100 books like The Oracle

I see David Greaeber’s book as a landmark in the field. He completely changed my understanding of and views on money’s role in society and its evolution. I had the good fortune to meet David a few times (in fact, I made a podcast with him) and feel like I learned from every conversation.

Until I read David’s book, I had assumed that the Barter theory of money and the double coincidence of wants was the natural and unchallenged explanation for how money came to be and what roles it performed. David’s and subsequent authors' work has shown that this view is simplistic and outdated. 

When I first became interested in the future of money as a distinct subject, I had the good fortune to meet the late professor, Glyn Davies. I saw him give a talk on the topic, which was a revelation! His book provides a solid grounding in the evolution of money.

I think no one should formulate opinions about the future of money until they understand its history better. I found the book accessible and compelling, I read it like a novel turning over the pages to see what happened next!

One of the first things I learned when I started to study the topic seriously was that there is a great deal of confusion between payments and banking. Of course, money has different functions; we all understand that, but we live in a time when those functions are, in a way, jumbled together.

There is no fundamental economic reason why banks provide payment systems on such a large scale, and indeed, one of the major impacts of new technologies in the space may be to separate them. This is a timely and well-written book about payments and the extent to which the unbanked problem should be reinterpreted because most people in most of the world want payments, not banking. 

Brett King’s Bank 2.0: How Customer Behaviour and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services had an immediate and lasting impact on my career. First, it showed me that you could write about banking, payments, and financial services interestingly. Secondly, it showed me that people were out there thinking the same as me after learning from early internet-era experiments.

Brett’s subsequent work, including this book and The Rise of Technosocialism: How Inequality, AI, and Climate Will Usher in a New World, continues to help me to organize my thoughts about the role of money in a future always, always connected society. 

Peper’s novel is about how the technology available in the near future, which seems like a gift, can be used against you. (Sound familiar?)

In this instance, it is being used to potentially change humanity’s fate, and the main character has to decide what to do about it, if anything. The book stuck with me as it involves power, corruption, and the risks of relying too much on technology.

It’s a complex story, trying to encapsulate the threats our future holds, not only in terms of technology but the damage to our environment and how both could impact our survival.

There are elements of my novel in terms of having neural feeds, though the story explores how life would be experienced if you could capture every moment (not that I personally want to capture everything that happens in my own life).

This book resonated with me on so many levels. I first read it in 2015 while working at a tech company, and the novel gave me the language to express the unease I felt about Big Tech’s relentless push for “transparency” and “sharing,” often at the expense of privacy. In many ways, the book is an argument about trade-offs—the perks of working for a Google-like company versus the torture of being overly connected.

Eggers also offers one of the most accurate portrayals of life as a Silicon Valley tech worker. The overwhelming barrage of pings and constant demands for feedback felt all too familiar. Ultimately, it is both a compelling dystopian thriller and a thought-provoking critique of the tech-driven world we inhabit, raising critical questions about privacy and the cost of innovation.

By exploring today’s rapidly changing world, Friedman helps you take a step back and consider how we might be able to live life at a reasonable pace. Thank You For Being Late serves as a guide for how to respond to the speed of change around us. By understanding how the world is changing through the possibilities and dangers of Moore’s Law (technology and the internet), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change), Friedman encourages us to consider our own adaptability. Rather than complaining and being static as individuals, Friedman suggests we need to embrace change and look at what is in our control to adapt, learn, look forward and still achieve what we want to.

Diamandis’ book is one of hope, sort of like applying Kurzweil’s futurism to pure business. And like his friend Kurzweil, the author’s enthusiasm is contagious: one emerges from this book ready to march forth and change the world.

Peter insists that while we may look back at the successes of Zuckerberg or Musk, the best is yet to come; that looking back a few decades from now, people will think: “this was a formidable time to set out and start a business”.

Indeed that was the case at the first stages of every industrial revolution, and the 4th should bear no different. Unless entrepreneurship is suffocated by Big Tech incumbents and overly cautious regulators. 

Anyone in the education world likely hears about STEM all the time.

We know, intuitively, that science and technology matter. But rarely does anyone so beautifully make the case for what great STEM learning can look like.

In What STEM Can Do for Your Classroom, author Jason McKenna provides practical advice; turnkey activities; and helpful, plainspoken research that can help teachers change students’ lives through STEM—just as McKenna’s teachers did for him.

Kara Swisher has spent decades writing about and reporting on the tech kings of the world, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others. Her insights into the rise of tech giants from the early 1990s to the present illuminate the forces that have shaped our world

I loved Swisher’s insight into these powerful men. She’s blunt, funny, and direct in how she exposes their flaws, and the book feels like it’s written by someone who understands and is fed up with these white, controlling male demigods of tech. I imagine the book’s title refers to how she’s burning all bridges by telling all.

As a journalist who was raised pre-internet, I could deeply relate to Swisher’s outrage in lines such as “What struck me was how easily people could be manipulated by fear and rage, and how facts could be destroyed without repercussions.”