Shi, an actor and founder of the Shaolin Temple Europe, debuts with a methodical introduction to Shaolin, a combination of meditation and martial arts that aims to unite body and mind. Drawing from more than three decades of training, Shi toggles between historical context—detailing the practice’s Buddhist roots and evolution—and instruction on how meditation and breathing exercises can help to boost awareness, emotional regulation, and moral clarity. The book shines in linking abstract concepts to embodied routines, connecting Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to martial discipline. Yi also carefully draws out how key Shaolin values like loyalty, restraint, perseverance, and mental clarity apply to everyday situations, noting, for example, that greater mental awareness can help readers circumvent automatic emotional reactions and respond more productively to tricky situations at work or home. Written in plain prose and buttressed by lucid and in-depth explanations of the practice, this eschews quick fixes for important insights into cultivating peace and awareness for long-term personal growth. It’s a grounded, disciplined guide to finding steadiness in an increasingly stressful world. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Relatively podcaster Carr mixes research, cultural criticism, and personal anecdotes for this informative debut study of the complexities of sibling relationships. Driven to explore the topic by her family history—as children, she and her old sister were separated from their youngest sister after their parents split—Carr finds that sibling relationships are among the least scrutinized by researchers, despite frequently being the most enduring ties of one’s life. She explores whether birth order influences one’s personality (possibly, though effects are tough to untangle “from the kaleidoscope of other forces at play”); how assigned roles—golden child, clown—shape personality (labels can be locked into place during childhood thanks to comparisons between siblings, sometimes “casting a shadow over relationships” into adulthood); and why siblings can have vastly different perceptions of the same formative event. Carr also digs into research showing that older siblings can exert as much influence on younger siblings as parents, and offers a sensitive if brief chapter on how half- and step-siblings navigate the challenges of building a family without shared lore and history. Carr keeps the pace brisk by leavening research-heavy passages with chatty, vivid anecdotes—both her own and those gleaned from her podcast. The result is a thought-provoking, expansive look at an important but understudied familial bond. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

This immersive account from Ringer senior staff writer Conn (The Road from Raqqa) profiles four American men whose lives uniquely tangle with an “inherited masculine ideal”: Ryan, a gay man from Akwesasne Mohawk territory who struggles to accept his sexuality; Gideon, an “ex-jock” and West Point graduate whose wife cheats on him with his commander; Nate, a Black trans man “wrestling his own body and... fighting for its right to exist”; and Joseph, a law student who experiences sudden flashbacks to repressed childhood sexual abuse. Conn follows his subjects as they wrestle with identity, family conflicts, substance abuse, and mental health challenges, sensitively conveying their “rawest moments,” including Joseph witnessing “intrusive images” of his abuser’s genitalia when having sex with his wife and Ryan getting in brutal, bloody bar fights as an adult after being ruthlessly bullied as a child. Amid this pain are moments of joy and relief, like Ryan reaching cathartic release via amateur MMA fighting, or Nate’s tearful euphoria after top surgery. Conn stops short of making “grand theories” about American men other than citing numerous ways they “lag... behind their female peers” (“more likely to drop out of high school... more likely to die by suicide... more likely to abuse drugs”). Instead, he focuses, to great success, on compassionate storytelling. The result is hard to look away from. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

This insightful investigation from New York Times reporter Scheiber (The Escape Artists) examines how a radical new cohort of young, college-educated workers at major American corporations powered a wave of unionizations and strikes in recent years. The “dismal economy” during and after the Great Recession led to many college graduates taking low-wage jobs in retail and customer service, or working for years for low pay within their profession. This widening “gap... between the expectations of many graduates and their actual prospects” fueled an upswing in labor activism. Scheiber tracks workers preparing to unionize at an Apple store in Towson, Md., and a Chicago Starbucks, along the way spotlighting other labor disputes and developments, such as the Writers Guild of America’s 2023 strike and the United Auto Workers’ election of president Shawn Fain by an insurgent collective of “fed-up autoworkers and... graduate students.” Scheiber mixes nitty-gritty contract fights with poignant profiles of workers like Apple employee Chaya Barrett, who was “radicalized” by CEO Tim Cook’s astronomical $750 million stock windfall (“I’m working my butt off for not even a full percent of what you just sold”), as well as glimpses of corporations’ anti-union intimidation efforts, such as Starbucks establishing new benefits and wage increases only for non-union workers. It’s a galvanizing look at a stymied white-collar generation with the “politics... of the proletariat.” (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

