We Have a Deal

Big data knows where you've been and who your friends are. It knows what you like and what makes you angry. It can predict what you'll buy, where you'll be the victim of crime and when you'll have a heart attack. Big data knows you better than you know yourself, or so it claims. But how well do you know big data? You've probably seen the phrase in newspaper headlines, at work in a marketing meeting, or on a fitness-tracking gadget. But can you understand it without being a Silicon Valley nerd who writes computer programs for fun? Yes. Yes, you can.

Eleanor Morgan's first-person account of her own struggles with anxiety was published as part of The Vice Guide to Mental Health and was read by five million people across 15 countries within four days. Anxiety for Beginners will serve as a guide for those who live with anxiety disorders and those who live with them by proxy.

Michelle McGagh has been writing about money for over a decade. You'd think that would make her a whiz with her own cash, right? Wrong! Spending with abandon and ignoring bank statements were her modus operandi. Just because she wasn't in serious debt apart from her massive London mortgage, she thought she was in control. She wasn't. Something needed to be done ,but rather than cut back here and there, Michelle's approach was more radical.

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.

We are all storytellers - through stories, we make sense of our lives. But it is not enough to tell tales. There must be someone to listen. In his work as a psychoanalyst, Stephen Grosz has spent the last 25 years uncovering the hidden feelings behind our most baffling behaviour. The Examined Life distils over 50,000 hours of conversation into pure psychological insight, without the jargon. This extraordinary book is about one ordinary process: talking, listening, and understanding.

David and Goliath is the dazzling and provocative new book from Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw. Why do underdogs succeed so much more than we expect? How do the weak outsmart the strong? In David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell takes us on a scintillating and surprising journey through the hidden dynamics that shape the balance of power between the small and the mighty.

From identification cards to how we protect our property, public debate rages over what our basic human rights are and how they are to be protected. In this trenchant and provocative audiobook, Peter Hitchens sets out to show that popular views of these hotly contested issues - from crime and punishment to so-called 'soft drugs' - are based on mistaken beliefs, massaged figures, and cheap slogans. His powerful and counterintuitive conclusions make challenging listening for those on both the Left and the Right.

When it comes to health, there is one criminally overlooked element: sleep. Good sleep helps you shed fat for good, stave off disease, stay productive, and improve virtually every function of your mind and body. That's what Shawn Stevenson learned when a degenerative bone disease crushed his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Like many of us, he gave up on his health and his body...until he decided there must be a better way.

Understanding and developing the mind throughout life - the new audiobook from the creator of the chimp management mind model and author of the million-copy selling The Chimp Paradox. The Silent Guides explores some neuroscience and psychological aspects of the developing mind, unconscious thinking, behaviours, habit formation and related topics in an easy to understand way. It then offers practical ideas and thoughts for the listener to reflect on using 10 helpful habits as examples.

From infancy we are taught to edit ourselves, trimming out the darker, weirder, less acceptable parts in order to please others. But this addiction to approval is holding us back. What if we begin to be ourselves, honestly and fully? Insanely Gifted shows how to transform our thinking and turn our inner demons into allies. How to reframe disappointment (because not getting what we want can be as interesting and useful as getting what we want).

Based on Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal's wildly popular course The Science of Willpower, The Willpower Instinct is the first book to explain the new science of self-control and how it can be harnessed to improve our health, happiness, and productivity. Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, The Willpower Instinct explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters.

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.

Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience's worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form.

As David Cameron's director of politics and communications, Craig Oliver was in the room at every key moment during the EU referendum - the biggest political event in the UK since World War II. Craig Oliver worked with all the players, including David Cameron, George Osbourne, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Theresa May and Peter Mandelson.

No skill is more important in today's world than being able to think about, understand, and act on information in an effective and responsible way. What's more, at no point in human history have we had access to so much information, with such relative ease, as we do in the 21st century. But because misinformation out there has increased as well, critical thinking is more important than ever. These 24 rewarding lectures equip you with the knowledge and techniques you need to become a savvier, sharper critical thinker in your professional and personal life.