For millennia, humans have debated the connection between the mind, body and spirit. But today, the phrase sounds trite — a hallmark of the #selfcare industry. Over three episodes of this special series on TED Radio Hour, TED speakers will investigate fresh perspectives on how we think, move and feel.

In the first hour: the mind. The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. It gives us control over our bodies and shapes our thoughts, memories and emotions. But how? And can we coach ourselves to think better? The series kicks off with an investigation into the different ways we think and understand the world, what new brain-computer interfaces could do for sharing our thoughts and a story about taming that voice in our head that makes us miserable. Plus, a poem about preparing your mind to be more open to creative ideas. Mind-blowing stuff? Hell yes. Guests explore the internal and external influences on our minds, including animal behaviorist and autism activist Temple Grandin, podcast host and meditation advocate Dan Harris, neurointerventionist Tom Oxley and poet Sarah Kay.

The second hour focuses on the body. We know it’s important to listen to our bodies and trust how we feel, but it’s not always easy. In part 2 of our series, TED speakers explore ideas about movement, pleasure and rest. Guests include choreographer Ryan Heffington, news anchor Lee Thomas, aerialist Adie Delaney and therapist KC Davis.

In the third and final episode we hear from speakers who’ve found unique ways to rekindle the human spirit and, as the saying goes, stay “true” to themselves. Guests include author, researcher and podcaster Tania Lunar, renowned artist JR and serial entrepreneur Artur Sychov. Their challenges include invasions of privacy, incarceration, exile and simply facing human mortality. Their tactics? Sidestepping linear time with innovation, embracing uncertainty by incorporating surprise into our daily lives and using beauty to overwhelm the ugly side of humanity. Their stories will spark your zest for life, too.

You can get all three episodes of our “Mind, Body, Spirit” series, as well as more episodes of TED Radio Hour, on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

TED’s current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rodgers, head of TED Chris Anderson and TED’s head of curation Helen Walters speak at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

What a week! Eleven mainstage sessions of TED Talks, two sessions of TED Fellows talks, an incredible array of on-site activations, countless Discovery Sessions, parties, dinners and more made TED2022 a triumphant return to Vancouver. The closing session of the conference capped off the week with world-changing ideas from the mountains of Nepal to the Amazon rainforest to Mars and beyond.

The event: Talks from Session 11 of TED2022, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson, Helen Walters and Whitney Pennington Rodgers

When and where: Wednesday, April 14, 2022, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Speakers: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bedouine, Elon Musk, Shreya Joshi, Michael Schur, Sara Lomelin, Sarah Kay

Music: With striking vocals and guitar, singer-songwriter Bedouine performed “Nice and Quiet” and “One Of These Days,” fusing her beautiful lyrics and sumptuous melodies.

Conference wrap-up: Poet Sarah Kay and piano virtuoso Samora Pinderhugh sent the conference off with a stirring tribute to the week through the ideas of paying attention, being astonished and telling about it — inspired by Mary Oliver’s iconic poem “Sometimes.”

Bedouine performs at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

The talks in brief:

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche speaks at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, spiritual leader

Big idea: Meditation is an act of awareness, wisdom and self-compassion that, if done with patience and acceptance, can bring us the peace and joy that we seek.

How? A blissed-out state of nothingness is often the image we associate with meditation, but Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche knows there’s so much more to it. After dealing with panic attacks for many years, spending time at Tibetan retreats and consulting with his father, a meditation master, he realized that there are a few misunderstandings we have about the practice. We assume, for example, that if we try to force problems out of our minds they’ll go away; we sit lotus in a dead silent room trying to arrive at peace and calm, only to find that the more we go looking for them, the more difficult they are to find. Inviting us to adopt a more fulfilling approach to meditating, Rinpoche shares three core principles that could help us tap into our inner zen:
with awareness, the “essence” of meditation, we could engage with the world through sensory stimuli — like sound — to be present in any moment; with wisdom, we could realize that no matter how strongly negative emotions affect us, there’s always a state of calm to return to; and finally, with self-compassion, we could give ourselves the grace to let negativity come and go, and become better equipped to handle the challenges of day-to-day life. Conjuring up an image of mother nature, he calls on us to remember our inner strength.

Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat speak at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Leo Lanna, artistic entomologist, and Lvcas Fiat, designer and explorer

Big idea: We lack efficient tools to survey parts of Amazonia, where the core of the world’s biodiversity (like more than 2,500 species of mantises) can be found or is yet to be discovered. By employing creative uses of technology as part of contemporary science practices, scientists like the environmental conservation group Projeto Mantis, can explore the Amazon’s biodiversity and help preserve it for future generations.

How? Two winners of the TED Idea Search: Latin America 2021, Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat work at the intersection of science, conservation and design to learn about the Amazon. Through Projeto Mantis, an independent agency devoted to research, conservation and wildlife photography, Lanna and Fiat are devoted to studying praying mantises and their environment. Their approach may be unconventional in philosophy — Lanna and Fiat live closely with the insects and look after every mantis collected for research until its natural death — but it’s also innovative in technique, as Projeto Mantis attempts to explore the Amazon using modern technology, like drones, UV light and nighttime explorations to learn about the world that emerges when the sun goes down. Thankfully, Lanna and Fiat do not fear the dark. Instead, they are alarmed by the rapid destruction of the rainforest. By marrying technology, art and science, the two believe “the age of exploration on planet Earth is far from over. And in the nights of the rainforests, it is just beginning.”

Bryce Dallas Howard speaks at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Bryce Dallas Howard, multi-hyphenate creator

Big idea: As anyone who has experienced fame knows, private life is precious. In the social media age, we should all protect and cultivate our private lives with the same enthusiasm that we post and promote in public.

How? All of us live in public now, says actor and filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard — but some more willingly than others. Howard’s father was a star in The Andy Griffith Show, so she grew up with the same feeling of exposure that so many of us now experience because of social media. From assigning rustic chores like sheep-shearing to covering the mirrors in the house, Howard’s mother took extreme measures to protect her children from the perils of their father’s fame. Along the way, she taught Howard the secret to living a fulfilling life in the public eye. From her, Howard learned it is our private lives that make our public lives worth living. Inspired by this philosophy, Howard now protects her private life with two simple rules: 1) whatever you are experiencing, soak it in for 48 hours before posting or sharing, and 2) keep yourself honest by asking “why” before you decide to share.

Shreya Joshi speaks at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Shreya Joshi, future leader

Big idea: The solution to political polarization? Listen to opposing perspectives and talk to people with whom you disagree.

How? Most of us have a tendency to gravitate toward people who look, think and act like us. This affinity can offer comfort — but it can also be harmful, says 17-year-old youth leader Shreya Joshi. The negative impact is clear across society: hate groups, screaming cable news pundits and politicians who strike down bills just because they come from across the aisle. But the root of this polarization isn’t just a difference of opinion, Joshi says: it’s the product of seeing the “other side” as malevolent, hateful and holding a hidden agenda. That’s why Joshi launched Project TEAL, a teen-led initiative dedicated to helping young people engage with the political process and bring people with opposing perspectives into the same room. While the conversations can get uncomfortable, she admits, the benefits are enormous: we better understand other people’s beliefs and learn to better advocate for our own. So look for a group — whether it’s with coworkers, a book club at your library or a PTA group at your school — and have a tough conversation. You might be surprised by what happens when you enter a conversation with the intent to listen and learn, not to win or agree.

Michael Schur speaks at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)

Michael Schur, television writer, producer

Big idea: Understanding ethical theories helps us make better, kinder decisions.

How? In 2005, TV writer and producer Michael Schur and his wife got into a fender bender. No one was hurt, and both cars looked fine, but a few days after the accident, the man whose car they bumped sent them a bill for 836 dollars to replace his entire fender. The incident incensed Schur, who didn’t want to pay for a mark he could barely see, but it also sent him down a rabbit hole into the realm of ethical decision-making. He consulted heavy-hitting philosophers like Kant, T.M. Scanlon and John Stuart Mill and explored their schools of thought. After much research, Schur realized he was in the wrong; he apologized and paid the man. But his story illustrates what we can all learn from ethical theories about right and wrong — and what we owe one another as people who share the planet.

Elon Musk speaks Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Elon Musk, serial entrepreneur

In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Elon Musk digs into the recent news around his bid to purchase Twitter and gets honest about the biggest regret of his career, how his brain works, the future he envisions for the world and a lot more. Watch the unedited interview here »

Sara Lomelin speaks at Session 11 of TED2022: A New Era on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Ryan Lash / TED)

Sara Lomelin, philanthropy disruptor

Big idea: Often, philanthropy is imbalanced, with a select few deciding which people or what projects should (or shouldn’t) get funding. By democratizing philanthropy through “collective giving” — a people-powered, inclusive model that invites everyday donors to participate– we can make giving back an intentional, collaborative, joyful and accessible process.

How? Sara Lomelin is the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together, a global initiative that works to disrupt philanthropy through collective giving. Lomelin is a proponent of giving circles — a gathering of people with shared values (like friends, family or colleagues) who come together to make change. There are all kinds of circles — artist circles, circles focused on climate change, circles with Latinx LGBTQ+ folks, Black men’s giving circles. The philosophy is that anyone can be a donor, no matter their identity, background or wealth status. The key in hosting a circle lies in taking the time to build deep relationships by cultivating a sense of belonging, a culture of discourse and a sense of trust and abundance. Whether members are giving five dollars or 50,000, collective circles are successful, meeting year over year, because people realize that together we have a much bigger impact. “Giving by, for, and with the communities we represent is the future of philanthropy — and each and every one of us belong in this movement,” Lomelin says.

Sarah Kay speaks at SESSION 11 at TED2022: A New Era. April 10-14, 2022, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED

Twelve mainstage sessions, two rocking sessions of talks from TED Fellows, a special session of TED Unplugged, a live podcast recording and much more amounted to an unforgettable week at TED2019. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)

If we learned anything at TED2019, it’s that life doesn’t fit into simple narratives, and that there are no simple answers to the big problems we’re facing. But we can use those problems, our discomfort and even our anger to find the energy to make change.

Twelve mainstage sessions, two rocking sessions of talks from TED Fellows, a special session of TED Unplugged, a live podcast recording and much more amounted to an unforgettable week. Any attempt to summarize it all will be woefully incomplete, but here’s a try.

What happened to the internet? Once a place of so much promise, now a source of so much division. Journalist Carole Cadwalldr opened the conference with an electrifying talk on Facebook’s role in Brexit — and how the same players were involved in 2016 US presidential election. She traced the contours of the growing threat social media poses to democracy and calls out the “gods of Silicon Valley,” naming names — one of whom, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, sat down to talk with TED’s Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers the following day. Dorsey acknowledged problems with harassment on the platform and explained some of the work his team is doing to make it better.

