Here are 100 books that Privacy Is Power fans have personally recommended if you like
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In a world in which we are faced with increasing amounts of information that we have to parse (from social media, cable news channels, newspapers), it often feels hard to separate fact from fiction, and evidence-based research from junk science. In my own work, I have given a great deal of thought to how to get research-based evidence into the hands of practitioners (managers, employees) who can put it to good use. An important piece of the puzzle is helping practitioners understand the research evidence and how to apply it. The books on this list are great examples of authors who translate research into language that people can understand and use.
Gladwell is a master storyteller who is especially gifted at weaving an interesting narrative around what might otherwise be banal research evidence and facts.
In this book, he challenges our thinking about what contributes to individuals’ success; our over emphasis on individual merit, innate talent, and ambition and under emphasis on the role of context, opportunities, and preparation. Gladwell uses engaging and relevant stories (about hockey players, geniuses, plane crashes, his own family) to make his points in powerful ways.
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Regarded by many as the most gifted and influential author and journalist in America today, Gladwell has the rare ability to connect with audiences of tremendously varied interests. There are over 10 million copies of his books in print. Now, Gladwell's landmark investigations into the world around us are collected together for the first time. Beautifully repackaged and redesigned, with newly added illustrations throughout each book, COLLECTED is a perfect treasury of prose…
I am passionate about words and reading, and I love books that examine and record the chaos and mayhem of human existence. When I think about why I don’t want to die, it’s mainly because I can't bear the thought of missing out on what happens next. I feel privileged to be alive during this strange, fraught time of epochal change and to be able to use my skills as a writer to record not just the facts of what happens but how it feels to witness it all, the sensibility of our time, the recording of which is, I believe, the essence of great literature.
The ultimate dystopia survival story .. if you can call it survival. Although its title is only 10 years after Francine Prose’s book, it was, of course, written decades earlier by Orwell, who was looking across Europe at the totalitarian Soviet Union for his inspiration.
I read this book in junior high and have returned to it many times; contemplating Orwell’s insights about the ways authoritarian politics infect societies and destroy souls is more urgent and relevant now than ever.
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
I have a congenital heart disease in which I go into spontaneous cardiac arrest, and I am now 1% bionic (I have an ICD—defibrillator and pacemaker—implanted). Ever since waking up from that surgery, I’ve changed my perspective on what it means to live in the Venn Diagram overlap of “human” and “machine.” My heart—an organ at the heart of so many metaphors about love and emotion—is not like everyone else’s. It is connected to a battery to keep me alive. I write about what it means to be human to better understand myself.
This story and its questions of eugenics and our place in society really horrified me, not because it was unbelievable, but precisely because it was far too real. The genetic superiority/inferiority, coupled with social indoctrination into our “advanced” society, made me meditate a great deal on what it means to be human.
What are humans without societal pressures? The way Huxley looked at the costs of freedom was really compelling. And in so many ways, he accurately predicted the destructive side of the social microscope that we all live in today under social media.
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
EVERYONE BELONGS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Read the dystopian classic that inspired the hit Sky TV series.
'A masterpiece of speculation... As vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read it' Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale.
Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our perfect society achieved peace and stability through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs.
You can be happy too. All you need to do is take your Soma pills.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
My name is Daniel Robert McClure, and I am an Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. I teach U.S., African diaspora, and world history, and I specialize in cultural and economic history. I was originally drawn to “information” and “knowledge” because they form the ties between culture and economics, and I have been teaching history through “information” for about a decade. In 2024, I was finally able to teach a graduate course, “The Origins of the Knowledge Society,” out of which came the “5 books.”
This book tells the tech-business story of algorithms and data exhaust and the companies who have implemented the dystopian future prophesized by Boorstin, Toffler, Postman, and others. While the book is large, Zuboff’s writing draws you into a world you know and, paradoxically, don’t know.
The work is the final stop of our story about information and knowledge, its chaotic meandering through amusing images and the shock of the future.
'Everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense.' -- Naomi Klein, Author of No Logo, the Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything and No is Not Enough
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us.
