Showing titles in History & Culture

You wake up and reach for your phone. Before your day even begins, your focus is already gone. In a world of endless notifications, social media, and constant digital noise, The Art of the Digital Detox offers a practical, realistic guide to reclaiming your attention without quitting technology altogether. This book explains why screens are so addictive, how multitasking destroys focus, and how to redesign your habits, environment, and boundaries to regain mental clarity.

Modern cities are evolving into complex, data-driven ecosystems where digital intelligence and physical infrastructure increasingly operate as one interconnected organism. City of Algorithms presents a thoughtful exploration of how real-time data, smart systems, and algorithmic decision-making are reshaping urban life, sustainability, and human experience. Using a Seattle-inspired lens, this book examines the concept of urban metabolism — the continuous flow of energy, resources, information, and human activity that sustains a city's functioning.

Smart Home Wellness: Designing a Healthier Life Through Technology

On April 1, 1976, two scruffy twentysomethings, both named Steve, founded a startup. Their goal: To bring the revolutionary power of computers to everyone. Over the next five decades, Apple reshaped the technology and cultural landscapes, introducing the public to breakthroughs like the mouse...

Brought to you by Penguin. A revelatory portrait of the visionary behind Google DeepMind, the race to control the future – and what it means to win Even in a tech world crowded with visionary leaders, Demis Hassabis is recognized as a special case. Born to working class, immigrant parents in...

Brought to you by Penguin. A pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every...

The high-energy tale of how two socially awkward Ivy Leaguers, trying to increase their chances with the opposite sex, ended up creating Facebook. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and...

Brought to you by Penguin. An instant NEW YORK TIMES bestseller ** A Guardian biggest book of the autumn ** AI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced. The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course...

Dive into the pulsating heart of tomorrow's world with Digital Odyssey: Navigating the Future of Innovation. This insightful guide plunges listeners into the whirlwind of groundbreaking technology that is reshaping our reality. From the rise of artificial intelligence and blockchain to the future of 5G and beyond, this book serves as a compass for those eager to explore the uncharted territories of innovation. Penned by leading tech experts, it blends profound analysis with captivating narratives, making complex concepts accessible to both tech aficionados and novices.

Jonathan Haidt has spent his career speaking wisdom and truth in some of the most the most difficult spaces - communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the perfect storm contributing to a public health emergency for teenagers today. In The Anxious Generation, Haidt argues that for the cohort that hit puberty around 2009, their sense of self developed as the threads of three dramatic technological and social changes emerged.

In a contest of change, which century from the past millennium would come up trumps? Imagine the Black Death took on the female vote in a pub brawl, or the Industrial Revolution faced the Internet in a medieval joust - whose side would you be on? In this hugely entertaining book, celebrated historian Ian Mortimer takes us on a whirlwind tour of Western history, pitting one century against another in his quest to measure change.

Brought to you by Penguin. An eye-opening account of the tech arms race shaping out planet, from an award-winning journalist and AI insider to the world of Sam Altman and OpenAI When longtime AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good...

Audie Award, History/Biography, 2016. On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Based on in-depth interviews with 23 of the 24 moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, A Man on the Moon conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail.

When Churchill's top secret Special Operations Executive needed to destroy the Gestapo HQ in the centre of downtown Copenhagen to prevent a devastating Nazi last stand that might prolong the war for many months, there was only one machine for the job - the Mosquito. This is the story of that legendary aircraft told through that one impossible mission.

Technology promises to save humanity. How's that working out? In this comedy-science podcast, comedy legends Richard Ayoade (determinedly pessimistic) and Warwick Davis (inexplicably cheerful) venture beneath Audible HQ to the Future Tense lab, fully equipped to interrogate the future we're all being told to look forward to.

This book is not about the newest tricks or the latest trends. Instead, it revisits the early practices and ideas that made Instagram grow in its beginning, bringing back what users and creators once relied on. If you’re looking for the next update or cutting-edge hacks, this book is not for you. But if you want to rediscover the timeless foundations that still apply today, then you’ve found the right guide.

In TANK, best-selling historian and former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment Mark Urban draws on wide-ranging accounts from soldiers, designers, and politicians, from Winston Churchill to Volodymyr Zelensky, to tell the remarkable story of one of the most important developments in military history.

Brought to you by Penguin. From an indispensable voice on China, comes a riveting, first-hand account of China's seismic progress For close to a decade, Dan Wang has been observing China’s tumultuous and astounding growth. The state has constructed towering bridges, gleaming railways and...

Brought to you by Penguin. **A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, Sept 2023** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023** AI. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY. QUANTUM COMPUTING. Everything is about to change. This is the only book you need to understand this new world. From the ultimate...

‘Laura Bates explains how they built the future – and forgot to put women in it’ CAITLIN MORAN 'Fascinating and essential... I urge you to read every syllable' JO BRAND ‘All men must read this book if they have any interest in a truly just, fair and equal society’ ROBIN INCE AI is here...