Hannah Gadsby broke comedy. Her words, and she makes a compelling case in one of the most talked-about moments of the conference. Look for her talk release on April 29.

Humanity strikes back! Eight huge Audacious Project–supported ideas launched at TED this year. From a groundbreaking project at the Center for Policing Equity to work with police and communities and to collect data on police behavior and set goals to make it more fair … to a new effort to sequester carbon in soil … and more, you can help support these projects and change the world for good.

10 years of TED Fellows. Celebrating a decade of the program in two sessions of exuberant talks, the TED Fellows showed some wow moments, including Brandon Clifford‘s discovery of how to make multi-ton stones “dance,” Arnav Kapur‘s wearable device that allows for silent speech and Skylar Tibbits‘s giant canvas bladders that might save sinking islands. At the same time, they reminded us some of the pain that can exist behind breakthroughs, with Brandon Anderson speaking poignantly about the loss of his life partner during a routine traffic stop — which inspired him to develop a first-of-its-kind platform to report police conduct — and Erika Hamden opening up about her team’s failures in building FIREBall, a UV telescope that can observe extremely faint light from huge clouds of hydrogen gas in and around galaxies.

Connection is a superpower. If you haven’t heard of the blockbuster megahit Crazy Rich Asians, then, well, it’s possible you’re living under a large rock. Whether or not you saw it, the film’s director, Jon M. Chu, has a TED Talk about connection — to his family, his culture, to film and technology — that goes far beyond the movie. The theme of connection rang throughout the conference: from Priya Parker’s three easy steps to turn our everyday get-togethers into meaningful and transformative gatherings to Barbara J. King’s heartbreaking examples of grief in the animal kingdom to Sarah Kay’s epic opening poem about the universe — and our place in it.

Meet DigiDoug. TED takes tech seriously, and Doug Roble took us up on it, debuting his team’s breakthrough motion capture tech, which renders a 3D likeness (known as Digital Doug) in real time — down to Roble’s facial expressions, pores and wrinkles. The demo felt like one of those shifts, where you see what the future’s going to look like. Outside the theater, attendees got a chance to interact with DigiDoug in VR, talking on a virtual TED stage with Roble (who is actually in another room close by, responding to the “digital you” in real time).

New hope for political leadership. There was no shortage of calls to fix the broken, leaderless systems at the top of world governments throughout the conference. The optimists in the room won out during Michael Tubbs’s epic talk about building new civic structures. The mayor of Stockton, California (and the youngest ever of a city with more than 100,000 people), Tubbs shared his vision for governing strategies that recognize systems that place people in compromised situations — and that view impoverished and violent communities with compassion. “When we see someone different from us, they should not reflect our fears, our anxieties, our insecurities, the prejudices we have been taught, our biases. We should see ourselves. We should see our common humanity.”

Exploring the final frontier. A surprise appearance from Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope — whose work produced the historic, first-ever image of a black hole that made waves last week — sent the conference deep into space, and it never really came back. Astrophysicist Juna Kollmeier, head of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, shared her work mapping the observable universe — a feat, she says, that we’ll complete in just 40 years.  “Think about it. We’ve gone from arranging clamshells to general relativity in a few thousand years,” she says. “If we hang on 40 more, we can map all the galaxies.” And in the Fellows talks, Moriba Jah, a space environmentalist and inventor of the orbital garbage monitoring software AstriaGraph, showed how space has a garbage problem. Around half a million objects, some as small as a speck of paint, orbit the Earth — and there’s no consensus on what’s in orbit or where.

Go to sleep. A lack of sleep can lead to more than drowsiness and irritability. Matt Walker shared how it can be deadly as well, leading to an increased risk of Parkinson’s, cancer, heart attacks and more. “Sleep is the Swiss army knife of health,” he says, “It’s not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. It is your life support system, and it is mother nature’s best effort yet at immortality.”

The amazing group of speakers who shared their world-changing ideas on the mainstage at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15 – 19, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Jamie Paik unveils robogamis: folding robots that can morph and reshape themselves as the situation demands. She speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18 at Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

The more we look, the more our digital and analog worlds are blending. What is this future we are entering? In Session 9 of TED2019, we peer into the thrilling, sometimes frightening, often hilarious world of technology.

The event: Talks and tech demos from TED2019, Session 9: Play, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and poet Sarah Kay

When and where: Thursday, April 18, 2019, 11:15am, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC

Speakers: Emmett Shear, Anthony Veneziale, Janelle Shane, Ivan Poupyrev, Jamie Paik and Herman Narula

… and now, for something completely different: Master improver Anthony Veneziale took to the TED stage for a truly off-the-cuff performance. Armed with an audience-suggested topic (“stumbling into intimacy”) and a deck of slides he’d never seen before, Veneziale crafted a profoundly humorous meditation about the human experience at the intersection of intimacy, connection and … avocados?

The talks in brief:

In a live conversation with a Twitch gamer, Emmett Shear (who cofounded TwitchTV) presents his vision for the future of interactive entertainment. He speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18, 2019, at Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Emmett Shear, cofounder of Justin.tv and TwitchTV and part-time partner at Y Combinator

• Big idea: Video games are a modern version of communal storytelling, with audiences both participating and viewing as they sit around their virtual campfires.
• How? As on-demand entertainment becomes more accessible via the internet, consuming broadcast media has become a solitary and sometimes isolating activity. But interactive gaming — and, believe it or not, watching other people play video games — is reversing this trend, and helping to build new communities. Platforms like Twitch allow millions of viewers to view and comment on games, turning livestreamed gaming into multiplayer entertainment.
• Quote of the talk: “Picture millions of campfires … huge, roaring bonfires with hundreds of thousands of people around them. Some of them are smaller, more intimate community gatherings where everyone knows your name.”

Janelle Shane, AI humorist

• Big idea: The danger of AI is not that it’s too smart — but that it’s not smart enough.
• How? Shane runs with blog AI Weirdness, a collection of the (often hilarious) antics of AI algorithms as they try to imitate human datasets. (Examples: AI-generated ice cream flavors and a recipe for horseradish brownies.) Despite the widespread celebration of AI, the truth is they don’t yet measure up to the versatile, free-associating human brain. And sometimes, the consequences can be dire, as with a self-driving car trained to identify the back of a truck on a highway — but not what it looks like sideways, leading to a fatal accident. So we need to separate science fiction from reality, Shane says, to be skeptical about AI claims that seem too good to be true. Surely, this tech will get better — but if we trust the answers it currently gives us without checking, it can be dangerous.
• Quote of the talk: “AI can be really destructive and not know it.”

Ivan Poupyrev, inventor, scientist, designer of interactive products

• Big idea: Keyboards and touchscreens shouldn’t be the only way we access computing power. With a bit of collaboration, we can design literally anything to be plugged into the internet — blending digital interactivity with everyday analog objects.
• How? The world of things is much vaster than the world of computers. If designers of objects had a simple way to build internet connectivity into their creations, even non-engineers could build interactive devices. Poupyrev invents tech — including an interface called Tag — that makes it possible for any object to connect to the cloud, opening the door to things like smart running shoes and interfaces in your clothes.
• Quote of the talk: “We are walking around with supercomputers in our pockets. How amazing is that? So it’s disappointing that the way we use computers — the way we interact with them — hasn’t changed. We’re stuck in the screens with our faces, not seeing the world around us? That’s not the future I imagine.”

Jamie Paik, founder and director of the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab

• Big idea: Robots of the future shouldn’t just be built to serve one function. Instead, they should be highly adaptable — and we can take our design cues from origami.
• How? Paik realized early in her career that truly useful robots would need to look different from the humanoids she’d been working on. Those best adapted to help humanity would be much closer to Transformers: capable of adapting to any environment and task on Earth … or off. Taking design cues from origami, Paik and her team created robogamis: folding robots made out of a thin, paper-like material that can morph and reshape themselves as the situation demands. This makes them cheaper and more efficient to launch into space — and even land on another planet. When paired with a haptic interface, they could train medical students by re-creating the precise sensation of doing surgery. “These robots will no longer look like the characters from the movies,” Paik says. “Instead, they will be whatever you want them to be.”
• Quote of the talk: “For robogamis, there’s no one fixed shape or task. They can transform into anything, anytime, anywhere.”

Herman Narula, entrepreneur, gamer, cofounder and CEO of Improbable

• Big idea: The most important technological change happening in the world right now isn’t AI, space travel or biotech. It’s video games.
• How? Video games are more than entertainment. Just look at the scale of gamers: a full third of the world’s population (2.6 billion people) find the time to game, plugging into massive networks of interaction. These networks let people exercise a social muscle they might not otherwise exercise. And this is sorely needed: while social media seems to amplify our differences, games create a space for us to empathize with one another. Their economic impact will be profound: as long as you can access a cell phone, the chance to create and contribute to the gaming universe is yours for the taking. The future of gaming, in Narula’s eyes, means working together and understanding one another — despite deep divisions and differences.
• Quote of the talk: “The reality is there are worlds you can build right here, right now, that can transform people’s lives. Let’s engage. Let’s actually try to make this something we shape in a positive way.”

Sarah Kay announces season two of TED’s original podcast series Sincerely, X. The new season premieres May 6, 2019 with Kay as its host. She speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18, 2019, at Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope, shares how the international collaboration helped us see the unseeable. He speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 15, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

The theme of TED2019 is “Bigger than us,” and day 1 did not disappoint. Even though it had just three sessions, they were chock full of compelling ideas and calls for action. Here are seven takeaways: 

We’re shining light into some really dark places. Sheperd Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, takes us inside the new (and iconic) black hole image and the epic effort involved in making it. The petabytes (1 petabyte = 1 million GB) of data that were used to construct the image came from a network of telescopes operated by 200 people in 60 countries who, he says, “effortlessly sidestepped the issues that divide us.” (Here’s a thought: Let’s get competing political candidates to work on science projects … together!) And two TED Fellows showed documentary projects that exposed hidden truths: Taghi Amirani shares footage from his just-finished Coup 53, which reveals the British and American conspiracy that overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and shaped the country’s fate (and his family’s), while Nanfu Wang speaks about One Child Nation, her film about the traumas caused by China’s one-child policy.

And some places still need illumination. British journalist Carole Cadwalladr describes her investigation into the Facebook ads that targeted people with lies prior to the 2016 Brexit vote, but most of the evidence of what occurred remains locked in the “black boxes” of Facebook, Google and Twitter. She urges them to release their data, saying: “It’s a crime scene, and you have the evidence.” Writer Baratunde Thurston shares examples of people in the US who had the police called on them because they were “living while black” — when they went to a swimming pool, donated food to the homeless or played golf, “concerned” observers phoned 911 to report them. Systemic racism underlies these 911 calls, and even though changing it may sound impossible, Thurston has hope. He believes that if we can see the humanity of people targeted by racism, we can change our actions; when we change our actions, we change the story; and when we change the story, we can change the system.