“Getting ahead has never been easier than it is today,” contends historian and investor Moore (Founding Sins) in this sweeping history of financial advice in the U.S. Moore takes readers through case studies of financial success and failure, debunking commonly held beliefs and extrapolating lessons that can be applied now. Demonstrating that “the story of a cash-only, debt free, rugged-individualist America is entirely fictional,” he describes how Benjamin Franklin got his start in the printing business by going thoroughly into debt. Elsewhere, he demonstrates that supposedly new phenomena have historical precedents. Women, for example, have always been active investors; Abigail Adams, wife of the second U.S. president, began buying government bonds after the American Revolution and ultimately achieved a lifetime annualized return of 18%, almost equaling that of billionaire Warren Buffett. Moore’s historical survey, as well as stories of his own financial downfalls and hard-won triumphs, set the stage for a concise and practical concluding section featuring seven ideas that have failed historically and 25 that have, generally, succeeded. Among the refreshingly unequivocal advice on offer: “Never cosign a loan... ever!” and “Marriage matters, a lot. Make yours work.” Readers seeking a time-tested approach to financial well-being will find plenty to bank on here. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Gibbs, best known for playing Florence Johnston on The Jeffersons, highlights her personal struggles and professional triumphs in this empowering autobiography. The action begins at the 2025 American Black Film Festival Honors, where Gibbs, at 93, told the room, “If you have some projects for me, my agents are standing right over there,” in the middle of her acceptance speech for a legacy award. That indefatigable spirit suffuses the proceedings: early sections about Gibbs’s turbulent Chicago childhood in the 1930s and ’40s are sandwiched between a glowing foreword from Regina King, who played Gibbs’s daughter on the TV sitcom 277, and a triumphant recollection of her move to Los Angeles in the ’60s. There, while working as a United Airlines flight attendant, Gibbs booked a slate of blaxploitation films that led to her defining role as the Jefferson family’s spunky maid. Gibbs deepens her behind-the-scenes anecdotes, which also include stints on Scandal and Tyler Perry projects, by interweaving them with an unflinching account of her abusive marriage to her high school boyfriend and details of her turn toward faith after she suffered a brain aneurism and a stroke. The result is funny, moving, and more than a little inspiring. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Social media influencer Klee’s sweet debut sets her coming-of-age against the backdrop of her experiences fostering dogs. Bookended by Klee’s preparation for a TV interview in the summer of 2024, the memoir spans 11 years, beginning with her decision to move to New York City after dropping out of college and traveling around the U.S. In the city, Klee took a job assisting a pet photographer (“I came home from my job interview soaking wet and covered in dog slobber”), which spurred her to interact with animals more often in her downtime. She eventually signed up to foster dogs in her Queens apartment, and charmingly recounts the trials and rewards of each of her charges, including Simon, an epileptic mutt Klee wound up adopting in 2019. Along the way, she recalls opening her heart to a variety of men, friends, and occupations, and shares the wisdom she gleaned from her parade of four-legged companions (“They live unencumbered, unrelenting, and the state of the world doesn’t matter”). Throughout, Klee proves an endearing, unfussy guide to growing up. Readers will be charmed. Agent: Jessica Spitz, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

“AI could be how we flip the script on the last few hundred years and have technology serving us rather than us serving technology,” assert LinkedIn executives Roslansky and Raman in this cogent debut guide to the future of work. Drawing on insights from LinkedIn’s billion-plus members, they detail the concerns, limitations, and possibilities of AI in the workforce. The authors share stories from workers like Jonetta Gresham, a nurse turned project manager who once described herself as a “hell no to AI person.” While pursuing an IT certification, however, she realized AI was an ally that could translate information she needed to learn into words and analogies she understood. Workers like Gresham succeed, the authors explain, by honing unique human capabilities—what they call the 5Cs: curiosity, courage, creativity, compassion, and communication—and delegating routine tasks to AI. They advise readers to place tasks into three buckets: those AI can do alone (generating reports), those that can be done in partnership with AI (having AI draft content that one can then edit), and uniquely human tasks (calming down a nervous client). They conclude with a 30-60-90–day plan for adopting AI, which includes exercises for improving tech proficiency, as well as strengthening interpersonal skills like relationship-building. Offering practical tips for AI implementation while also emphasizing the vital skills people bring to their careers, this is a nuanced perspective on a hot-button topic. AI skeptics and enthusiasts alike will find much of interest. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Atlantic staff writer Garber (On Misdirection) provides a scathing but unfocused examination of how the radically shifting contemporary media environment has warped Americans’ interactions with one another and the world. Writing in response to feeling “chastened by the giddy optimism I once felt for the Internet,” the author seeks to identify the cause of the current influx of misinformation, alienation, division, online bullying, and “surreality.” She chalks it up to the oddity of social media’s “two-way screens.” In contrast to television’s one-way screen, which creates distinct divisions between “those who were watched and those who did the watching,” the internet, particularly social media, confuses these boundaries, making all users “actors and audiences,” and encouraging the mistreatment of others because they “don’t seem real.” This environment has not only turned politics into show business, best exemplified by the rise of Donald Trump (though Garber argues this occurred even earlier with former actor Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton’s televised sax-playing), but all interaction now carries the pressure of entertainment (she cites the bored response to the January 6 hearings). However, this incisive argument is muddled by frequent, somewhat off-topic asides on major news events as well as TV shows and films, ranging from Love Is Blind to the 2017 P.T. Barnum bio-pic The Greatest Showman. This meanders more than it makes it case. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Ransomware attacks are a surreal hybrid of criminal endeavor and legitimate business pursuit, according to this intricate exposé. Economist Shortland (Kidnap) traces the rise of such virtual heists, wherein hackers remotely take over computers, encrypt their data, and demand a ransom for a decryption key to unlock the system (or, sometimes, to refrain from publishing sensitive information gleaned from the computer files). Shortland explores the clever ways hackers have innovated their work, such as automating the attacks on a massive scale or franchising them to hundreds of “affiliates,” as well as the odd challenges they face: the hackers often have to teach their victims how to use cryptocurrency to pay the ransom; guide them through decrypting and rebooting their own systems; and, ironically, build up a reputation for honesty and integrity, so that businesses believe their ransoms will buy decryption keys that actually restore their computers. Shortland also profiles the cottage industry of “crisis responders” that has grown up to negotiate these agreements, not all of whom are white knights. Some companies, she notes, promise to decrypt computers without paying ransom, then pay the ransom out of their fee—and get a discount from the criminals. Throughout, Shortland teases out these convoluted developments—part cops vs. robbers arms race, part host-parasite symbiosis—in lucid, entertaining prose. It’s an eye-opening look at a shadowy underworld. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink