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King of Kings by Scott Anderson How hubris and delusion caused the Iranian Revolution

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What's it about? King of Kings (2025) pulls you into the opulent, delusional world of the Shah of Iran, showing how oil wealth, hubris, and Western blindness produced one of the twentieth century’s most shocking revolutions. You’ll discover the fatal miscalculations that turned a self-proclaimed “island of stability” into a theocratic state that reshaped the Middle East permanently. Take a moment to imagine yourself in 1970s Tehran. You are surrounded by a city feverishly rebuilding itself in a Western image. Ancient Persia is being force-fed modernity through a firehose of unlimited petrodollars. This is a nation that believes it has conquered destiny, led by a man who styles himself the King of Kings, convinced his Great Civilization will last a thousand years. The glitter of emeralds and roar of American fighter jets make it nearly impossible to hear the tectonic plates of history grinding beneath the surface. What follows walks through the corridors of a palace built on quic...
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The Triangle of Power by Alexander Stubb Rebalancing the New World Order

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What's it about? The Triangle of Power (2026) asks an important question: who actually decides how the world is run now that the old rules no longer hold. Drawing on wars, trade shocks, and shifting alliances, Alexander Stubb maps a world pulled between the Global West, the Global East, and a rising Global South with more leverage than ever before. It explains what’s breaking, what still works, and what kind of order might realistically come next. The world that took shape after World War II was built on rules, trust, and a belief that cooperation could tame raw power. That framework is now badly frayed. Authoritarian governments are pushing outward, populist movements are pulling inward, and digital platforms have turned facts into weapons. Trade is retreating, tariffs are back in fashion, and global leadership—once assumed to flow naturally from the West—is openly contested. If you’re wondering what the heck is going on – well, you’ve come to the right lesson. In the six sectio...
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Prompt Engineering for Generative AI by James Phoenix Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs

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What's it about? Prompt Engineering for Generative AI (2024) is a comprehensive guide to working effectively with text and image generating AI. It highlights five key principles that form the backbone of effective prompts for large language models like ChatGPT and diffusion models like Stable Diffusion. It explores the computational mechanisms behind these models, and gives a host of practical tips and ideas for improving your AI workflow. Generative AI models are making leaps and bounds on an almost daily basis. The pace is so relentless it’s hard to keep up. But keep up we must, for one thing is certain: AI is here to stay. As it evolves, industries evolve with it, and it’s certain to infiltrate more and more lines of work in years to come. That being said, AI isn’t a mind reader – or perhaps, not yet. It won’t always give you what you were expecting. In fact, it will often make things up with the utmost confidence – a phenomenon referred to as hallucination. The quality ...
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Comandante by Rory Carroll Inside Hugo Chávez's Venezuela

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What's it about? Comandante (2013) follows Hugo Chávez from his rise as a charismatic outsider to the creation of a highly personalized political system that transformed Venezuela. It blends intimate scenes from inside his inner circle with reporting on how power, ideology, and oil wealth reshaped the country. It also explores the widening gap between the revolution’s promises and everyday reality for Venezuelans. Venezuela in the early 21st century became one of the world’s most dramatic political experiments: a country with vast oil wealth, deep inequality, and a leader who promised to rebuild the nation in the name of the poor. That leader was Hugo Chávez, a former army officer with a gift for turning politics into something emotional, personal, and impossible to ignore. To his supporters, he was proof the forgotten majority could finally run the country. To his critics, he was concentrating power at speed. Either way, daily life began to revolve around the state, from what y...
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Grow Or Fold by Matt Ross Transform Yourself in Midlife and Beyond

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What's it about? Grow or Fold (2026) challenges you to reject the stagnation often accepted in midlife and instead actively design a future of purpose and resilience. It provides a strategic toolkit to ruthlessly audit your life, identifying the specific habits and mindsets holding you back from your true potential. By treating your personal growth with the same rigour as a high-stakes business turnaround, you'll learn to use catastrophic challenges as fuel for your most significant chapter yet. Reaching the midpoint of life often feels less like a peak and more like a crossroads shrouded in fog. You might feel the weight of accumulated responsibilities, or the unsettling quiet of paths not taken. The momentum that carried you through your younger years? It's no longer enough. This is a moment that demands a pause. A chance to recognize that the script for your future is yours to rewrite – if you're willing to confront the uncomfortable reality of where you actually s...
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How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

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What's it about? How To Talk to Anyone (1998) is an indispensable guide to improving your conversations and becoming more graceful and effective in your social interactions – no matter the situation. Leil Lowndes offers readers a treasure trove of techniques and tips that will help any socially awkward individual gain more confidence in workplace environments, meetings, their private lives and at parties. Picture this: You're at a networking event, standing awkwardly by the refreshment table, desperately trying to look busy with your phone. Across the room, you see someone effortlessly moving from group to group, laughing, connecting, making it all look so easy. You think, "Some people are just born with it. " But here's the truth: They're not. Great communication isn't some magical gift bestowed upon the lucky few. It's a skill, a learnable, practicable skill made up of dozens of small techniques that anyone can master. Leil Lowndes has spent decades...
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