Globalization seen through the lens of game balls, building a culture of psychological safety at work, prioritizing fulfillment over happiness, and a powerful argument for "moving beyond rigid racial categories toward a more expansive understanding of identity, connection, and community"—the four books we're recommending this week offer multiple lenses into understanding the world we live in and how to make our way in and impact on it.

All four of this week's books opens our eyes to uncomfortable realities—and in the process offer opportunities to correct course. Each is arriving on local bookstore shelves and are available through online retailers today. 

Interested in buying multiple copies for your team, book club, or neighbors? Follow the links below, 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.

Unless otherwise noted, all descriptions of the books below come from the publisher.

Bounce: Six Balls, Six Sports, and the History of Globalization by William Milberg, published by The New Press

An entertaining and original introduction to the debate over globalization through the history of six well-known pieces of sports equipment.

Globalization is the central economic issue of our time. It is tied to everything we buy; it impacts who wins elections; and it can lead to the wholesale collapse (or revitalization) of towns, cities, and countries. And yet, for all its significance, globalization is still widely misunderstood—or just not understood at all. What’s been missing is a way in.

In Bounce, William Milberg, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, takes the game balls used in six popular sports—golf, baseball, football, soccer, tennis, and basketball—and goes deep into their complex and fascinating history, which is also the history of globalization. Each ball tells us unique and vital things about this evolution: the golf ball, for instance, uncovers the dynamics of the first wave of globalization, with colonial powers seeking rubber in the plantations of Africa, Asia, and South America, and the importance of machine technology and innovation. The football, on the other hand, shows how labor unions provided the “countervailing power” that workers needed against growing industrial corporations, prompting steady growth in pay and economic security for the average worker.

Globalization has been a series of choices, in other words—by individuals, corporations, and governments. In the vein of Simon Kuper’s Soccernomics and Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World, Bounce shows us how the history of these game balls helps us to understand the consequences of those choices and where we want the economy to go.

“Each ball reveals a different aspect of today’s economy, its history, its rewards and its challenges. Roll them together and one gets a story about the prospects that globalized production poses for our economic future.” —from Bounce

Building a Fearless Organization: A Fieldbook for Creating Psychological Safety at Work by Amy C. Edmondson & Michaela Kerrissey, published by Wiley

Build a fearless organization where teams innovate, learn, and thrive together.

In today's knowledge economy, organizations need cultures where people feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes. Building a Fearless Organization: A Fieldbook for Creating Psychological Safety at Work, by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and Harvard Chan School professor Michaela Kerrissey, provides practical tools and actionable steps for creating an interpersonal climate where every team member feels genuinely empowered to express ideas, ask questions, acknowledge mistakes, and raise concerns early and often.

The book offers real-life scenarios and detailed strategies that illustrate how psychological safety ignites creativity, clarifies goals, enhances accountability, and redefines leadership. It shows leaders and teams how to create climates where members feel empowered to express ideas, acknowledge mistakes, and raise concerns, serving as a comprehensive roadmap for thriving organizations.

Readers will also find:

• Real-life scenarios demonstrating how to implement psychological safety in diverse workplace situations
  
• Detailed strategies for igniting creativity and clarifying team goals through open communication
  
• Practical tools for creating interpersonal climates where team members feel safe to express ideas and acknowledge mistakes
  
• Actionable steps for enhancing accountability and redefining leadership in the knowledge economy
  
• Comprehensive guidance for building fearless organizations that drive engagement and high performance

Perfect for leaders, managers, executives, teams, and organizational development professionals, Building a Fearless Organization transforms the theory of psychological safety into practical action. It provides the essential tools needed to create workplace cultures where learning, innovation, and growth flourish in today's complex and rapidly changing business environment.

Happiness vs. Fulfillment: The Lie You’ve Been Sold and the Choice That Changes Everything by Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger, published by Flashpoint

From the award-winning authors of What Is My Legacy? comes a book that will change how you live the rest of your life. 

For generations, we’ve been told that the goal of life is to be happy. Yet despite record spending on wellness trends, self-help advice, and quick-fix hacks, we are more burned out, anxious, and disconnected than ever before. It’s not your fault. You’ve been sold a lie—one that keeps you striving, scrolling, and seeking. 

In Happiness vs. Fulfillment, Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger reveal the truth hiding in plain sight, rooted in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final teachings and supported by cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology. We were never meant to chase happiness. We were meant to live fulfilled lives. Drawing on decades of work in diverse communities around the world—from the boardrooms of Davos to remote villages where families live on less than a dollar a day—the authors reveal a striking pattern: The key to a longer, richer, and more meaningful life is not happiness at all. It’s something more. 

Happiness vs. Fulfillment is a road map to personal transformation, guiding us to break free from the “Happiness Industrial Complex” that profits from our dissatisfaction and instead pursue a liberating alternative rooted in purpose, love, and authentic connection. This book will change the way you see yourself, your relationships, and your place in the world. It will change how you live the rest of your life. 

Multitudes: The Multiracial Experience and How to Forge a Culture of Absolute Belonging by Dr. Karabi Acharya, published by Apollo Publishers

A groundbreaking new portrait of Multiracial America—who gets counted, who gets seen, and who gets to belong.

More than 34 million Americans identify as Multiracial, making them one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. Yet they remain among the least counted, least studied, and least understood—often forced into categories that fail to reflect who they are.

In Multitudes, renowned public health expert Dr. Karabi Acharya draws on groundbreaking research, personal stories, and intimate interviews to reveal the profound consequences of this invisibility. She explores how being Multiracial shapes identity, health, relationships, and belonging—and how the systems we rely on, from census forms to medical research, continue to overlook millions of Americans.

At once deeply personal and rigorously researched, Multitudes illuminates the resilience and creativity of people navigating a world that insists on putting them in boxes. It is both a mirror and a manifesto: a powerful argument for moving beyond rigid racial categories toward a more expansive understanding of identity, connection, and community.

Urgent, illuminating, and ultimately hopeful, Multitudes is for anyone who has ever been asked “What are you?”—and for everyone who wants to understand a changing America and imagine a future in which everyone has the freedom to define where they belong.