Essential Reads

Are you a corporation out to make your fortune at any cost? Are you worried about “facts” and “experts” getting in the way of your profits? Do you wish you could make scientists, journalists, and anyone who asks questions about your suspect business practices disappear? Now you can.

Whether you are selling tobacco, dealing in oil, or pushing pharmaceuticals, denying climate change or exploiting workers, The Playbook is here to help you obfuscate your way to what you want.

Get The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World (Hardcover) by Jennifer Jacquet and other science books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.

Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now, answers all the questions here

Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding--and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?

Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity, and uplifting mythology can add up to crippling irrationality in a society. Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth.

Get Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, Export Edition (Paperback) by Steven Pinker and other psychology books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.

Think of a secret that you’re keeping from others. It shouldn’t take long; behavioral scientist Michael Slepian finds that, on average, we are keeping as many as thirteen secrets at any given time. His research involving more than 50,000 participants from around the world shows that the most common secrets include lies we’ve told, ambitions, addictions, mental health challenges, hidden relationships, and financial struggles.

Get The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are (Paperback) by Michael Slepian and other self-help books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.

Keefe brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines whether a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the "worst of the worst," among other bravura works of literary journalism.

Get Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (Hardcover) by Patrick Radden Keefe and other non-fiction books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of What If? and How To answers more of the weirdest questions you never thought to ask 

The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? Okay, if you insist.

Get What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Export Edition (Paperback) by Randall Munroe and other science books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.

In her new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet reveals the power of a bittersweet outlook on life, and why we’ve been so blind to its value.

Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. 
 
At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

Get Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (Hardcover) by Susan Cain and other psychology books online and at Fully Booked bookstore branches in the Philippines.