The words we use matter. We’re living in polarizing times, and many fractures occur during our conversations. By tweaking what we say, political pollster Frank Luntz shows how to keep our discussions open and respectful. One standout from his suggestions: instead of saying the passive “I’m listening,” try the active, empathic “I get it.”

Businesses need to look beyond balance sheets and focus on their people. TED Fellow Jess Kutch created coworker.org, a platform that helps employees organize. While it tends to scare executives, Kutch says corporate leaders should view organizing as a positive — it’s what she calls “productive conflict,” offering “an opportunity to build a better workplace, a stronger business and an economy that works for all of us.” (Besides, she notes, the people most passionate about changing their workplace tend to be the people who love their workplace the most.) … Creating a company that puts employees first is part of what Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya calls his “anti-CEO playbook.” Other actions in his playbook: Asking communities what they need instead of demanding tax breaks and concessions from them; being accountable to one’s customers rather than one’s shareholders; and taking sides on political issues — because, he says, businesses should use their power to make a difference.

Ethics shouldn’t be an afterthought. While Cadwalladr calls out the tech giants and Ulukaya calls for humanity in business, a slew of TED Fellows echo the theme of responsibility. MIT researcher Arnav Kapur demos a technology that can communicate a person’s thoughts — but he stressed it’s not mind reading. It picks up only “deliberate speech” while “control resides with the user.” … Cofounder and executive director of The Good Food Institute Bruce Friedrich says humans have a responsibility to the earth not to tax it with the consequences of meat consumption. He’s championing research and investment into plant-based and cell-based meat. … Finally, astrodynamicist Moriba Jah speaks about our planet’s responsibility to, well, the rest of the universe. There are more than 500,000 objects in space put there by humans — “most of us what we launch never comes back,” he says. The world’s nations should pool their efforts and data to track the trash.  

Music can be used to teach history and biology. Teachers might want to take a lesson from these TED Fellows. Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin shares a rousing excerpt from her in-progress musical At Buffalo, which examines black identity through the events of the 1901 World’s Fair in Buffalo, New York. And biologist Danielle N. Lee led the crowd in a version of Naughty by Nature’s “O.P.P.” to illustrate the concept of “extra-pair copulation.” (Trust us — it was amazing.)  

Fishing cats are the cutest cat you’ve never heard of. Oh yes, they are.

That concludes this highly abbreviated rundown of the day’s doings, which also included walking Easter Island statues, innovative ways of creating new medications, a Kenyan music festival with the winning name of “Blankets and Wine” (sign us up!), an astrophysicist who is taking how she studies stellar explosions and applying them to city lights and the criminal justice system, restoring the Maldives with canvas “bladders,” spoken word from the sublime Sarah Kay and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and much more.

Poet and educator Sarah Kay encourages us to welcome the beauty of the universe, however it may appear. She speaks during Session 1 of TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 15, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

The world feels fragile these days, a bit wobbly. How do we figure out a way forward? At TED2019, we’re taking a painfully honest look at what’s going on, laying out shared values, exploring a common purpose — and seeing how we can build something meaningful together: an idea, vision, ambition that’s bigger than us.

The event: Talks and performances from TED2019, Session 1: Truth, hosted by TED’s Chris Anderson and Helen Walters.

When and where: Monday, April 15, 2019, 5pm, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC.

Speakers: Sarah Kay, Sheperd Doeleman, Carole Cadwalladr, Frank Luntz, Baratunde Thurston and Hamdi Ulukaya.

Music: Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit, performing three original songs: “King of the World,” “Nothing Has to Be True” and “My Silver Lining.”

The talks in brief:

Sarah Kay, poet and educator

• Big idea: What does it mean to embrace the beauty of life around us?
• How? In a thoughtful and stirring spoken-word piece, Sarah Kay encourages us to welcome the beauty of the universe, however it may appear. From starlings bursting into flight to the enormous heart of a blue whale, the poetry of life is within our reach.
• Quote of the talk: “Maybe it’s not my job to invent something new. Maybe, instead, it’s my job to listen to what the universe is showing me.”

How can you see the unseeable? Astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman explains how his global team behind the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first-ever image of a black hole. He speaks with TED’s Chris Anderson during Session 1 of TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)

Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope project

• Big idea: We have the first image of a black hole … and that’s awesome!
• How? 100 years ago, Einstein predicted we would see a circle of bright light around a black hole, should we ever image one. Last week, Doeleman’s global team of 200 researchers across 60 countries announced just that. Using an international array of telescopes synced with atomic clocks, the Event Horizon Telescope imaged the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of a galaxy 55 million light years away. The ring of light we see in the image is the orbit of photons (particles of light) around the black hole. The dark region in the center is the event horizon, and our entire solar system would fit inside it. Doeleman discusses his team’s findings with TED’s Chris Anderson. (You can learn more about how this image was created from Katie Bouman, who created an algorithm central to the project’s success.)
• Quote of the talk: “Black holes really are the central mystery of our age because that’s where the quantum world and the gravitational world come together.”

Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist for the Guardian and Observer and Pulitzer Prize finalist

• Big idea: Online platforms need to be accountable for their potential to influence voters.
• How? Targeted Facebook ads played a decisive role in the Brexit referendum. But when Cadwalladr and her colleagues wanted to see what British voters saw in the leadup to the 2016 referendum, they found that while some people mentioned seeing “quite scary stuff about immigration” on Facebook, it was difficult to know what ads they had been shown, or how they had been targeted. Cadwalladr uncovered that a company called Cambridge Analytica used data illegally harvested from Facebook to target these ads at voters deemed most susceptible to influence. As she says: “It was the biggest electoral fraud in Britain for 100 years.” Cadwalladr calls for Mark Zuckerberg and other social media leaders to stand accountable for how their platforms can be used to influence democracy. Read a full recap of her talk here.
• Quote of the talk: “It is not about left or right, or Leave or Remain, or Trump or not. It’s whether it’s actually possible to have a free and fair election ever again. As it stands … I don’t think it is.”

Frank Luntz, communications advisor, pollster and wordsmith whose work coining terms like “climate change” and the “death tax” helped to define contemporary American politics

• Big idea: It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear. To effectively communicate, we need to change the words we use that alienate people we disagree with.
• How? Luntz provides a list of words to lose and words to use — for those on both the left and right. For example, instead of saying “tolerance,” which implies mere acceptance without embracing, we should be talking about “mutual respect,” which says that you have something to learn from everyone. And instead of “human capital,” which communicates that people are just a profit center, we should be talking about “human talent,” which respects individuals. Luntz also calls on American presidential candidates in 2020 to commit to no-negativity campaigns, and he urges each of us listen, learn and use language to lead.
• Quote of the talk: “Populism is a great way to get elected, and it is a horrible way to govern.”

“Systems are just collective stories we all buy into. When we change them, we write a better reality for us all to be a part of,” says writer and activist Baratunde Thurston. He speaks during Session 1 of TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 15, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED)

Baratunde Thurston, humorist, activist and writer of the New York Times bestseller How to Be Black

• Big idea: White supremacy isn’t confined to those who consciously believe it. It’s implicit in the structure of our society — from the police to white people who call the cops on people of color merely because they make them feel uncomfortable. But we can change that structure — by changing our narratives.
• How? By making a game out of analyzing all-too-familiar headlines — e.g., “White Woman Calls Police on Eight-Year-Old Black Girl Selling Water” or “White Woman Calls Cops on Black Woman Waiting for Uber” — Thurston shows how African Americans are being punished for their mere existence. And by rewriting the headlines, we can imagine new outcomes for those narratives, change our behavior accordingly and, perhaps, begin to dismantle white supremacy.
• Quote of the talk: “Systems are just collective stories we all buy into. When we change them, we write a better reality for us all to be a part of. I am asking us to use our power to choose.”

Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of Chobani

• Big idea: The CEO playbook that has powered corporate America for decades is broken. We need a new playbook — an “anti-CEO playbook” — that benefits employees and local communities, instead of making shareholders rich. And consumers can use their power to help create it.
• How? There are four key values of the anti-CEO playbook: community, responsibility, gratitude and accountability. Companies can — and should — help build up struggling communities, instead of simply seeking out areas with tax breaks or incentives. That’s why Ulukaya built his second yogurt factory in a rural town in Idaho. Anti-CEOs should also hold themselves accountable to their consumers. After all, Ulukaya says, consumers have the buying power to support brands that treat their employees well. Taken together, when consumers refuse to buy from companies that put profit in front of people — and when CEOs follow the new playbook — we can create a better way of doing business.
• Quote of the talk: “Today’s playbook says: business exists only to maximize profit and make shareholders rich. I think that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. The truth is: business should take care of employees first.”

2019 is starting off big for the TED community — below, some highlights.

Jim Yong Kim resigns from the World Bank. In an unexpected move, Jim Yong Kim announced that he will be stepping down from his position as President of the World Bank by the end of the month. According to The New York Times, he will be joining a development-focused private investment fund, and plans to rejoin the board of Partners in Health, the nonprofit he co-founded in 1987. In a statement, Kim said, “It has been a great honor to serve as president of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime.” (Watch Kim’s TED Talk.)

Feminist icon considered for BBC Wales statue. TV writer Elaine Morgan is one of five women being considered for the BBC’s Hidden Heroines statue project. Known for her blockbuster 30-year television writing career and for her book The Descent of Woman, which foregrounded women in the story of human evolution, Morgan disrupted male-dominated fields to forge her path in media. (She is also known for promoting a controversial theory that humans evolved from aquatic apes.) The statue would be the first of a real woman in Wales; the BBC has produced a learning resource kit on Morgan and the four other heroines. The decision will be made by public vote toward the end of January 2019. (Watch Morgan’s TED Talk.)

BAFTA nomination for a daring documentary. Free Solo, a film that documented rock climber Alex Honnold’s death-defying 2017 summit of El Capitan in Yosemite Park, was nominated for a BAFTA. Produced by National Geographic and Image Nation Abu Dhabi, the film follows Hannold over two years of zealous preparation, which culminated in his successful rope-free climb of the 3,200-foot El Capitan Wall. The trailer is available here; the award winners will be announced in February. (Watch Honnold’s TED Talk.)

