Popular blogger Cal Newport reveals the new key to achieving success and true meaning in professional life: the ability to master distraction. Many modern knowledge workers now spend most of their brain power battling distraction and interruption, whether because of the incessant pinging of devices, noisy open-plan offices or the difficulty of deciding what deserves their attention the most. When Cal Newport coined the term deep work on his popular blog, Study Hacks, in 2012, he found the concept quickly hit a nerve.

Have you ever found yourself struggling with information overload? Have you ever felt both overworked and underutilised? Do you ever feel busy but not productive? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is to become an essentialist. In Essentialism, Greg McKeown, CEO of a leadership and strategy agency in Silicon Valley who has run courses at Apple, Google and Facebook, shows you how to achieve what he calls the disciplined pursuit of less.

Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto flies in the face of conventional wisdom by suggesting that it should be a person's talent and skill - and not necessarily their passion - that determines their career path. Newport, who graduated from Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa) and earned a PhD from MIT, contends that trying to find what drives us, instead of focusing on areas in which we naturally excel, is ultimately harmful and frustrating to job seekers.

Throughout history, there's been one indelible quality that great leaders, makers, artists and fighters have shared. The Zen Buddhists described it as inner peace, the Stoics called it ataraxia and Ryan Holiday calls it stillness: the ability to be steady, focussed and calm in a constantly busy world. This quality, valued by every major school of thought from Buddha to Seneca, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, is urgently necessary today. And, Holiday shows, it is entirely attainable.

Faced with tumultuous economic times and rapid technological change, staying ahead in your career depends on continual learning - a lifelong mastery of new ideas, subjects and skills. If you want to accomplish more and stand apart from everyone else, you need to become an ultralearner. Scott Young incorporates the latest research about the most effective learning methods and the stories of other ultralearners like himself - among them Ben Franklin, Judit Polgar and Richard Feynman, as well as a host of others....

Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things that clutter our lives so we can make room for life's most important things - which actually aren't things at all. At age 30, best friends Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus walked away from their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on what's truly important.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Atomic Habits by James Clear, read by the author. A revolutionary system to get 1 percent better every day. People think when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions - doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits. 

The best of the Minimalists! This book by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus collects the most relevant essays - some short, some long - from their popular website, TheMinimalists.com. This collection has been edited and organized to create an experience that's considerably different from reading individual selections online. From simple living, decluttering, and finances to passion, health, and relationships, Essential is for anyone who desires a more intentional life.

In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more. Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Our attention has never been as overwhelmed or in demand as it is today; we've never been so busy while accomplishing so little, and we've grown uncomfortable with boredom and a lack of stimulation and distraction. In Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey - described by TED.com as 'the most productive man you could ever hope to meet' - provides profound insights into how we can best manage our attention. He reveals how the brain switches between two mental modes - hyperfocus, our deep concentration mode, and scatterfocus, our creative, reflective mode - and how the surest path to being our most creative and efficient selves at work is to combine them both. 

Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi reveals what leads to these moments - be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab - so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists, to politicians and business leaders, to poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous flow theory to explore the creative process.

Present moment awareness is an essential ingredient in life if one expects to experience any degree of authentic peace and contentment. It has been acknowledged for centuries as the cornerstone of spiritual awakening in all traditions of Eastern thought. In the West, however, it is still a relatively unrecognized concept for living. The Western mind is always restless, never content with the moment.

The latest groundbreaking tome from Tim Ferriss, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek. From the author: “For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and ‘inside baseball’ you won’t find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests, and life lessons from new ‘guests’ you haven’t met.”

"Is Google making us stupid?" When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: as we enjoy the Internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration yet published of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences.