Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
FiltersShowing everything
Pick as many as you like: any of them matches within a group.
224 summaries, page 7 of 10
We Will Rise
The true story of how Evansville, Indiana lost nearly its entire college basketball team in a 1977 plane crash and how the city and its Aces rebuilt, all the way to the 1982 NCAA tournament.
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Richard Feynman's last book of memories moves from a childhood of questions and a doomed love story to his investigation of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
What Is Life?
A quantum physicist asks how atoms can add up to a living thing, and his answers, an aperiodic crystal carrying a code-script and life feeding on negative entropy, help launch molecular biology.
When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chödrön's Buddhist advice for hard times: stop running from pain and uncertainty, move toward them with curiosity and kindness, and find peace right there.
Where the Crawdads Sing
Abandoned as a child in the North Carolina marsh, Kya raises herself among the gulls and tides, until the town's golden boy turns up dead and she is the one accused.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Jon Kabat-Zinn's gentle classic on mindfulness: how to stop living on autopilot and pay attention to the only moment you have, on the cushion and at the kitchen sink.
Why We Sleep
Berkeley neuroscientist Matthew Walker makes the case that sleep is the foundation of memory, mood, immunity and a long life, and shows how to get more of it.
You Can Win
Shiv Khera's step-by-step case that success is learned: begin with attitude, then build self-esteem, people skills, habits, goals and values on top of it.
Your Money or Your Life
A nine-step program that treats money as hours of your life, helps you define "enough," and maps a path to financial independence.
Bible - Book of Genesis
The Bible's book of beginnings: the creation of the world, the first humans, the flood, and the family of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, bound to God by promise.
Bible - Book of Exodus
Israel's founding story: slavery in Egypt, Moses and the burning bush, the plagues and the sea, and then the covenant, the commandments and the tabernacle at Sinai.
Bible - Book of Leviticus
The priestly heart of the Torah: how a people is to live beside a holy God, through sacrifice, purity, the Day of Atonement and the command to love your neighbour as yourself.
Bible - Book of Numbers
Israel's forty years between Mount Sinai and the Jordan: two censuses, a refusal at the border of Canaan, a generation lost in the desert and a new one made ready.
Bible - Book of Deuteronomy
Moses' farewell speeches on the edge of the promised land: the story so far, the law restated, a covenant to choose, and the death of Israel's greatest prophet.
Bible - Book of Joshua
After the wilderness, Israel crosses the Jordan under a new leader, takes and divides the promised land, and is asked to choose whom it will serve.
Bible - Book of Judges
Between Joshua and the kings, Israel falls again and again into unfaithfulness and is rescued by flawed champions such as Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson.
Bible - Book of Ruth
A widowed foreigner's stubborn loyalty to her mother-in-law turns famine, grief and emptiness into a harvest, a marriage and the family line of King David.
Bible - Book of 1 Samuel
Israel asks for a king and gets Saul, who rises and unravels while a shepherd named David, anointed in secret, kills a giant and spends years on the run from the man he will replace.
Bible - Book of 2 Samuel
Israel's greatest king wins a nation, receives a promise that his dynasty will last forever, then watches his own sin tear his family apart.
Bible - Book of 1 Kings
From Solomon's wisdom, wealth and Temple to a kingdom split in two, a line of failing kings, and the prophet Elijah's lonely stand against Ahab and Jezebel.
Bible - Book of 2 Kings
From Elijah's chariot of fire to the burning of Jerusalem, the story of how two kingdoms ignored their prophets and lost their land.
Bible - Book of 1 Chronicles
Israel's story retold for a later age: long family lines from Adam to the tribes, then David as the king who brings the ark to Jerusalem and prepares everything for the Temple.
Bible - Book of 2 Chronicles
Four centuries of Judah's kings, from Solomon's golden Temple to its ashes, told as one long lesson that God hears those who humble themselves and turn back.
Bible - Book of Ezra
The return from Babylon: exiles rebuild the Temple under Persian kings, and the scribe Ezra arrives to teach the law and confront a community in crisis.