New Book Releases | October 14th
New books published this week discuss the relationship between art and money, markets and luck, risk and success, and the physical infrastructure of the internet.
Andrew Ross Sorkin was on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, discussing the "worrying similarities between Wall Street today and 1929's pre-crash market." His massive new book on the subject, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—And How It Shattered a Nation, is available online and on local bookshop shelves today. Weighing in at nearly 600 pages, it is a behemoth of a book, but well worth your time. Seeing as it is already receiving plenty of attention elsewhere, we would like to introduce you to four other books that are worthy of attention. They are:
How Artists Make Money and How Money Makes Artists by David Berry, published by Coach House Books
How artists make a living and how money changes art.
It may not be the worst time in history to get paid to make art, but it certainly is the strangest. The institutions and markets that have been supporting the arts are undergoing massive changes, some even disappearing. Meanwhile the tools to make art and find audiences have never been more accessible, and there are more people than ever making art.
How Artists Make Money and How Money Makes Artists is an attempt to reckon with the history of money in the arts—from Titian to Taylor Swift—and how that complicated relationship is changing. David Berry analyzes past and present financial dynamics in the arts to show the practicalities of how artists make a living and how that, in turn, affects the reception and perception of artists and their work: the impacts art has on wider society, how economic realities affect aesthetic judgements of art, what kind of people are able to work as artists, and how political and cultural ideas about the nature of art affect what kind of resources are made available to it.
David Berry explores how art has become central to our understanding of humanity by tying art to what makes the world go round: money. Along the way, he challenges popular ideas of what constitutes a successful artistic career and considers what our treatment of artists says about us.
Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want by Judd Kessler, published by Little, Brown Spark
Wharton economist and market designer Judd Kessler pulls back the curtain on hidden markets that determine who gets what in everyday life—and how to tip the scales in your favor.
What’s the secret to scoring a reservation at a hot new restaurant? When should you enter a lottery to increase your odds of winning? Why did your neighbor’s kid get into a nearby preschool while yours didn’t? Who gets priority for a life-saving organ donation?
These outcomes are not a matter of luck. Instead, they depend on how we navigate hidden markets that arise to decide who gets what when many of us want something and there isn’t enough to go around. Every day we play in these markets, yet few of us fully understand how they work.
In familiar markets, what we get depends on how much we’re willing to pay. Hidden markets do not rely on prices: you can’t buy your way in to a better position. Instead, what you receive hinges on the rules by which the market operates, and the choices you make in them.
Judd Kessler has spent a career studying and designing these very markets. Now, he reveals the secrets of how they work, and how to maneuver in them. Whether you want to snag a coveted ticket, secure a spot in an oversubscribed college course, get better matches in the dating and job markets, do your fair share of the household chores (but no more), or more efficiently allocate your time and attention, this must-read guide will show you how to get Lucky by Design.
Safe Danger: An Unexpected Method for Sparking Connection, Finding Purpose, and Inspiring Innovation by Ben Swire, published by Balance
An award-winning designer and former Design Lead at the iconic innovation firm IDEO teaches how to use small, creative risks to build trust, inspire connection, and supercharge employee engagement.
In a world where safety easily becomes stagnation and risk is seen as a threat, Ben Swire's counterintuitive book, Safe Danger, offers a refreshing perspective on how playful creativity can balance those two forces to unlock personal and professional growth.
Ask people what they want from life and you’ll hear: inspiring experiences, exciting work, meaningful relationships, and making a difference. But ask how they’re doing on that wish list, and you’ll likely find it’s still just that: a wish list. That’s because those things require intimidating risks like vulnerability, disappointment, and trust. As a result, we end up with a chasm between what we want and what we’re willing to do to get it. In Safe Danger, Ben Swire has developed a suite of creative activities that combine safety and risk to spur emotional growth.
Drawing on the latest research and years of experience, this entertaining book explains how and why his playful approach is so effective at helping people manage fear and make change. Swire delves into seven powerful qualities that the Safe Danger method can unlock to help people bring out the best in themselves and their teams: joy, vulnerability, curiosity, optimism, connection, trust, and creativity. Full of practical activities and inspiring insights, Safe Danger is for business professionals and creative types—especially those who feel stuck or dissatisfied with their company’s work culture or career trajectory.
Whether you're a leader looking to engage your team, a professional seeking to infuse your career with new life, or an individual striving to get more out of your time on earth, Safe Danger offers the tools and insights you’ve been missing. Discover how to embrace the unexpected, fuel your creativity, and inspire those around you with the transformative power of "Safe Danger."
The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables that Connect our World by Samanth Subramanian, published by Columbia Global Reports
What if the Internet goes dark?
We think of the Internet as wireless, weightless, ever-present—but its true foundation lies in the ocean’s depths, where nearly 900,000 miles of fiber-optic cables quietly pulse with all the world’s information.
In The Web Beneath the Waves, the acclaimed journalist Samanth Subramanian travels from remote Pacific islands to secretive cable-laying operations to reveal the astonishing world of undersea infrastructure. He reveals the fate of Tonga after a volcanic eruption severs its only undersea link to the Internet, meets the men and women engaged in the fiendishly complex work of laying submarine cables, and scrutinizes the acts of “grey zone warfare,” in which ghost ships cut the cables of other countries.
Subramanian charts the deep geopolitical tensions, corporate power grabs, environmental risks, and quiet heroics involved in maintaining the Internet’s unseen circulatory system. With his signature clarity and curiosity, he brings to life the cables that stitch continents together—and exposes just how vulnerable our connected lives really are. This is narrative nonfiction at its most urgent and eye-opening: a book that asks what happens when the world goes offline, and who controls the switch.
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The Porchlight staff members choosing new books each week are Porchlight's Managing Director, Sally Haldorson, and the marketing team of Gabriella Cisneros and Dylan Schleicher.
Unless otherwise noted, all book descriptions are from the publisher.