A new study on Earth’s only walking fish. Ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty is co-leading a new study at Louisiana State University on Cryptotora thamicola, the blind cavefish that can walk on land. The study, in collaboration with New Jersey Institute of Technology and the University of Florida, seeks to better understand how these fish have evolved. Chakrabarty’s team at LSU will perform genomic sequencing in order to discover more about the molecular makeup and history of the cavefish. In a statement, Chakrabarty said, “Combining robotics, genomics and CT morphological examinations, this collaboration could help us visualize evolution in a brand new light.” (Watch Chakrabarty’s TED Talk.)

A new interview on being brave. Girls Who Code founder and CEO Reshma Saujani spoke to the American Booksellers Association this week on her forthcoming book Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder. “My hope is that by sharing my story, and the lessons and stories I have learned from women across the country, booksellers will leave my talk empowered and excited to go flex their own bravery muscles.” she said. Saujani will also give a keynote speech at the ABA’s Winter Institute later this month. (Watch Saujani’s TED Talk.)

Seeking answers in an untimely death. Alongside producer Lina Misitzis, journalist Jon Ronson launched The Last Days of August, a new podcast investigating the death of adult entertainment star August Ames. In 2017, Ames faced severe backlash to a tweet perceived by many as homophobic; the following day, she committed suicide. Ames’ death sparked dialogue in the entertainment industry around cyberbullying, homophobia, and the impacts of social media. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ronson said, “We had stumbled into a story where what we had to do was figure out the truth of why August died. We look at the huge things and the very small, subtle, nuanced, psychological things that contributed to her death. I can hope that people can see the humanness of that.” The full podcast can be streamed on Audible. (Watch Ronson’s TED Talk here.)

An advice column that “prescribes” poetry. Sarah Kay — alongside fellow resident poets Kaveh Akbar and Claire Schwartz — has begun Poetry Rx, a poetry-focused column for The Paris Review. Each week, the poets take turns suggesting the perfect poems to match specific emotions that readers write in about (such as commemorating a bittersweet accomplishment, exploring vulnerability, or other moments in the human condition). Read the full column here. (Watch Kay’s TED Talk.)

The TED community is busy with new projects and ideas: below, some highlights.

A new galaxy cluster hidden in plain sight. Researchers at MIT, including TED speaker Henry Lin, have recently discovered a cluster of hundreds of galaxies obscured by an intensely active supermassive black hole at its center. That extra-bright black hole, named PKS1353-341, is 46 billion times brighter than our sun; in their newest paper, the team concluded that a feeding frenzy (big chunks of matter falling into the hole and feeding it) is the likely cause of the black hole’s extraordinary light, which blocked the cluster from view. This insight has led to the development of CHiPS, or Clusters Hiding in Plain Sight, an initiative that will re-analyze older data and images, in the hopes of identifying other galaxy clusters. (Watch Lin’s TED Talk.)

Mothers of Invention: the women solving climate change. Alongside comedian Maeve Higgins, Mary Robinson has launched a new feminist podcast spotlighting women who are leading the charge in the climate change battle. The series, Mothers of Invention, has featured Judi Wakhungu and Alice Kaudia, Kenyan policymakers who instituted Kenya’s plastic bag ban; Tara Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican restaurateur who led efforts to develop sustainable farming measures on the island following Hurricane Maria; and TED speaker Tara Houska, an indigenous rights lawyer who works toward mass divestment from fossil fuel funds. Robinson, who helped negotiate the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, has long advocated for environment policy that protects vulnerable communities; in an interview with iNews, she said, “Climate change isn’t gender neutral: it affects women worse. So of course it makes sense that they would be the ones coming up with solutions.” (Watch Robinson’s TED Talk.)

Diversity specialist Vernā Myers joins Netflix. Following two decades of leading the Vernā Myers Company, Vernā Myers will soon join Netflix as Vice President of Inclusion Strategy. In the newly created role, Myers will strategize how Netflix can best integrate “cultural diversity, inclusion and equity” into their global expansion plans. In a press release from Netflix, Myers said, “I am so excited and look forward to collaborating all across Netflix to establish bold innovative frameworks and practices that will attract, fully develop, and sustain high performing diverse teams.” (Watch Myers’ TED Talk.)

Monica Lewinsky talks Emmy nomination. In a podcast interview with Vanity Fair, Monica Lewinsky discusses her anti-bullying work and recent Emmy nomination for her PSA “In Real Life.” The campaign, which debuted last October, features actors recreating real cyberbullying comments on the streets of New York to unknowing bystanders, and shows strangers stepping in to defend the victims. The film, which was produced in collaboration with ad agency BBDO New York and Dini von Mueffling Communications, asks the question: If it’s not okay in person, why is it okay online? “There’s a lot of pain out there from this,” Lewinsky said to Vanity Fair. “We carry that with us for a long time. I hope it helps heal people.” (Watch Lewinsky’s TED Talk.)

A celebration of poetry and art in Bhutan. Poet and educator Sarah Kay captivated audiences last week at the Mountain Echoes literary festival in Thimphu, Bhutan, with an enthralling performance and workshop session. The annual festival, which registered 17,000 visitors this year, gathered artists and literary luminaries including Kay, the Queen Mother Dorji Wangmo and theatre actress Sanjana Kapoor to facilitate ”cultural dialogue, share stories, and create memories.” In addition to her performance, Kay led a workshop session called “Considering Breakthrough: Connecting with Spoken Word Poetry.” In The Times of India, Kay, who leads the global education initiative Project VOICE, says that for her, poetry is like “puzzle-solving.” (Watch Kay’s TED Talk.)

(L-R) Dancers Adrianne Haslet-Davis and Christian Lightner. Photo: Ryan Lash

Day 3 at TED2014 was dense with science, design, conversation. Here’s a quick recap of some highlights:

Hugh Herr and Adrianne Haslet-Davis’s surprise dance

Hugh Herr is a bionics designer and multiple amputee. He gave a talk that was half mind-blowing — full of extraordinary advances in prosthetics, like bionic designs that produce the same forces as a natural foot — and half stirring, as he argued that there is no such thing as a disabled person, no such thing as a broken person, just broken technology and an inadequate environment. But the most amazing part of the talk was at the end, when he invited Adrianne Haslet-Davis onto the stage. She was a dancer who lost her left leg in the Boston Marathon bombing. After 200 days of work, for the first time she danced a rumba on her new leg, to raucous applause from the crowd. See her above, with dance partner Christian Lightner.

Response from the NSA — tomorrow morning

During Edward Snowden’s talk, Chris Anderson offered the National Security Agency a chance to reply. They took him up on it. Rick Ledgett, the Deputy Director of the NSA, will give a response at TED at 8:30am Pacific tomorrow morning. Ledgett is the former leader of the NSA Media Leaks Task Force up until this January, and was responsible for overseeing the NSA’s efforts “surrounding the unauthorized disclosures of classified information by a former NSA affiliate.” Ahem.

Larry Lessig’s barnburner

It began like a fairly normal Larry Lessig talk — which is to say not at all normal, and quite fast and interesting. But the audience quickly got a sense that something else was happening as he began to talk about Aaron Swartz, who was lost a bit over a year ago. Swartz had deeply inspired Lessig to work hard to remove the corrupting influence of money in American elections. Lessig turned his pain at Swartz’s loss into an incredibly rousing and inspiring talk, encouraging all to join him in fighting that corruption.

Geena Rocero’s coming out

Geena Rocero has had a spectacular career as a supermodel. But she also had a secret, something she had never told neighbors, friends and colleagues. On stage, for the first time in public, she told the story of her transition from a kid assigned “boy” to her inner truth as a woman. It was a stunningly powerful talk, as she make clear how lucky she is compared to her peers, who face extraordinary discrimination.

Bryan Stevenson’s progress

In the third TED All-Stars session, Bryan Stevenson gave an update on the remarkable progress he’s made since his blockbuster 2012 TED Talk, on the massive injustice of mass incarceration of African American youth. A week after giving that talk, he was in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing that the death penalty for minors was unconstitutional. Three months later the court granted the motion. In addition, since then, we have also seen the end of Three Strikes laws in California, and the first decrease in prison populations in many years. Stevenson expressed his profound thanks to the TED community for their help in his part of making that happen.

Sarah Kay’s lovely and inappropriate metaphor

Poet Sarah Kay has wowed the TED audience since her first performance in 2011. In this session, she talked about a problem she often has, how to reply to people asking her how to write a poem, or what the right way to write a poem is. She has started using a very particular metaphor, “Poetry is like pooping. If there’s a poem inside you, it has to come out.” She agrees it’s immature, but it’s also very useful in one of her main missions: to take poetry off a pedestal, and make it clear that it can be written by, and for, anyone.

Rob Knight’s discovery

Microbiologist Rob Knight’s talk on the bacteria in our gut hid a fairly huge finding. His lab has found that transplanting fecal microbes into people who sufferer from C-Diff can relieve them of a disease that sees them suffering from diarrhea at least 20 times a day. In tests, patients who’d suffered from C-Diff for more than 2 years were cured … often in one day. Tests continue, but this is a radical and incredible finding. Microbiome-based medicine might be as few as five years away.

Jon Mooallem’s teddy bear

The story of the origin of the teddy bear shouldn’t be that profound, but it is. In an extraordinary tour through human psychology, author Jon Mooallem showed how this story — President Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear, leading to bears switching from monster to cuddly in the public mind — is an example of how powerfully our perception of the environment can determine how we see animals, and how we approach their conservation.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s recognition

When she was approached in an airport and recognized for being “that woman who wrote that book based on that movie,” Elizabeth Gilbert knew she had a problem. The author of Eat, Pray, Love — which came before the movie — turned the experience, and others, into a remarkable insight that let her publish her next novel, which was guaranteed to disappoint, see it flop, and move on with equanimity and happiness.

Stefan Sagmeister. Photo: Bret Hartman

It’s often said that good design is invisible design — it makes things easy and delightful without us realizing it. But as host Chee Pearlman reminds us at the top of the session, we’re here to honor the “D” in “TED.” From the artistic to the architectural to the auditory, the eight speakers in this All-Stars session have all contributed in their own way to making the world a more interesting and beautiful place.

Below, read a detailed recap of each talk given in this session:

“People think of design like doughnuts–excessive, sweet and kind of irrelevant sometimes.” John Maeda was president of RISD for six years, but he recently packed up and headed west to work at VC firm Kleiner Perkins to define design in the context of technology and business. He’s living in an Airbnb, living off a lot of doughnuts — and meeting a lot of design talent in the Valley. His conclusion? “Technology is not enough; design matters even more now.” This is a change from the olden days; in 2014, everything is friendly, everything is superfast, everything can say hello to us. So do we actually need it?  Turns out: design is the reason we want to buy things. “Right now is a golden age where the economic impact of design is going to be true,” he concludes. “You need design from the beginning.”

