You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life (Jen Sincero) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life (Jen Sincero)

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“You Are a Badass is the self-help book for people who desperately want to improve their lives but don’t want to get busted doing it.

In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, bestselling author and world-traveling success coach, Jen Sincero, serves up 27 bite-sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word, helping you to: Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want, create a life you totally love. And create it now, make some damn money already. The kind you’ve never made before.

By the end of You Are a Badass, you’ll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can’t change, how to change what you don’t love, and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.”

New Books Playground says: You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life has been great for a start into 2018. Happy New Year!

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer (Roy Peter Clark) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer (Roy Peter Clark)

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America’s most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost thirty years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of fifty short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the best loved books on writing available.

Organized into four sections, ‘Nuts and Bolts,’ ‘Special Effects,’ ‘Blueprints for Stories,’ and ‘Useful Habits,’ Writing Tools is infused with more than 200 examples from journalism and literature. This new edition includes five brand new, never-before-shared tools.

Accessible, entertaining, inspiring, and above all, useful for every type of writer, from high school student to novelist, Writing Tools is essential reading.”

New Books Playground says: Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer contains a ton of useful advice for novice and experienced writers alike. We loved it.

Wonder (R.J. Palacio) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Wonder (R.J. Palacio)

Wonder: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“’I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.’

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5^th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, now a #1 New York Times bestseller and included on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.

‘Wonder is the best kids’ book of the year,’ said Emily Bazelon, senior editor at Slate.com and author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope. R.J. Palacio has called her debut novel ‘a meditation on kindness’—indeed, every reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the simple courage of friendship. Auggie is a hero to root for, a diamond in the rough who proves that you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.”

New Books Playground says: Wonder is a work of beauty. Thank you.

Why We Should Go Vegan (Magnus Vinding) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Why We Should Go Vegan (Magnus Vinding)

Why We Should Go Vegan: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“Should we go vegan?

The unambiguous conclusion of this short book is ‘yes.’ This conclusion is reached through a broad examination of the consequences of our not being vegan—both in relation to human health, environmental pollution, the risk of the spread of diseases, and in relation to the beings we exploit and kill. On all these levels the conclusion is clear: We have no good reason to not go vegan, while we have many good reasons to stop our practice of raising, killing and eating non-human animals and things from them. The bottom line: We have a strong ethical obligation to go vegan.”

New Books Playground says: Why We Should Go Vegan sums up why at least one on our team is a vegetarian.

Why Don’t We Learn from History? (B.H. Liddell Hart) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Why Don’t We Learn from History? (B.H. Liddell Hart)

Why Don’t We Learn from History?: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“A concise exposition of the fallacies of history, the conflict between history and propaganda, what it means to us, and what we may look forward to.”

New Books Playground says: Why Don’t We Learn from History? has taught us a lot more about what humans do and what we need to keep in mind when looking at history.

Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright)

Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain.

But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people.

In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. At once excitingly ambitious and wittily accessible, this is the first book to combine evolutionary psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to defend the radical claims at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.”

New Books Playground says: Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment is, interesting. We’re intrigued but not convinced.

Where Do All the Books Come From? · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Where Do All the Books Come From?

So as New Books Playground is starting and we’re still owing you more explanations about our ideas and goals, here’s where we currently pull our book suggestions from:

We do believe that the New York Times bestsellers list is useful, especially since we keep on finding some of our favorites here.
Waterstones non-fiction books caught our eye when researching additional, you guessed it, non-fiction books. So far we haven’t been disappointed.
We also appreciate IndieBound’s bestellers for they give us a glimpse at some other parts of the American and international books landscape.
We use Publishers Weekly’s lists to attain extra diversity in the books we read and talk about.
Of course, Amazon’s bestselling books are also relevant, for every reader. They are a useful source for us, too.
Finally, we’re bringing in our very own favorites, and sometimes even our very own books, but that’s a deliberate feature and certainly not surprising.

This to give you a rough idea as to what we’re paying attention to. While we’re building New Books Playground we’re growing our pool of book sources (and the speed with which we read…) and will also share more about what’s important to us, what we’re up to, as well as more resources in general. Stay tuned!

Oh, experimental: We also offer entirely new authors to get featured on New Books Playground through Fiverr: Feature Your Book on New Books Playground. That is simply a test balloon compensating for our efforts and expenses.

What It Is Like to Go to War (Karl Marlantes) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

What It Is Like to Go to War (Karl Marlantes)

What It Is Like to Go to War: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his war experience. In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at what it is like to experience the ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our soldiers for war. Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings—from Homer to The Mahabharata to Jung. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of the journey.

Just as Matterhorn is already being acclaimed as acclaimed as a classic of war literature, What It Is Like to Go to War is set to become required reading for anyone—soldier or civilian—interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience.”

New Books Playground says: What It Is Like to Go to War is a thought-provoking book about what war really means, what it does, what we should know about it and how we should view it. We’re glad.

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (Thomas Nagel) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (Thomas Nagel)

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“In this cogent and accessible introduction to philosophy, the distinguished author of Mortal Questions and The View From Nowhere sets forth the central problems of philosophical inquiry for the beginning student. Arguing that the best way to learn about philosophy is to think about its questions directly, Thomas Nagel considers possible solutions to nine problems—knowledge of the world beyond our minds, knowledge of other minds, the mind-body problem, free will, the basis of morality, right and wrong, the nature of death, the meaning of life, and the meaning of words. Although he states his own opinions clearly, Nagel leaves these fundamental questions open, allowing students to entertain other solutions and encouraging them to think for themselves.”

New Books Playground says: What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy is a short little introduction into major questions of philosophy. We’ve liked it.

Warren Buffett’s Three Favorite Books: A Guide to The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis, and The Wealth of Nations (Preston George Pysh) · New Books Playground

Posted on January 2, 2023 by CJ

Warren Buffett’s Three Favorite Books: A Guide to The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis, and The Wealth of Nations (Preston George Pysh)

Warren Buffett’s Three Favorite Books: A Guide to The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis, and The Wealth of Nations: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.

“Did you know Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest stock investor, is quoted as saying three books have shaped his investment philosophy? For more than half a century, he used the information provided in these three books to go from nothing—to a massive $39 billion net worth. The three books that gave him this wisdom are: The Wealth of Nations (pub. 1776) by Adam Smith, Security Analysis (pub. 1934) by Benjamin Graham, and The Intelligent Investor (pub. 1949), also by Benjamin Graham.

In fact, Benjamin Graham was Buffett’s professor at Columbia and the most influential financial advisor he ever had.

So, have you ever tried reading Graham’s books? Many might agree the books are as exciting as listening to Ben Stein read the 30^th page of The Wall Street Journal.

It is time we fixed that. Instead of keeping these billion-dollar secrets hidden behind thousands of pages of financial jargon, I wrote one simple guide—Warren Buffett’s Three Favorite Books.

If you’re looking for a guide that explains how the wealthy really think and buy assets, you’re in the right place. This isn’t a get-rich-quick book. Instead, this is where your investing techniques take a turn in the road. This book will teach you how to accumulate assets and become very wealthy over decades of wise decisions and proper asset valuation. The best part about the book is the methods are taught in an easy-to-follow and understandable scenario for all to enjoy!”

New Books Playground says: Warren Buffett’s Three Favorite Books: A Guide to The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis, and The Wealth of Nations gives a great impression of three great investment books—and even though we only switched to a buy-hold strategy later, here we first learned about it.

New Books Playground