There's some interesting books from the world of business and beyond, either out recently in August 2021 or forthcoming, that are worth getting your hands on.

Here's five that we'd recommend.

  1. Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut
    by Marcus du Sautoy
  2. Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles
    by William Quinn and John D. Turner
  3. Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It
    by Oliver Burkeman
    (Forthcoming, 26 August, 2021)
  4. Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
    by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro
    (Forthcoming, 31 August, 2021)
  5. Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy
    by Adam Tooze
    (Forthcoming, 7 September 2021)

And below is an outline of the books:

Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut
by Marcus du Sautoy

Book image cover for Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut, by Marcus du Sautoy

How do you remember more and forget less?
How can you earn more and become more creative just by moving house?
And how do you pack a car boot most efficiently?

This is your shortcut to the art of the shortcut.

Mathematics is full of better ways of thinking, and with over 2,000 years of knowledge to draw on, Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy interrogates his passion for shortcuts in this fresh and fascinating guide. After all, shortcuts have enabled so much of human progress, whether in constructing the first cities around the Euphrates 5,000 years ago, using calculus to determine the scale of the universe or in writing today's algorithms that help us find a new life partner.

As well as looking at the most useful shortcuts in history - such as measuring the circumference of the earth in 240 BC to diagrams that illustrate how modern GPS works - Marcus also looks at how you can use shortcuts in investing or how to learn a musical instrument to memory techniques. He talks to, among many, the writer Robert MacFarlane, cellist Natalie Clein and the psychologist Suzie Orbach, asking whether shortcuts are always the best idea and, if so, when they use them.

With engaging puzzles and conundrums throughout to illustrate the shortcut's ability to find solutions with speed, Thinking Better offers many clever strategies for daily complex problems.

Buy it:

Printed: Bookshop.org | Hive
Ebook: Kindle | Kobo | eBooks.com
Audiobook: Audible | Kobo
(All links are unaffiliated.)