15 years ago, designer Stefan Sagmeister ran into TED founder Richard Saul Wurman at Tokyo’s Narita airport. After discussing their seating assignments — Richard in First Class, Stefan in economy — Sagmeister went off to the bookstore. When he came back, he found that his seat had been upgraded to 1B — the seat next to Richard’s. How did Wurman do this? Well, Richard had told the airline hostess that he had just found his long-lost son, and the only way for them to reconnect was to sit next to each other on the 14-hour flight. During their long journey, Richard shared the single sentence on which he built all of TED: “If I don’t ask, I won’t get.” Sagmeister re-creates the phrase in gorgeous, multi-media typography.

Moshe Safdie. Photo by: Ryan Lash

Architect Moshe Safdie asks us to reflect on how the issues facing urbanism and architecture have changed in the last few decades. In 1960, he traveled through North America to study public housing, looking at high-rise buildings in New York and Philadelphia — and suburbs where people really chose to live. This, he thought, was unsustainable — and it started Safdie on a path of thinking about issues of nature and home. Since then, he’s seen high-rise buildings shoot up around the world, as cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and S`ao Paulo are transformed by congestion, a loss of mobility, all while losing access to what makes housing bearable or perhaps even pleasurable. “100 years after we began building with tall buildings, we’re yet to understand how the tall high rise building becomes a building block in making a city,” he says, showing the Marina Bay Sands project in Singapore — complete with 2.5 acre running track on the roof.

“Poetry is like pooping,” starts poet Sarah Kay. “If there’s a poem inside you, it has to come out.” Since sharing her transformative spoken word poems at TEDxEast and TED2011, Kay has traveled the world, using her new global platform to share her voice and advocate poetry in places as far as India, Nepal, Singapore, Australia, Ghana, Mexico, and across Europe and the US. She’s working to make poetry more accessible, to take it off the pedestal and make it more human. “Poetry belongs to us, is for us, is from us.”

We’re living in an increasingly connected world, and researcher Pattie Maes is thinking about what that means for physical objects — and for humanity. “What bothers me about this is the smart world is largely fragmented and incomprehensible to people,” she says, as she begins to describe some of the projects that she and her team are working on at MIT. That includes a radio whose behavior is changed via a phone or a tablet, or a way to control all of the lights in a room with one simple controller. Or how about connecting objects to the smart grid? That way you can program your drier to run when the price of electricity is lowest. She has a number of examples, and concludes by showing one of her students, Valentin Heun, who connects personal real-time data to the environment around him, so the lights change color to reflect how successful he’s reduced his heart rate while meditating. “We call these ‘Smarter Objects’ that combine the best of digital world and physical world,” Maes concludes. “We hope this approach will make the Internet of Things a lot more transparent — and a lot more accessible to all.”

Society is undergoing an organizational shift, says futurist Juan Enriquez. This shift, caused by expanding and flattening networks, robots and 3D printing, will lead to five major changes in our social fabric:

1) Network forces will overwhelm corporations;

2) 3D printing and robots will decentralize manufacturing and design;

3) Very fast build/redesign;

4) Everything will cost $2/kg;

5) US/EU become low-cost manufacturing centers.

Sarah Kay comes back on stage with a less potty-mouthed story to perform a poem, “Toothbrush to the bicycle tire.” “It’s as close to contemplating design as I have in a poem,” she says. “It’s a love letter.”

In her previous talks, athlete and actor Aimee Mullins has shared designs of her own body parts. Today, she explains the mindset behind how she does it. “I designed my future by daydreaming it,” she says. “Daydreaming is the bridge between imagining and creating.” She encourages the audience to our set our hopes impossibly, unrealistically high and to expand the limits of what is possible.  “I have never actually felt the ground beneath my feet, but I have wiggled my toes and flexed my ankles and I say ouch when someone steps on my feet,” says Mullins. “When these sensations become real for me, I will have already experienced them, because I have imagined them.”

Street artist and TED Prize winner JR bounces onto stage to explain why he doesn’t take sponsorship from brands, even though his projects have become more complex and more expensive. “When I do my work I have freedom. Brands have constraints, they have to test their messages. Brands cannot fail. Art can,” he says simply. “Art can only fail or surprise, and when art surprises it’s a real surprise, good or bad.” It’s not that JR doesn’t see the lure of advertising, or even that he thinks advertising cannot be interesting and artistic (he cites Annie Leibovitz, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, even Wim Delvoye). But as he concludes, “an artist is not a brand. A brand is consistent and predictable. An artist is transforming time, not reflecting it, and our role is to be ever-changing and to challenge the status quo.”

Imogen Heap. Photo: Ryan Lash

Closing out the session is musician Imogen Heap, with a stirring version of her poignant “Hide and Seek.” She walks through the audience and accompanies herself on a keyboard synth to create an altered a cappella sound, and then transitions into a haunting cover of Jason Derülo’s “Whatcha Say.”

Maggie Wilderotter and her sister Denise Morrison are both CEOs. Because of a job jar? Photo: Marla Aufmuth

By Helen Walters and Kate Torgovnick

TED Fellow Meklit Hadero kicks off the second session of TEDWomen 2013. Her sultry singing, backed by a trumpet, bass and drums, is just the right way to get the room back, focused and in gear for a packed session.

It’s (sadly, still) rare enough to find a female CEO. It’s rarer still to find two sisters who both occupy the C-suite at major companies. Maggie Wilderotter is the chair and CEO of Frontier Communications, a company with an 88-year track record; her older sister Denise Morrison just happens to be the CEO of Campbell’s Soup. A coincidence? They think not. They believe it all started with the job jar, where their parents would write down tasks for them to complete every week in order to receive their allowance. Through the job jar, these two sisters learned what they call the “art of responsibility.” The two give their father a lot of credit for teaching them important lessons in business, As he once said, “I believe that someday the world is going to open up to women, and I want you to be prepared for that.” The two women share how lessons from childhood propelled them through major acquisitions — and what they’re doing to boost the careers of other women within their companies.

One computerized voice does not fit all. Rupal Patel explains. Photo: Marla Aufmuth

“We wouldn’t dream of fitting a little girl with the prosthetic limb of a grown man. Why would we give her the same prosthetic voice?” Rupal Patel directs the communication analysis and design laboratory at Northeastern University, and she’s here to tell us about her work on VocaliD, an organization working to help the millions of people who use computerized devices to communicate. Patel’s technique to move beyond the usual generic male voices (think Stephen Hawking, who really should not have an American accent): She samples the tones of those with severe speech disorders and matches them with a surrogate talker. By blending the two, the team can “mix colors to paint voices,” a lovely, lyrical description of an amazing process. She plays us some recordings, including that of a girl called Samantha who says, “This voice is only for me. I can’t wait to use my new voice with my friends.” The audience loves it; lots of delighted applause.

Photo: Marla Aufmuth

Hunter Lee Soik admits that, for the majority of his adult life, he didn’t get a lot of sleep. He was working long days in the fashion industry and sleeping only a handful of hours a night. And so on his first vacation in 12 years, all he could do was stay in bed. In the course of 22 days of epic sleeps, he was having exceptionally vivid dreams — and instantly forgetting them. This launched an idea: to build an app to help people remember their dreams. Now, working with a team of sleep scientists, the resulting app — Shadow — is so much more than that. It gently wakes users up so that they can remember their dreams (rather than ripping them out of sleep via an alarm clock). Shadow is also an enormous dream database, to allow people to locate themselves within our greater dreaming unconscious. “You can find out that you were one of 7,000 people who had a dream about a white horse last night,” says Soik. “You can form a community and find out what that means.” As Soik points out, 95% of dreams are forgotten within five minutes. Could Shadow change that?

Spoken-word poet Sarah Kay is here to make a bold confession at a woman-focused conference: She’s not entirely sure what it is to be a woman. She elaborates. Too often, she says, women are defined on the basis of their relationship to others. Well, she’s not up for that at all: “I value these roles immensely, but I am trying to define myself without these roles, without being a reflection of others.” She quotes the poet Richard Siken: “Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.” And then she performs her poem “The Type,” full of useful reminders including, “You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat. / You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.”

Photo: Marla Aufmuth

Boyd Varty starts his talk with a much-needed tribute. “I wanted to tell you, as a South African, that one of the men who has inspired me the most passed away a few hours ago,” he says. “Nelson Mandela has ended his long walk to freedom.” When Varty was 9 years old, he actually met Mandela. Upon his release from prison, Mandela headed to the Londolozi Reserve, the place that Varty’s father and uncle transformed from a hunting ground to a game reserve in 1973. “The thought was that, in the bush, [Mandela] would have time to rest and recuperate,” he says. “Plus, lions tend to be a good deterrent for paparazzi.” For Varty and for many other South Africans, he says, Mandela was the embodiment of a concept  of Ubuntu, which means “I am; because of you.” With stunning images of Londolozi in the background, Varty shows how this idea of interconnectedness applies not just to people but the wildlife around us — as one elephant helps a wounded friend climb a hill. “In the cathedral of the wild,” says Varty, “we get to see the best parts of ourselves reflected back to us.”

A look at the famous TED Bookstore at TED2013. Photo: Michael Brands

Books can entertain, sucking you like a tornado into incredible new worlds. Books can teach, giving you a richer understanding of time periods, people and ideas you’ve never been exposed to. But books can do so much more.

Lisa Bu: How books can open your mind In today’s talk, TED’s own Lisa Bu introduces us to the concept of “comparative reading,” the practice of reading books in pairs, to give deeper context and reveal new insights. Comparative reading not only helped Bu adjust to American culture after moving here from China for graduate school — it also helped her re-imagine her life and find new directions after her dream failed to come true. This personal, moving talk about the magic of books and resilience of the human spirit is a must-watch »

Every year at TED, we set up a bookstore filled with books recommended by TEDsters of note. Today, as you prepare for a summer filled with reading, we are releasing this incredible library of recommendations from this spring’s TED2013 bookstore. We’ll begin, of course, with Lisa Bu’s must-reads, followed by book recommendations from Rainn Wilson, Sarah Kay, Baratunde Thurston, Maria Popova, Guy Raz, Chip Kidd, Cindy Gallop, Keith Yamashita, Bill T. Jones, Safwat Saleem, Raney Aronson, Raghava KK, Tiffany Dufu, Chris Kluwe, Karen Wickre and Colleen Keegan. Click the name to hop straight to their list. Let’s get started…

Lisa Bu’s book picks

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. “My role model of an independent woman when I was growing up. ‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!’”

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth. “Since reading this book as a kid, I have been obsessed with efficiency. Read it at your own risk.”

