warrior heroes, and shares solutions for a more sustainable and equitable world. With 15 years of hands-on experience in the environmental activism space, award-winning environmental activist Maya Penn's unique voice has become one of the most sought after.   
 
Eco Revolution explores our collective connection to the natural world through inherited ecology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) passed down through indigenous cultures throughout the world as people worked in partnership with naturally occurring ecosystems to create thriving, functional societies and how this has translated to our modern understanding about sustainability.
 
Penn will take a comprehensive look at the current green movements around the world and how sustainable living can be reclaimed via the work of these groups, and the ways in which we can deploy creativity to bring about real change. Finally, readers will be confronted by the future—and how we can remain optimistic in the midst of looming crisis. 

How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work by Jodi Kantor, published by Little, Brown and Company

With warmth, honesty, and inspired wisdom, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jodi Kantor expands on her triumphant Columbia University commencement address, tackling the question, "How, in this environment, is anyone supposed to find and start their life's work?”

Jodi Kantor’s groundbreaking reporting has toppled media magnates, sparked reform worldwide, and foretold many of the unsettling changes we see in the workplace today. But before all of this, Kantor was kicked off her college newspaper. Society expects perfection, but Kantor knows those first professional steps are often rocky. She also knows that young people are facing new and frightening terrain, with political upheaval, skyrocketing costs of living, and the unknowns of AI.
 
Kantor casts aside platitudes and false hope to offer tangible help. Work is how we spend much of our time. It’s our engine of progress: how cancer therapies are invented, political campaigns won, thrilling art created and matched with an audience. Instead of letting cynicism take over, Kantor identifies two principles to help young people discover their life’s work: craft and need. By pairing the two, they can navigate tough, sensitive choices: how to think about money. How much risk to take on. When to buck what others are saying.
 
Powerful and provocative, How to Start is a statement of faith for young people as they make their way through uncertain times, offering wisdom, strategy, and a set of aspirations to launch their careers and last their whole lives. 

Screen People: How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency by Megan Garber, HarperOne

An eye-opening look at how the current media landscape has incentivized us to see our fellow citizens as characters in an ongoing entertainment—and how we can fight back, from the popular and award-winning staff writer for The Atlantic.

Whether it’s our reality-television-star President or our expertly curated Instagram feeds, the line between fact and fiction—between what’s real and what’s fabricated for entertainment—has never been more blurred. Screen People explores what happens when we cede our reality to spectacle. Megan Garber explains how today’s internet-inflected culture conditions us to see one another not as people but as characters in an ongoing show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions—loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation, cynicism—stem from our demand for diversion.

In ten chapters, each themed around an element of entertainment—from “The Producers,” who edit our reality, to “The Extras,” the strangers we turn into objects of our amusement, to “the Haters,” the worshipful Qanon-types who expect the prophecies of their anonymous leader to play out on live television—Garber argues that this comedy of our daily lives is quickly becoming tragedy. And we can’t understand our politics without first understanding our culture.

Like The Anxious Generation but about our media diet, Screen People shows why Megan Garber is one of the most respected and widely-read journalists of our day. It is an urgent, page-turning, and dazzling look at how we entertained ourselves into our current predicament, and how we might find our way out of the maze of misinformation and chaos.