The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell…
I am a professor at Cornell University who struggles with the meaning of individual action in the face of looming crises—be they plastics and litter, or climate. The idea of Network Climate Action bubbled up one morning as a way to magnify individual actions, such as eating a plant-rich diet, donating money to a climate organization, or joining in an advocacy group. Network Climate Action helps me achieve my role-ideals as a teacher, volunteer, friend, mom, and grandmother, and it gives meaning and happiness to my life. I live in beautiful Ithaca, NY, with my chosen family, which includes an Afghan artist and a Ukrainian mom and her two kids.
An important Network Climate Action is raising money for environmental and women’s health NGOs.
Although our fundraising efforts don’t all go viral, design principles derived from successful campaigns—such as the Ice Bucket Challenge—help us exploit the way power is leveraged over the internet.
In addition to connectivity or creating a feeling of community, “new power” campaigns encourage participants to customize ideas for their own context.
Arising in opposition to consumerist Black Friday and Cyber Monday, GivingTuesday is about donating money to nonprofits. Its heart-shaped logo is designed to be adapted for different causes, including climate.
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
“The best window I’ve seen into this new world.” —David Brooks, The New York Times
In this indispensable guide to navigating the twenty-first century, two visionary thinkers reveal how “new power” is reshaping politics, business, and life to be more open, participatory, and peer-driven. Here, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms reveal a new and compelling lens on the biggest stories of our age—from the out-of-nowhere victory of Donald Trump to the rise of mega-platforms like Facebook. They show the strength of new power—movements like #MeToo; platforms like…
I’ve spent the past ten years reporting and writing true crime narratives about teenagers and hate, first in The 57 Bus and now in Accountable. My research has led me into some fascinating places and has left me convinced that we cannot prevent what we don’t understand. In both books I found that the young people who harmed others weren’t the stereotypical grimacing loners I’d always associated with hate and extremism. Instead, they were imitating behaviors that we see all around us. Being young, with brains that aren’t fully developed in important ways, and lacking the life experience that teaches us a more nuanced understanding of the world, they are ripe for radicalization.
Jon Ronson has also written a highly entertaining book about extremism called Them, but I chose this one because it could just as well be called Us. Public shaming on the Internet is almost a sport at this point, but Ronson shows how, after the mob moves on, the target of the virtual stoning has to figure out how to put themselves back together and carry on.
A funny, readable romp, this book also asks the reader to think deeply about how morality plays out online and what we are saying when we use degradation and dehumanization as a way of communicating moral ideas.
From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame.
'It's about the terror, isn't it?' 'The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of being found out.'
For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a…
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and…
Rupert Younger is an author and entrepreneur. He is the co-author of The Reputation Game a bestselling book published in October 2017 (with David Waller) now published in six languages, and co-author of The Activist Manifesto (with Frank Partnoy), a reimagining of what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would have written had they been alive today. His work and views are regularly featured in major news outlets including the BBC, CNN, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times of London. Rupert is the founding director of Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation, a leading research centre focused on social evaluations, and co-founder of the global strategic consulting firm Finsbury Glover Hering.
Reputations are formed in many ways, leveraging off demonstrated behaviours, network choices, and narrative strategies. This book has it all, capturing how hip hop became the defining cultural driver of its time through a brilliantly woven story of cross-cultural tension and appropriation in America. Stoute draws from his expertise and networks in the music and marketing industries to create an inspiring story of how hip-hop became the embodiment of cool, uniting people from across the entire spectrum of society. This is a book that will remain contemporary for many decades to come.
The business marketing genius at the forefront of today’s entertainment marketing revolution helps corporate America get hip to today’s new consumer—the tan generation.
When Fortune 500 companies need to reenergize or reinvent a lagging brand, they call Steve Stoute. In addition to marrying cultural icons with blue-chip marketers, Stoute has helped identify and activate a new generation of consumers. He traces how the “tanning” phenomenon raised a generation of black, Hispanic, white, and Asian consumers who have the same “mental complexion” based on shared experiences and values, rather than the increasingly irrelevant demographic boxes that have been used to a…
I’ve always been passionate about social justice as a writer and as an international human rights lawyer. I had worked on human rights, surveillance, and privacy for decades around the world, but it was when I first read about Cambridge Analytica back in 2017 that it felt personal – privacy is the gateway to our right to freedom of thought and opinion and Big Tech is increasingly acting as the gatekeeper to all our human rights. These books have all helped me to understand what the risks are and how to tackle them.