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. “Pearl S. Buck’s house in Nanjing was the office of my department at Nanjing University, but we students couldn’t read this book because it was banned in China. I finally read it in the U.S.”

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. “Torn between staying in the IT industry and becoming a (poor) PhD student in journalism, I used Benjamin Franklin’s method to decide. It worked well. Read it with John Adams.”

John Adams by David McCullough. “Both Franklin and Adams were great men, in such different ways. They had many disagreements, but the American Revolution needed them both.”

Personal History by Katharine Graham. “An inspiration for me when I am struggling with insecurities. Read it with The Snowball. The two are great friends and business partners.”

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. “I like his approach to wealth, management and hiring. ‘Life is like a snowball, all you need is wet snow and a really long hill.’”

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. “This book is both funny and profound. The teenage Jesus takes a road trip to look for the three wise men, and encounters Buddhism and Hinduism along the way. I’m amazed by the author’s understanding of all three religions.”

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. “My all-time favorite. I still read it a few times a year.”

The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton. “Instead of ‘lost in translation,’ I find there’s much to gain. Maybe because without cultural preconceptions, a Westerner can read this ancient text with fresh eyes and see its original meaning more readily. Read it together with Tao: The Watercourse Way.”

Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts. “I’m amazed by Watts’ understanding of Eastern philosophies. He has the ability to express complicated ideas in an easy to understand manner.”

Rainn Wilson’s book picks

Actor Rainn Wilson is best known as Dwight Schrute on The Office – but he is also the co-founder of SoulPancake (with whom TED is proud to share a 2013 Webby Award). His curation philosophy: “I wanted to choose books in line with SoulPancake’s ongoing exploration of ‘life’s big questions.’ This is a diverse collection of words that has enriched my human experience in a profound way.”

The Seven Mysteries of Life by Guy Murchie. “An enormous tome of knowledge, wisdom, science, philosophy and transcendental mysticism that was said to have inspired Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Like Walt Whitman as a science geek.”

A Giacometti Portrait by James Lord. “Writer James Lord sat for a portrait by the brilliant, haunted and exacting artist Alberto Giacometti. It was supposed to last one day and ended up lasting eighteen. A fascinating study of the obsessive artist in the throes of his creation.”

The Family Virtues Guide: Simple Ways to Bring Out the Best in Our Children and Ourselves by Linda Kavelin Popov. “I know the words ‘family’ and ‘virtues’ together in a sentence can be a colossal turn-off, but this book is different. It explores the concept of educating children on universal virtues that make the world a better place.”

This Is a Book by Demetri Martin. “The sharpest, oddest wit in an evolutionary line that includes James Thurber, Steve Martin and Steven Wright. Demetri’s brain astounds me.”

Narrow Road to the Interior by Matsuo Bashō. “The master of the haiku wrote this travelogue of his journey through northern Japan in the 17th century. Everywhere he went he composed a poem and connected his work to his cultural heritage, his spiritual life and, most of all, nature. A riveting meditation.”

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder. “A biography of the great doctor, teacher and humanitarian, Paul Farmer. In the Artibonite plain in rural Haiti, he walks hundreds of miles, healing the sick and delivering AIDS medication with a selfless determination that is awe-inspiring.”

Big Cats by Holiday Reinhorn. “This magnificently strange, moving and hysterical debut collection of short stories was, full disclosure, written by my WIFE! But I wouldn’t recommend so highly if I didn’t think it one of the very best short story collections.”

Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman. “My two favorite cities have a storied and contentious history, richly documented in this terrific study. Sparks fly and, meanwhile, Christianity sweeps in and transforms the world in a few short hundred years. Fascinating.”

Sarah Kay’s book picks

Spoken word poet Sarah Kay inspires students by showing them that, yes, they have a story to tell. Her TED Talks “If I Should Have a Daughter” and “How Many Lives Can You Live?” morph poetry and memoir. Her curation philosophy: “I picked books that have made me cry, laugh and marvel. Each one of these books has been instrumental in making me want to write — some dating back to childhood, others from more recent explorations.”

Everything Is Everything and Working Class Represent by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz. “Cristin was the first person to ever teach me that women poets could be funny and silly while still being smart and moving.  I love the matter-of-fact style she uses, and the way she examines everyday life with humor and care.”

A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears by Jules Feiffer. “I love self-aware books. This one pokes fun at traditional fairytales and also at the way books work. When I read it for the first time as a kid, it utterly wowed me.”

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. “An amazing graphic novel, it is also a stunning work of creative nonfiction and a beautifully written memoir that’s heartbreakingly honest.”

The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi. “I used to read one Rumi poem every night before I went to bed. It still amazes me that words Rumi wrote so long ago can be so relevant to my life today.”

Racing Hummingbirds by Jeanann Verlee. “Jeanann Verlee was one of the first women I ever saw perform spoken-word poetry, and she not only ripped the rug out from under my feet, she lit it on fire. Her poetry is like a speeding train of chaos headed straight for your heart. (Confession: I also helped edit this one!)” 

Pink Elephant by Rachel McKibbens. “Rachel McKibbens’ poetry comes in swinging and leaves me breathless. Her control over language is like none I’ve ever read.”

The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy by Nick Bantock. “My favorite books growing up. I loved the romance of secret letters and hidden worlds, and adored being able to physically open envelopes and feel like I was peering into something magic. Bantock’s work is so imaginative and stunning.”

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. “I tell people that this book ruined my life in the best possible way. Meaning: I couldn’t stop reading it, and when it was done, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It invaded my dreams and affected the way I thought about the world.” (Note: This book also comes recommended by Chip Kidd.)

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman. “I adore the whimsical nature of this book, and I appreciate how she creates art to help her figure things out— the same reason I write poetry.” (Also recommended by Keith Yamashita.)

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. “I have a big soft spot for magical realism, and this book is one of the best examples I’ve found. Zafon’s story is a perfect read for book-lovers, especially ones who find old musty libraries romantic.”

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. “I read this when I was in high school, and it turned everything I knew about gender upside down. I love the way Eugenides constructs this story, with history and fiction.”

Baratunde Thurston’s book picks

A brilliant author and clever comedian, Baratunde Thurston uses humor, truth and technology to tackle race, class and culture. He recently gave a talk at TEDxMidwest. His curation philosophy: “All of the books on this list have affected the way I see the world in at least a semi-permanent fashion. They’ve turned me into that guy that won’t shut up to his friends about the idea he just read. And they were all written using word-processing software.”

The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro. “This is the story of an activist empowered and then corrupted by his pursuit of power. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who claims to be a New Yorker.”

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. “This is one of those books you read knowing it will upset you, and yet you read it anyway. Simply put: the drug war is the U.S.’s latest version of a racial caste system that uses the label ‘felon’ to enable discrimination we would otherwise find deplorable.”

Some of My Best Friends Are Black by Tanner Colby. “A white man named ‘Tanner’ wrote this book about the failure of  integration in the United States. Looking at education, housing, church and advertising, the author finds that we are as effectively segregated as ever, not by happenstance but by engineering.”

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. “One of the most imaginative works of fiction I’ve ever read. This book changed the way I see the world of my dreams and my waking hours.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. “An amazing portrait of a force of a man. It made Malcolm X feel like a human being with whom I could identify.”

Daemon by Daniel Suarez. “One of the most terrifying techno-thrillers due to the fact that it was written by a computer security expert, it shows how our future could play out in a most dramatic fashion. This book could also be called This Is Why We’re F***ed.” (Watch Daniel Suarez’ TEDGlobal Talk here »)

The Company: A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell. “It’s a ‘fictionalized’ account of the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. Yeah, right. Everything in this book is true!”

Dune by Frank Herbert. “Must. Have. Spice.”

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. “A sociologist all but moves into a Chicago housing project to live among, study and briefly manage a gang. Call it ‘the immersion method’ of graduate study.” (Note: Stephen Levitt’s TED Talk is based on the sociological data that Venkatesh gathered.)

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. “This book comes closest to a favorite song, in that I’m always excited to read it again and again.”

The Intuitionist: A Novel by Colson Whitehead. “There are two schools of elevator inspection in early-20th-century New York City: the empiricists, who use advanced instrumentation, and the intuitionists, who rely on gut feeling. The best intuitionist in the game is a black woman.”

Behind the Kitchen Door by Saru Jayaraman. “What good is your locally grown, grass-fed and serenaded beef if the people who prepare it are abused? This book makes the compelling case that our definition of sustainable food must also include restaurant workers. More than merely upsetting you with facts, this book lays out a path toward solutions.”

Horns: A Novel by Joe Hill. “I might categorize this as ‘playful horror.’ A man starts to grow devil-like horns, and people confess their worst sins to him. Hilarity ensues.”

Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortes. “Read this f***ing book.” 

Maria Popova’s book picks

Maria Popova is the editor of BrainPickings.org. Her curation philosophy: “Virginia Woolf wrote on the mesmerism of books. ‘I feel…as though the physical stuff of my brain were expanding, larger and larger, throbbing quicker and quicker with new blood — and there is no more delicious sensation than this.’ Gathered here are books to make both hemispheres throb.”

I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail by Ramsingh Urveti. “This die-cut masterpiece is based on a 17th-century British ‘trick’ poem and illustrated in the signature Indian folk art style of the Gond tribe by Ramsingh Urveti. It comes from the independent publisher Tara Books, who give voice to marginalized art and literature through remarkable handmade books.”

As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 by Susan Sontag. “An intimate glimpse of the inner life of a woman celebrated as one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable intellectuals. Oscillating between conviction and insecurity in the most beautifully imperfect and human way possible, Sontag details everything.”

Big Questions from Little People by Gemma Elwin Harris. “The questions children ask are often so simple that they turn unwittingly philosophical. Harris asked thousands of primary school children to send in their most restless questions, then invited some of today’s most prominent thinkers – including TEDsters Alain de Botton, Mary Roach, and Richard Dawkins – to answer.” 

Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson. “An exceptional intellectual, creative and spiritual biography of Cage — one of the most influential composers in modern history, whose impact reaches beyond the realm of music and into art, literature, cinema, and just about every other aesthetic and conceptual expression of curiosity about the world.”

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed. “A collection of no-bulls**t, wholehearted wisdom on life’s trickiest contexts published under The Rumpus columnist Dear Sugar’s long-awaited real name. Turn to page 352 for a sublime taste.”

A Technique for Producing Ideas: The Simple Five-step Formula Anyone Can Use to be More Creative in Business and in Life! by James Webb Young. “Originally published by an ad man in 1939, this forgotten gem lays out with striking lucidity and clarity the five essential steps for a productive creative process.”

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski. “Some of today’s most celebrated artists create scientific illustrations and charts to accompany short essays about the most fascinating unanswered questions on the minds of contemporary scientists. A testament to the idea that ignorance drives discovery.”

