After a long and contentious election season, it is time to vote in the United States. As we head to the polls to decide which of our fellow citizens we want to represent us in our ongoing experiment in self-governance, we are also casting our vote for the following four books—all of which are being released on this election day.

The Art of Organizing Thoughts: Slow Wisdom for a Fast World by Shigehiko Toyama, published by Ten Speed Press

Reclaim your attention, make sense of complexity, and build a mind you can rely on with this radical guide to thinking for yourself in a world that tries to think on your behalf—the first English translation of the Japanese bestseller with over 3 million copies sold.

We live in an age defined by accelerating automation, polarized discourse, and constant cognitive overload. In The Art of Organizing Thoughts, first published in 1983 and newly resonant in the age of artificial intelligence, renowned scholar and teacher Shigehiko Toyama offers a humane and timeless reminder: Thinking well is a distinctly human art, and one that must be cultivated, protected, and practiced. Toyama argues that knowledge alone is not wisdom—in fact, the more we accumulate, the easier it is to stop truly thinking. The Art of Organizing Thoughts explains how to move from overloaded to clear-minded, not by consuming more information, but by learning how to organize what you already know.

The foundation of The Art of Organizing Thoughts explains that schools and workplaces overwhelmingly produce “gliders,” people who move only when pushed by external instructions, while what society desperately needs are “airplanes,” or independent, self-propelled thinkers. Toyama shows how to cultivate that airplane mentality through simple practices: letting ideas ferment over time, learning when to sleep on a problem, and using selective forgetting as a tool to keep your mind clear and creative.

Part philosophy, part practical handbook, the book offers a calming alternative to hustle culture through concrete practices for busy, intelligent readers who feel scattered and want a mind they can trust. The Art of Organizing Thoughts invites a return to analog habits and deep attention—not to do more, but to think better and live more clearly.

Equal to the Task: A Life Forged Between America’s Promise and Its Truth by Kenneth Chenault, published by HarperCollins Leadership

For the first time ever, one of the world’s most iconic business leaders shares the story of his remarkable life and career.

Ken Chenault has lived his life at the confluence of the historical forces that have shaped modern America, keenly aware of both the burdens of its past and the dynamic potential of its future. Born in 1951, when segregation was still inscribed in the laws of the land, he ascended to the peak of corporate America over the course of the next fifty years. In his thoughtful and wide-ranging memoir, Chenault reflects on his personal journey, the mentors who shaped him, and his lifelong quest to realize his own potential and make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Equal to the Task is a classic American story for our times.

After joining American Express, Chenault steadily worked his way up to the very top. He led the company for almost two decades, driving market-leading innovations, before stepping down and making another surprising life choice. Eschewing the more traditional roles for former CEOs, he joined a dynamic venture capital firm, seeking to help build enduring companies that leverage technology for both profit and purpose.  Over the past years, he has continued to be a steady voice of moral clarity in the public and private sectors.

“In these pages, I share how I managed the opportunities and challenges encountered over the course of my life and career. In doing so, I hope to convey the values I hold most dear. Values passed down to me by my ancestors, my parents, my teachers, my heroes, and my mentors. These values have guided me throughout my journey, and I consider them pivotal to meeting these extraordinary times as my country wrestles with its own identity, its future, and its role in the 21st century.”

How to Be Less Useful: The Joy of Inefficiency by Priyanka Mattoo, published by Knopf

A delightful book about reclaiming pleasure in mid-life—a potent mix of self-help and memoir, from one of today’s wittiest, wisest voices.

"I have done everything right, and I have missed everything."

Think about what we choose to cut out or overlook as we approach the deep end of adulthood: Dessert. Naps. Pretty underwear. Sweaty dancing. “Pointless” hangs with the people we love most. And then, activities that used to be fun somehow lose their luster, usually in the decade between thirty and forty: summer vacation (exhaustion), stay-in-touch texting (bandwidth), finding the perfect restaurant (the algorithm). 

When did our lives become entirely about efficiency and optimization?

Priyanka Mattoo shares her journey toward being less useful, delivering life lessons without an ounce of preachiness or pressure. She looks at where pleasure begins and what it serves. Did you know karaoke can cure a stomachache? Or that Paddington Bear is a stealth lifestyle guru? Or that nobody actually asked you to do that labor-intensive thing you begrudgingly did? With self-deprecating humor, devastating insight, and bracing honesty, Priyanka shows us how to step out of the grind as a friend, as a partner, even as a parent, and welcome joy back into our lives without burning it all down.

What if, instead of being useful, we could all learn how to be happier, lighter, more present, more engaged? 

Refreshingly funny and sparklingly astute, How to Be Less Useful is the perfect book for our current moment.

Surplus: The History of Too Much and the End of Economic Primacy by Marc Chandler, published by Prometheus

What happens when capitalism becomes so successful that the problem is no longer too little—but too much?

In Surplus, economist and market strategist Marc Chandler traces the extraordinary rise of economic abundance from the earliest agricultural civilizations to today's world of overflowing capital, soaring asset prices and unprecedented productive capacity. He argues that many of the forces destabilizing modern societies—from widening inequality and financial speculation to political discontent and environmental excess—are symptoms of a profound transition: we have created an economic system extraordinarily good at producing wealth, but have yet to build institutions capable of managing its abundance.

Drawing on economics, history, politics and philosophy, Chandler shows how earlier surpluses transformed civilizations—and argues that today's surplus gives us an opportunity to do so again. Provocative and ultimately hopeful, Surplus asks what comes after scarcity, and how we might build a society that measures progress not simply by how much wealth it creates, but by what that wealth makes possible.