In Turned On, Kate Devlin takes us on a ride through the history of sex and technology, from the Ancient Greeks to modern sex robots.
This book is written by a technologist with an acute sense of the human. Not strictly a book about human rights, Devlin raises human rights and ethical considerations around sex tech as well as offering optimism and imagination about the ways that we could enhance our intimate lives with technology.
The way we experience sex and intimacy is at the heart of our right to private lives, Turned On offers an erudite, funny, and sensitive exploration of what technology could mean for us.
'Illuminating, witty and written with a wide open mind' Sunday Times
The idea of the seductive sex robot is the stuff of myth, legend and science fiction. From the myth of Laodamia in Ancient Greece to twenty-first century shows such as Westworld, robots in human form have captured our imagination, our hopes and our fears. But beyond the fantasies there are real and fundamental questions about our relationship with technology as it moves into the realm of robotics.
Turned On explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us and the society in which we…
I have been an information technology and cybersecurity professional for over two decades. I’ve learned over and over again that “people are the weakest link.” You can build the most secure system in the world, with stringent password requirements. But if the user writes their password down and leaves it where someone else can see it, system security is irrelevant! The easiest way to gain access to a system is via “social engineering” – to trick a human being into giving you the access you need, rather than trying to hack the systemitself. The books on this list will help the reader lower their chances of being exploited like this.
Kevin Mitnick is often called the “world’s most famous hacker,” and he spent years in prison for his crimes. However, he’s since reformed, and now advises individuals and corporations on how to protect their data. In this book, he talks about strategies that we can all use to better protect our data from exploitation by corporations and governments. Although it’s never possible to be truly “invisible” (despite the title of his book) he presents some great strategies to lower your risk profile.
Like it or not, your every move is being watched and analyzed. Consumer's identities are being stolen, and a person's every step is being tracked and stored. What once might have been dismissed as paranoia is now a hard truth, and privacy is a luxury few can afford or understand.
In this explosive yet practical book, Kevin Mitnick illustrates what is happening without your knowledge--and he teaches you "the art of invisibility." Mitnick is the world's most famous--and formerly the Most Wanted--computer hacker. He has hacked into some of the country's most powerful and seemingly impenetrable agencies and companies, and…
Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old?
By
Joy Loverde,
Everything you need to know to plan for your own safe, financially secure, healthy, and happy old age.
For those who have no support system in place, the thought of aging without help can be a frightening, isolating prospect. Whether you have friends and family ready and able to help…
I’ve been passionate about science as a way of learning how nature works and approaching truth since I was a pre-teen. After five decades of basic research, teaching, and management in physics, I can distinguish good science from pseudoscience even beyond my own areas of expertise. I am greatly disturbed by attempts to undermine science in public policy-making when its findings conflict with ideology, religious beliefs, or business bottom lines. My passion project, via my blog debunkingdenial.com, is to explain to teachers and the public the underlying science and the flaws in science denial across a wide range of topics at the interface with public policy.
I love this book because Perlroth chronicles the proliferation of cyberweapons, which began in the hands of mischievous young hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in widely used software. Once some of those hackers joined the NSA, their tools were developed into sophisticated weapons to undercut technological developments in enemy states like Iran.
Once NSA’s hacks leaked to the wider world, they spawned an arms race and fueled rampant criminal ransomware attacks on vulnerable institutions. Informed by Perlroth’s book, I see a future in which dwindling human fertility and the ballooning costs of advanced weaponry will enhance the military role of cyber-attacks, leading to Mutually Assured Cyber Destruction, in which many countries have cyberweapons deeply embedded in the critical infrastructure of their adversaries, just waiting to activate them.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award * Bronze Medal, Arthur Ross Book Award (Council on Foreign Relations)
"Written in the hot, propulsive prose of a spy thriller" (The New York Times), the untold story of the cyberweapons market-the most secretive, government-backed market on earth-and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare.
Zero-day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero-day has the power…
