New Book Releases | November 11
Trying to make sense of what is happening in the world, how we got here, and what part you have to play in it all? The best place to seek answers to those questions is in a book, and there are some great releases coming out this week.
Feeling harried or hurried, frazzled or confused by the onslaught of news and new developments in life or work? Finding time to immerse yourself in a book can be beneficial at times like this. Books can help us understand the past, examine current events, and explore our inner lives. Our picks of this week’s books feature a global history of money, an empowering guide for women who want to uncover their relationship to money and take control of their financial lives, instruction on “how to make decisions without losing your mind,” and an introduction to “the misfits, activists, and iconoclasts of Silicon Valley’s homeless encampments.” Hitting online stores and bookshop shelves today, these are four books we have our eyes on this week.
Fly!: A Woman's Guide to Financial Freedom and Building a Life You Love by Steph Wagner, published by Matt Holt Books
An empowering, tools-based approach to help you achieve financial freedom and thrive for years to come, from the National Director of Women and Wealth at Northern Trust.
Steph Wagner appeared to have it all—a beautiful family and a picture-perfect life—until her husband of nearly 20 years left their family for another woman. A stay-at-home mom, Steph found herself facing financial devastation and some heavy emotional baggage. Her enviable life concealed the secrets of a harrowing childhood fraught with domestic abuse—wounds her divorce would unexpectedly reopen.
In the years since, Steph has built a thrilling new life and a powerhouse career as a nationally recognized authority on women's economic security. A model of resiliency and resourcefulness, her riveting personal story and hard-earned financial expertise have helped women across the country reclaim their financial futures.
- Her debut book, Fly! offers invaluable insights to help you:
- Uncover the roots of your relationship with money
- Evaluate your current financial landscape and learn how to make confident decisions around your wealth
- Set transformative goals and craft a comprehensive plan to turn your vision into reality
- Cultivate an empowering, supportive network
- Discover how financial independence can enhance your relationships and unlock exciting new opportunities
Whether you’re in your sixties or twenties—single, married, rebuilding after a devastating loss, or simply wanting to feel more prepared for the unexpected—this book is for every woman ready to take control of her financial life. Fly! is a call to action: a journey not just about money, but about seizing new opportunities, pursuing your dreams, and living life on your own terms.
Front Street: Resistance and Rebirth in the Tent Cities of Techlandia by Brian Barth, published by Astra House
In his first book, award-winning investigative journalist Brian Barth takes us on an immersive journey deep into Silicon Valley’s homeless encampments, challenging everything we thought we knew about our unhoused neighbors.
In this wide-reaching portrait of the constellation of people living in tents, shacks, and cars in the shadow of tech campuses and skyscrapers, award-winning journalist Brian Barth introduces us to the misfits, activists, and iconoclasts of Silicon Valley’s homeless encampments. Blending memoir, investigative reporting, history, and cultural criticism to paint a portrait of a community searching for dignity and connection in the midst of a national crisis, Front Street is a conversation-changing story about the struggle for housing.
This immersive work follows residents of three distinct camps—Crash Zone in San Jose, Wood Street in Oakland, and Wolfe Camp in Cupertino. Regularly harassed by police and local government, and frequently at risk of often violent and always destabilizing sweeps, these camps may seem chaotic to some but more often than not, to their residents they are sites of refuge and rebirth. In research on 19th- and 20th-century homelessness and philosophical contemplations of communal anarchy, and through honest conversations with residents, Barth shows how the solution to homelessness isn't as straightforward as one might think.
Front Street considers the root causes and possible solutions to chronic homelessness, contemplating political, economic, social, and spiritual approaches alike. With empathy and poise, Barth follows this cast of characters, describing their personal stories, quotidian experiences, private philosophies and political activism. In doing so, Front Street explains why the country's current approach to homelessness has become at once cruel and ineffective and makes the radical argument that encampments, when treated generously and fairly, have something important to teach the rest of us about autonomy, dignity, connection and care.
History of Money: A Story of Humanity by David McWilliams, published by Henry Holt and Co.
In this fresh, eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money—from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley.
The story of humanity is inextricable from that of money. No innovation has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet’s history so dramatically. And yet despite money’s primacy, most of us don’t truly understand it.
As leading economist David McWilliams shows, money is central to every aspect of our civilization, from the political to the artistic. “Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. But not only that: it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen. Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity. It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks. Money also brings out humanity’s darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism.”
In The History of Money, McWilliams takes us across the world, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the Silk Road, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street. Along the way, we meet a host of innovators, emperors, frauds, and speculators, who have disrupted society and transformed the way we live. Filled with memorable anecdotes, and bolstered by an introduction from leading economics writer Michael Lewis, The History of Money is an essential, extremely readable history of humanity’s most consequential invention.
Overthinker's Guide to Making Decisions: How to Make Decisions Without Losing Your Mind by Joseph Nguyen, published by Authors Equity
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Don't Believe Everything You Think comes a companion guide that transforms the paralyzing cycle of overthinking into clear, intuitive decision-making.
Your brain is wired to overthink decisions—not because something's wrong with you, but because you care deeply about making the right choice.
If you've ever found yourself trapped in endless loops of "what if," analyzing every option to exhaustion, or seeking everyone's advice while still feeling lost... this book is your way out.
The Overthinker's Guide to Making Decisions breaks new ground where "just trust your gut" advice has failed you. Unlike traditional approaches that leave you stranded between endless analysis and vague intuition, this book provides a counterintuitive system that bypasses the overthinking loop entirely.
This isn't about making perfect choices. It's about making aligned ones from a place of clarity instead of chaos.
This step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to:
- Identify the surprising neurological root of overthinking and how to stop mental spirals before they hijack your mind
- Apply the step-by-step TRUST framework that walks you through any decision, leaving you with absolute clarity on exactly what to do
- Use the revolutionary SAGE method to break through analysis paralysis in minutes, transforming overwhelm into a single, clear choice
- Instantly distinguish between your intuition and fear when making any decision
- Silence external opinions and reconnect with your inner wisdom so you hear your own voice louder than anyone else's
- Transform paralyzing fear into psychological freedom, creating space for choices that were previously unimaginable
- End the exhausting replay of past decisions, releasing regret and creating genuine peace with your choices
- Develop unshakable emotional resilience so you can make bold decisions knowing you'll thrive regardless of the outcome
- Recognize actualized decisions: the transformative choices that create the deepest peace, growth, and alignment in your life
- Uncover the hidden patterns behind your choices with over 70 powerful journaling prompts, reshaping how you decide from a place of alignment, not anxiety
- Implement 20 ‘Mini Trust Experiments’ that build decision confidence in just days, using low-stakes everyday choices to rewire self-doubt patterns
This book isn’t about fixing your mind. It’s about freeing it.
You don’t need more advice. You need to trust yourself again.
This book won’t tell you what to do. It will help you remember how to listen to the one voice that’s always known.
Yours.
◊◊◊◊◊
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.
