Author: Allen Cheng

Around 1.5 billion people around the world speak English—roughly 20 percent of the human population. How has our language achieved this global status? How did English evolve over time into the language we speak and write today? What are its unique quirks, strengths, and shortcomings that set it apart from the world’s other languages? _The Mother Tongue _takes us on a journey through the history of the English language, exploring its richness and variety, and pointing the way toward what the future might have in store for it.

_A Brief History of Time_ is an exploration of the forces that govern our universe. At the heart of it all is the search for a theory that explains the history and evolution of our universe—how it began, how it works, and what the future might hold for it. We journey to the vast reaches of the observable universe and inside the very tiniest particles that comprise its building blocks as we explore the nature of time and space, the origins of our universe through the Big Bang, the forces that give rise to phenomena like black holes, and the possibilities of time travel.

_Turn the Ship Around!_ by L. David Marquet is the story of how a captain turned the U.S. Navy’s worst-performing nuclear submarine crew into one of the best. He transformed the demoralized crew into an empowered, motivated fighting force in just a year by replacing the military’s traditional “leader-follower” or command-and-control structure with a “leader-leader” model that gave crew members control over their work. They learned to think and act proactively, determining what needed to be done and the best way to do it, rather than waiting for direction. Any organization can use Marquet’s principles for developing leaders at all levels to create a passionate, high-performing workforce.

_Fever 1793_ details the yellow fever plague in Philadelphia a decade after the Revolutionary War through the eyes of young 14-year-old Matilda Cook. With great respect for historical accuracy and a keen voice, Laurie Halse Anderson describes the fear and decay that destroyed the nation’s capital and killed thousands of people in three months. Anderson’s keen attention to human emotions and connections lifts this coming-of-age story from the depths of darkness to the light of courage and survival.

Before the White House and _The Apprentice_, Donald Trump was a real estate mogul whose large-scale projects made him one of the most well-known developers in New York City.

In this autobiography, Trump recounts his early life and career—from building low- and middle-income housing with his father in NYC’s outer boroughs to erecting luxury apartments in Manhattan. **Trump outlines the eleven principles that guide his business decisions, and how they played out in the deals that defined his early career**, including projects such as Trump Tower in New York, his first casino ventures in Atlantic City, and his gamble on the United States Football League.

All the alarming statistics about child abuse and neglect—millions of cases reported each year, killing nearly five children each day—don’t begin to illustrate how victims experience abuse. In _A Child Called ‘It’_, author **Dave Pelzer provides a rare and grisly glimpse into his experience of severe physical and psychological abuse at his mother’s hands.**

In one of the worst child abuse cases reported in California’s history at the time, Pelzer was starved, burned on the stove, regularly locked in the bathroom with a noxious mixture of ammonia and Clorox, and forbidden from speaking to or looking at any of his family members. Through it all, **Pelzer maintained an indomitable will to survive that’s a testament to the strength of the human spirit even under the bleakest circumstances.**

_Orange Is the New Black_ is Piper Kerman’s memoir of her year at a federal women’s prison. Convicted on drug charges, the privileged, well-educated, white, upper-middle-class Piper is sent to prison in Danbury, Connecticut. There, she finds herself part of a community of women whose backgrounds and life experiences seem vastly different from her own. During her sentence, however, Piper comes to recognize the biases of her privilege; find community and family with her fellow inmates; and discover the systemic failures, gross power disparities, and overall injustices of the prison system.

_Zero to One_ is entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s unconventional advice for technology startups. It’s about creating new things and also about creating a better future. Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, argues that technology has stagnated. Most new companies improve incrementally on existing products. They move the world from 1 to n.

But there’s much more to discover. The most valuable and game-changing startups create something new. They move the world from 0 to 1. Creating new things is not only the best path to economic profits—it’s the only path for human progress.

One of the most influential books of the last 50 years, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ demystifies the foundations of our modern ideas and values—and teaches us how to find fulfillment in any aspect of our lives. It combines a narrative of a father and son on a motorcycle journey across the country, along with philosophical musings on the human relationship with technology, metaphysics, and how to live a life of meaning.

In this summary, you’ll discover an intellectual thrill unlike any other: part family tragedy, part insightful meditation on the ways we think, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance _is nourishment for both heart and mind.