New Book Releases | April 21, 2026
One of the best antidotes to our age of distraction and screen addiction is picking up a good book.
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.
Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff, published by Harper
A pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age.
Everyone’s got an Elon take. He’s a messiah. A menace; a genius; a clown. The verdicts differ, but they share one theme: they treat him as an individual.
Muskism argues otherwise. Elon Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.
If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His cars run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us.
Muskism sells itself as the future but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy.
Muskism isn’t about the man. It’s about the machine that made him. To read Muskism is to understand the machinery that made the man, and the world he’s making next, based on his philosophy of power in the spheres of:
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Silicon Valley: A sharp analysis of Elon Musk as more than a tech CEO, introducing “Muskism” as a new Silicon Valley paradigm shaping artificial intelligence, startups, and 21st-century capitalism.
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Big Tech, AI & the Future of Capitalism: Examines Tesla, SpaceX, and digital platforms through concepts like techno-sovereignty, automation, and “state symbiosis,” revealing how Big Tech is restructuring markets, innovation, and economic power.
- Geopolitics, Power & the Tech Billionaire Era: Explores how Musk’s companies influence global politics, infrastructure, and governance—from satellite networks to energy systems—showing how private tech power is reshaping international relations.
Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff cut through the hype and the hate to reveal what Musk really represents: a new political economy, where to be “free” means to serve a Technoking.
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.
What Do You Really Stand For?: The One Question That Will Transform Your Work and Life by Paul Ingram, Harvard Business Review Press
A practical, research-based guide to maximizing the most overlooked driver of lasting success and fulfillment—your values.
What if one simple shift could make you feel as satisfied as getting an $84,000 raise? Research shows that really understanding your core values—and living by them—can deliver just that. Yet most of us struggle with this. We go about our work and our lives with only a vague sense of the values that underpin everything we do.
In What Do You Really Stand For? Columbia Business School professor Paul Ingram reveals that values are far more than a moral compass—they're a source of advantage that can boost your performance, your leadership effectiveness, and your well-being.
Drawing on decades of research and the frameworks he's used with students and executives, Ingram presents a set of exercises and tools to help you articulate your values, integrate them into your work and life, build stronger relationships, and achieve better outcomes in all that you do.
Whether you're navigating a career decision or managing conflict, leading a team or an entire organization, or simply trying to live with greater purpose, What Do You Really Stand For? offers a powerful guide to taking more intentional control of your life and career—and leading yourself and others with more clarity, confidence, and purpose.
