PS Faculty Summer Reading List: Home

An award-winning author and computer scientist reveals AI's turbulent history and the recent spate of successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it.

From the revolution on Twitter to romance on Tinder, we live in a world constructed of code--and coders are the ones who built it for us.

The definitive book on helping kids navigate growing up in a world where nearly every moment of their lives can be shared and compared.

An exhilarating look at humanities next great technological revolution--quantum computing-- which could solve everything from global warming and world hunger to incurable disease.

“The conscience of the AI revolution” (Fortune) explains how we’ve arrived at an era of AI harms and oppression, and what we can do to avoid its pitfalls.

A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in the highly anticipated debut novel from one of The New Yorker’s rising stars.

An exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, and the wild legacy of trauma and inheritance, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble. Released on July 9, 2024.

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?

What causes people to accept irrational misinformation and conspiracy theories? The answer is misbelief.

The definitive book on the rise of “toxic achievement culture” overtaking our kids' and parents' lives, and a new framework for fighting back.

Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity—and why reclaiming face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground.

A guide to learning how to communicate with people who have diametrically opposed opinions from you, how to empathize with them, and how to (possibly) change their minds

Former CIA analyst Otis guides readers through the impact of fake news over the centuries and empowers them to fight back by sharing lessons learned in over a decade working in intelligence.

A masterful history of the Civil War and its reverberations across the continent by a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that reads like a thriller.

The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.

A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club. With a foreword by David Allen Sibley