From "a groundbreaking history of the dollar" to "the collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer," the books we're diving into this week cover a wide range of topics. 

All four are 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.

The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money by Brendan Greeley, published by Crown Currency

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history of the dollar, financial journalist and economic scholar Brendan Greeley makes a new argument about the origins of our money—and the people and nations who have surrendered to it.

America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world writes international contracts in dollars, and in 2023, central banks around the world held nearly $6.7 trillion in dollar reserves, three times any other currency. Today, the United States’ global hegemony rests largely on its ability to produce unlimited treasury bonds that are sold around the world, dollars that supported America’s explosive growth in the twentieth century and funded its massive wars in the twenty-first. American power and the American dollar have become synonymous.

Yet in this brilliant 500-year history, Brendan Greeley argues that America’s sovereignty over the dollar is an illusion—that the dollar had already empowered and destroyed nations long before it washed up on colonial shores, and that no country or king has or can ever truly control it. Reaching back to the dollar’s birth as the taler in the 15th-century silver mines of St. Joachimsthal, Greeley reveals how the dollar first thrived as a commodity for merchants and bankers—a big, silver coin that was trusted around the world, even as the miners who pulled it from the ground had trouble getting paid in that same silver. Greeley traces a captivatingly complex path across time and place, from the industrial collapse at the heart of Spain’s 17th-century silver empire, to the birth of American paper dollars in colonial Maryland, 19th-century New Orleans bank failures, and the small town of Hawarden, Iowa, which created its own dollars during the Great Depression. At every surprising turn, Greeley upends assumptions about global currencies and draws out the centuries-old tension between how dollars are manufactured and whom they actually serve.

Singular in its breadth, The Almighty Dollar dismantles the myth that America created or has ever truly controlled the dollar. Through meticulous research and vividly rendered stories of merchants, monarchs, and everyday people both past and present, Greeley shows how the dollar became America’s greatest export, spawning a vast financial industry that enriches the wealthy, even as the rest of the country’s industries suffer.

The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up—and Then Pushes Them Down by Stefanie O’Connell, published by Basic Venture

For women disillusioned by the failed promises of girl power, a data-driven guide that reveals the hidden forces still fueling gender inequality at work. 

We spoke up. We took charge. We asked for more. But where has it actually left us? Not only are generations of women more burned-out than ever, but the gender pay gap has barely budged in decades. 

In The Ambition Penalty, journalist Stefanie O’Connell presents a deeply researched and sometimes shocking look at the ways women remain passed over and excluded, not for a lack of ambition but because of it. She calls it “the ambition penalty”—the sum of the financial, personal, and professional costs women face for daring to want more.

“A new playbook for reclaiming our ambition, our time, and our values.” ―Eve Rodsky, author of New York Times bestseller Fair Play

The Ambition Penalty dismantles the myth that women are less ambitious than their male peers and debunks common claims—like women aren’t confident enough and don’t negotiate enough—used to justify stubborn gender gaps in power. This book reveals why decades of educational gains and empowerment messages have not translated into corresponding advances for women at work or at home.

The Ambition Penalty gives women the talking points they can use to call out these biases and lays out proven practices for leaders and allies committed to cultivating environments where women’s ambitions are supported, rewarded, and celebrated. 

A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection by Nicholas Epley, published by Knopf

We know that social connection enriches our lives—so why do we hesitate to connect?

There is a paradox at the core of human life. We are a highly social species uniquely equipped to connect with other people and doing so is better for us. Yet we so often choose to be unsocial. We avoid talking to the stranger who sits next to us. We struggle to move beyond small talk with an acquaintance. We are reluctant to express our gratitude to people we appreciate. Every day, we avoid opportunities to connect with strangers, neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family. By missing those moments, we miss out on all the benefits of a more social life—one that is happier and healthier for everyone.

“One of those rare books that might actually change your life.” —Daniel Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness

University of Chicago psychologist and author of Mindwise, Nicholas Epley has spent his career studying the way we connect, and he has found that our social fears often keep us from reaching out. But Epley shows us how to seize the small moments with insights such as:

• Social connection is a choice we make based on expectations about how others will respond to us—expectations that tend to be overly pessimistic.
  
• Introverts and extroverts alike benefit from choosing to be a little more social.
  
• Mistaken expectations can cause us to avoid interacting in ways that create strong connections—such as having a conversation—in favor of less satisfying interactions—such as social media or texting.
  
• While many books promise one big fix, making a habit of small connections is much more likely to improve your life.
  
• The habits and practices that Epley advocates are approachable. The beauty of this book is that small acts have an outsized impact on the most important parts of our lives.

Bridging the gap between two people is easier than we think, and success more likely, if we choose to be a little more social.

On Witness and Respair: Essays by Jesmyn Ward, published by Scribner

The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.

Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.

From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”

True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.