Henri’s Walk to Paris by Leonore Klein and Saul Bass. “A children’s book from the graphic designer responsible for some of the most timeless logos and film title sequences of the twentieth century.”

The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs by The New Yorker Magazine. “A remarkable collection of canine-themed gems — fiction, poetry, articles, humor, cartoons, cover art, manuscript drafts and more.”

Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired by Till Roenneberg. “The German chronobiologist demonstrates through a wealth of research that our sleep patterns have little to do with laziness and other such scorned character flaws, and everything to do with biology.”

Guy Raz’s book picks

Radio veteran Guy Raz has covered war, peace and everything in-between. Last year, he left Weekend All Things Considered to host TED Radio Hour. His curation philosophy: “I’m a generalist. I serve a vast, diverse audience of listeners with very different tastes — so when I feature a book, I look for a strong, compelling voice or narrative, no matter the topic.”

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. “This book has influenced my perspective as a reporter more than any other. Orwell went to Spain to write a triumphant narrative of the cause he supported, but what he saw fundamentally changed him.”

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens. “The power of Hitchens’ arguments strangles you because they are so tightly written and so convincing. His message is simple: don’t trust yourself and, once you’ve come to a conclusion, second-guess it.”

At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene by Nat Hentoff. “Reading this book is like getting a front-row seat to some of the greatest moments in jazz history.”

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. “A book that needs to be read because Diamond raises important questions about why some societies came to dominate others. I came away convinced that ingenuity had almost nothing to do with it.”

Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China by James Fallows. “Fallows has become one of the most prescient journalists in the English-speaking world. This book gathers his best essays from China during the mid-2000s and tells the story of that country’s rapid economic rise through stories of dreamers, schemers, charlatans and heroes.”

Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi. “A wonderful resource for small children and a great refresher for adults.” 

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. “This book, at its core, is about the science of memory.  But Foer manages to craft a thrilling narrative written with the kind of intimacy and familiarity found in the work of writers twice his age.”

The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future by Joseph Stiglitz. “A powerful argument for how and why the growing wealth gap is bad for everyone –including the wealthy.”

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freedland. “The left pines for the days of high-wage manufacturing jobs. The right still believes in the promise of trickle down economics. Freedland makes a forceful case for why neither side has been willing to figure out how to make capitalism work for the middle class.” (Freedland spoke at TEDGlobal)

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman. “I have hundreds of cookbooks. This one is essential. Ruhlman wants to free the home cook from the ‘shackles of the recipe.’”

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland. “A serious, scholarly history of the fall of the Roman Republic. Holland has a gift for bringing the ancient world alive and capturing all its drama, treachery and wonder that makes it resonate to twenty-first century ears.”

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. “A collection of stories about Nigeria, America and the immigrant experience told with a deftness.” (Note: Watch Adiche’s TED Talk, “The danger of a single story.”)

The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World by Joshua Prager. “A richly researched narrative that uncovers the truth behind one of the most enduring myths of Major League Baseball.”

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. “A biography of a period straddling the late 18^th and early 19th centuries when dreamers and explorers, stargazers and mad scientists stumbled upon some of the greatest discoveries known to man.”

Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard. “By one of the greatest living scholars of the ancient world, who is also a polymath and can write about airport architecture, dogwalkers or good bars.”

Chip Kidd’s book picks

Chip Kidd designs tantalizing book covers — and swears in his 2012 TED talk that it is, just sometimes, a laughing matter. His curatorial philosophy: “As you may or may not know, I’m very much into graphic novels, and last year saw some of the best that were ever produced in the medium. Plus some other visual and verbal treats.”

Buddha by Osama Tezuka. “This epic life of the Buddha in an eight-volume graphic novel is a must for all ages. Don’t let the Disney-esque style of the drawing fool you — this is as thought-provoking, profound and heartbreaking as it gets.”

Building Stories by Chris Ware. “The big graphic novel, literally, of the decade. Already hailed as a landmark in the art of graphic storytelling, it’s a true masterpiece of experimental story-telling.” (Also recommended by Safwat Saleem and Raney Aronson.)

The Hive by Charles Burns. “Part 2 of Burn’s eerily thrilling graphic novel epic that started with X’ed Out. It’s like the most fascinating nightmare you’ve ever seen.”

Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008 by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “It’s been said that the history of the African-American experience is the history of America itself. This stunning, ground-breaking illustrated book covers from 1513 up to 2008.”

Wonder by R.J. Palacio. “This is a kids’ book, but it’s really for everyone. A brilliantly nuanced performance, in the voice of a severely deformed but otherwise normal 10-year boy trying to integrate himself into ‘normal’ society. You are with him every heartbreaking step along the way.” 

100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne. “One of the best books on the history of graphic design that I’ve ever seen. Rather than break it down chronologically (as most do), Heller and Vienne take it one visual or conceptual idea at a time.”

Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig by Steven Heller & Elaine Lustig Cohen. “Alvin Lustig was the pre-eminent modernist book designer of the 20th century, and this long-overdue monograph of his work is an invaluable addition to any designer’s library.”

Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti. “A lovely, brilliantly simple introduction to the basic components of visual storytelling. Brunetti is a master of minimal gestures for maximum emotional effect. A must for any aspiring storyteller.”

Cindy Gallop’s book picks

At TED2009, MakeLoveNotPorn.com founder Cindy Gallop stepped up and gave a classic talk examining some of the ways that pornography has distorted the way young men parse sex. She says, “My TED Books curation philosophy: A) I loved this book.B) I wished I’d written it.”

Neuromancer by William Gibson. “I’ve read everything William Gibson has written several times over. Start with this — the novel that invented cyberspace. He’s my top must-follow on Twitter @greatdismal.” (Also recommended by Chris Kluwe, who says “Seriously, if you haven’t read this, you’re doing yourself a disservice.”)

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. “This is an exceptionally original, exceptionally well-constructed, exceptionally thought-provoking, powerful read.”

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. “A highly innovative reinvention of the literary form. Also, scared me s***less.”

Mysteries of Winterthurn by Joyce Carol Oates. “This was the first of Joyce Carol Oates’ books I ever read, and it totally hooked me on her.”

Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson. “The only business book you’ll ever need. (Until I write mine.)”

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. “A literary tour de force. I love the way it also functions as a wonderful American travelogue.”

Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling. “I love Rudyard Kipling – so much so that I had the opening stanza of ‘The Ballad of East and West’ screenprinted on the upholstery of a daybed. Great novelist, great short story writer, great poet.”

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel. “I recommend this book to everybody — male or female, straight or gay, single or married — as a brilliant examination of the workings of human desire.”

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. “When I finished this book, I wanted to write to John Irving, gush all over the paper and say ‘You are a god.’ (I didn’t. Wish I had.)”

Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti. “I’ve said for years that one day I wanted to write a book that would be obligatory reading for every woman and man considering having kids, that laid out the case against as much as for. Jessica Valenti’s written it.”

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. “Anybody who’s ever worked in an advertising agency — read this book. Also applies to anybody who’s ever worked in an office.”

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. “Extraordinary.”

Men, Women and Children by Chad Kultgen. “An up-to-the-minute and touching study of relationships in today’s world, that also demonstrates why MakeLoveNotPorn is so necessary.”

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. “Only three pages in, I desperately wished I’d written this.”

Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine. “I love all Barbara Vine’s psychological thrillers. (It’s Ruth Rendell writing under a pen name.) This is one of the best.”

Data, A Love Story by Amy Webb. “The only online dating guide you’ll ever need.”

Keith Yamashita’s book picks

TEDster Keith Yamashita, chair of SYPartners, uses his love of design and belief in creativity to tackle the world’s complex problems. His curation philosophy: “There is nothing better on a Friday night than going to the bookstore and buying a stack of books. My philosophy for this collection was to examine what makes us humbly human.”

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. “A Buddhist meditation on the toughest parts of life, Pema teaches us that these moments deserve our leaning into them, not shying away from them. A heady, sobering book that’s optimistic about human kind.”

The Art of Possibility by Rosemonde Stone Zander and Ben Zander. “Ben is a conductor, but really, an expert on what makes people tick, aspire and rise to the occasion to be truly great.”

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braugart and William McDonough. “This book changed the way I think about design, sustainability and responsibility.”

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. “While on the surface it’s about comics, it’s really about visual storytelling and visual thinking. Enlightening and entertaining.” (For a taste, watch Scott McCloud’s TED Talk.)

My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly La Force. “I love the peek inside the brains of so many people I admire, and the beautiful illustrations. It’s a true delight.”

Super Normal by Naoto Fukasawa and Jasper Morrison. “Naoto Fukasawa is Japan’s Jonathan Ive. This is a collection of everyday objects he has gathered. When you read it, you’ll never look at a plain object the same way again.”

Ways of Seeing by John Berger. “This book changed the way I look at the world. Literally. Figuratively. Meaningfully.” (Also recommended by Raghava KK.)

Press Here by Herve Tullet. “A funny commentary on the human brain and how it works. Such a simple book, it gets you to appreciate the childlike joy of exploration. Press here. Do that. Delight in life.”

Design, Form and Chaos by Paul Rand. “Paul was a mentor to so many of us. I worked with Paul at NeXT Computer—and he was our grand visionary of the NeXT brand. May he rest in peace.”

Design as Art by Bruno Munari. “An oldie, but still some of the most interesting writing on design, creativity and life. I constantly go back to it for inspiration.”

Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work by Robert Austin and Lee Devin. “A research-based framework for encouraging organizational creativity and innovation.”

An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin. “A history of human thoughts and feelings told through personal vignettes — after all, sometimes the best way to understand the future is to look at the creation of the past.”

Bill T. Jones’ book picks

Director and choreographer Bill T. Jones is a living legend and one of the greatest American performers of our time. He participated in TEDxBroadway last year. His curation philoshophy: “I spend as much time listening to music as I do reading. So my choices reflect reading for research, intellectual entertainment and informing myself on topics I’d like to know more about.”

Triste Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, et. al. “This memoir is almost a travelogue. Its gifted author oscillates between disciplined scientist grieving at the changes he observes in the tropics and poet/philosopher using his powers of evocation and metaphor to raise scientific observations to the level of art.”

Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins. “This passionate account of what lead up to WW1 was part of my research for my most recent work, A Rite, a response to the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.”

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. “Brian Greene is our era’s most prominent popularizer of physics. This book offered me a clear juxtaposition to the artistic and philosophical ferment of 1913, as represented by Rite of Spring.”

A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings by John Cage. “I created a new work, Story/Time, which pays homage to John Cage and his seminal performance Indeterminacy (1956). This book proved invaluable and entertaining as a provocation, amusement and guide in the research.”

Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings by Morton Feldman. “This is a collection of short essays and diaristic ruminations on the music scene of the 1950s and ’60s. It was an important source for my research lately.”

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President by Allen C. Guelzo. “This informed Fondly Do We Hope, Fervently Do We Pray, a commission from the Ravinia Festival to mark the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.”

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. “As a child of migrant workers myself, this concise, moving description of Jim Crow as the engine of the phenomena we call ‘the great migration’ has been a painful lesson and consolation.”

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. “A curious compendium of folk tales based on the legendary pilgrimage to India by Tang-era Buddhist monk Xuanzang. The mischievous Monkey, one of the novel’s magical creatures, remains an enduring ‘star’ in theater.”

Tale of the Water Margin by Shi Nai’an. “This 14th-century tale is ribald, harrowing, suspenseful and ultimately mystical. The archetypical depiction of righteous persons in rebellion against the control of oppressive regimes.” 

Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. “A magisterial and elusive rumination on the boundaries of memory and understanding, this novel’s explosive tragic underpinning is triggered by a fortuitous reconnection between two acquaintances in Antwerp’s train station.”

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. “A deceptively slight novel that brings us too close to the mind and empty inner life of a young product of our internet-dependent, self-obsessed, woozy culture.”

Obedience by Chris Vitiello. “A curiously moving, maddeningly self-conscious reach for meaning through a rigorous preoccupation with the conundrums of language and sign.”

The Once and Future King by T.H. White. “Entertaining, erudite, showy and deep, this adaptation of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is a great read. An adventure story that’s profound in its depiction of human intercourse.

Safwat Saleem’s book picks

Graphic designer, artist, filmmaker and TED Fellow Safwat Saleem pushes limits and challenges norms. His curation philosophy: “These are some of the more visual books I’ve enjoyed in the past couple of years. A mix of funny, beautiful, inappropriate, complex and mind-blowingly good, they are all quick reads.”

Significant Objects by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn. “The authors conducted an experiment to see if the value of material objects would change if they were coupled with a story that provided context about them. The results are fascinating.”

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan. “My all-time-favorite picture book. I came across it years ago and, for the very first time, realized how moving stories could be when told through pictures. The words are sparse but carefully chosen.”

Should You Be Laughing at This? by Hugleikur Dagsson. “I can’t think of a book that has a more apt title. Dagsson’s work is inappropriate (to put it mildly) but I laughed anyway.”

I Made These Drawings for You by Marc Johns. “One of my favorite illustrators. His watercolor drawings have the ability to turn the ordinary into surreal.”

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski. “Learning science while staring at jaw-dropping illustrations: the geek in me was very satisfied to have found this book.”

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. “Klassen has a very unique illustration style and this picture book is pure eye candy.”

A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg. “Written as a visual field guide, this reinvents the concept of reading a book. It can be read in any order, while still developing as a compelling narrative.”

All My Friends Are Dead by Avery Monsen & Jory John. “The book Camus would’ve made if he could draw. And if he had a sense of humor.”

Raney Aronson’s book picks

TED attendee Raney Aronson is better known as a filmmaker and the Deputy Executive Producer of Frontline, PBS’s iconic investigative program. Her curation philosophy: “Graphic novels and comic art speak to me as a documentary filmmaker, journalist and visual thinker. I love the texture of a book, combined with words, illustrations and photographs – it makes me feel as if I’ve opened a window into a surprising universe.”

Maus by Art Spiegelman. “A true classic. Filled with heart, angst and tragedy – this story spoke to me deeply as I attempted to grapple with the horrifying truths of the Holocaust as a younger person.”

The Photographer, Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédéric Lemercier. “Striking, brave and visually arresting, this graphic novel is like none I’ve seen. It brings the story of the war in Afghanistan home with a flood of images in both memoir and journalistic form.”

The Arrival by Shaun Tan. “Anyone who has stood staring with curiosity at the stark photographs of those who came to America through Ellis Island will be transported by this beautiful and elegant series of portraits. Their faces and gestures tell the story of joy, anticipation, tragedy, dreams and loss as they anticipate what is to come.”

Market Day by James Sturm. “Starkly and dramatically drawn, and set in Eastern Europe in the early 1900s, this graphic novel brings alive a story about a man’s trials with changing economic and social forces. A timeless tale still resonates deeply.”

The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone and illustrated by Josh Neufeld. “An irreverent telling, with heart and verve, of our nation’s media history — one worth noting as serious journalism suffers its biggest financial challenges in history.”

City of Glass by Paul Auster, Adaption by David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik. “I was fascinated to see how one of my all-time favorite novels was adapted by Mazzucchelli and Karasik. It is truly a new visual framework while staying authentic to Auster’s vision.”

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. “A diary kept since Bechdel was a 10-year-old girl is the centerpiece of this graphic memoir. This memoir is not chronological as most are, but is told thematically by a person who has come to terms with her life as a whole.”

It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken by Seth. “This graphic novel is angst ridden yet illuminating about what it means to come of age; to make sense of your childhood and move forward in a world of limitless possibilities. Simple yet powerful brushwork.”

Wilson by Daniel Clowes. “Wilson is a character you know you shouldn’t like, but you fall in love with anyway. He is self-deprecating and honest, delivering blunt thoughts with the dramatic flair that only Clowes can pull off.”

Raghava KK’s book picks

Raghava KK uses cartoonish language to examine the body, society and our world. His three talks, “My 5 Lives as an Artist,” “What’s your 200–year plan?” and “Shake up Your Story,” thoughtfully contemplate art, life, creativity and impact. His curation philosophy: “Instead of bringing you the hottest books on the shelf, I decided to share with you books that have shaken me up and impacted the way I live, think, and laugh. I have a slight bias towards the visual arts, history and India, but hey, I’m an Indian artist who loves history.”

Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. “I completely identified with the bratty kids in this story, and laughed and cried with this book. It’s a great example of an adult putting himself in the shoes of a child.”

India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha. “A look at India as the world’s most impossible democracy, where every truism has an equally valid opposite truism. This history of the making of post-independence India inspiringly tells the story of finding unity in utter diversity.”

The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury  and The Essential Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. “I understand why Bill Watterson is the preferred ‘god’ for most atheist and agnostics. Calvin and Hobbes is cheerful, endearing, and profound.”

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen. “A powerful argument about how complex identity is.”

The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions (101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions and 99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions) by Kenji Kawakami. “The title says it all! This is the most fun, innovative, crazy, quirky time-pass book of all time!”

Catching up with Gandhi by Graham Turner. “A good introductory book to the life of Gandhi.”

Sagmeister: Made You Look and Things I have learned in my life so far by Stefan Sagmeister. “I love the man, the work, and the book! A fellow TED-ster and a really cool guy.” (Watch any of Sagmeister’s four TED Talks.)

The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe. “A hilarious and quick read on the self-important world of art and art criticism. A book on art for all.”

Why Look at Animals by John Berger. “I’m a little biased by my love for Berger’s profound and simple writing.  His essays, although written several decades ago, seem as relevant as ever.”

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. “This changed the way I looked at our relationship with nature. It talks about how we have created a container culture.”

Carry On, Jeeves (A Jeeves and Bertie Novel) by P. G. Wodehouse.“Most young Americans that I’ve met have not been introduced to the witty, laugh-out loud sarcasm of P.G. Wodehouse. You will thank me.”

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t by Nate Silver. “A lot of my work involves separating signal from noise and I think it’s amazing how that can apply to every walk of life, from politics to aesthetics to neuroscience.”

Typography Sketchbooks and Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico. “I love sketchbooks.  There is a certain beauty to the raw, unrefined ideas.”

Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson. “A beautiful book. I look at it and dare not attempt to recreate!”

Wall and Piece by Banksy. “Do I really need to say anything about Bansky?”

Symbol by Steven Bateman. “A book of over a thousand symbols, organized into categories. It’s almost like defining a new visual vocabulary of the corporate world.”

Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture by Casey Reas. “The author of this book was a co-inventor of Processing, the open-source procedural drawing program where code has form and beauty. It allows artists to create pretty complex visual forms.”

Constructing the Enemy: Empathy/Antipathy in U.S. Literature and Law by Rajini Srikanth. “A difficult read, but extremely powerful in bringing out the complexity of empathy.”

Tiffany Dulu’s book picks

As President of The White House Project, TED attendee Tiffany Dufu is igniting the leadership of women in business and politics. Her curation philosophy: “I was a bookworm, an English major, and almost an English professor until a mentor explained to me there was life outside of academia. I love books and these are just a few of the ones I’ve bought several times, given away, then bought again.”

Practical Genius: A 5-Step Plan to Turn Your Talent and Passion into Success by Gina Rudan. “After training 15,000 women to advance their leadership, we’ve learned that those who are the most successful have several assets including being effective storytellers. Gina’s strategy is the best I’ve seen.”

Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Manager’s Guide to Getting Results by Alison Green and Jerry Hauser. “The holy grail of The Management Center, who I’ve been a student of for years. Don’t let the title fool you. It works for anyone in any sector.”

Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in America by Donna Brazile. “Brazile’s story demonstrates how those who have led from the foot of the table are often those best equipped to sit at the head of it.”

Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives by Anna Fels. “It includes my favorite definition of ambition: the desire to achieve mastery and to be rewarded for it. Fels brilliantly articulates the complexity of ambition for half the population and addresses an important internal barrier to women’s advancement.”

Rewired: How to Work Smarter, Live Better, and Be Purposefully Productive in an Overwired World by Camille Preston. “Any leader needing to sort through the noise and maintain their effectiveness in this highly wired world could benefit from this one.”

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon. “Talk about a comeback. A fabulous case study in someone who takes responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty.”

Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton. “2016 can’t come fast enough.”.

Chris Kluwe’s book picks

TED attendee Chris Kluwe became one of the NFL’s most outspoken marriage-equality advocates while on the Baltimore Ravens, when his colorful letter to a Maryland state delegate sparked a discussion about gay rights and professional sports. His curation philosophy: “These are all books that I can read over and over and have impacted my life through either the writing or the message conveyed.” (Get more recommendations from Kluwe in his book Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies.)

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. “An interesting read on the idea of total war and the sacrifices we ask of soldiers, as well as the concepts of how easily a child learns whatever they’re taught.”

Archform: Beauty by L. E. Modesitt Jr. “Modesitt combines excellent characterization with what we consider ‘beautiful,’ and how that can lead to starkly different outcomes in lives.”

Good Omens by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman. “Hilarious, irreverent, witty, and also a powerful statement on choosing to be who you want to be.”

Accelerando (Singularity) by Charles Stross. “A great look at both the near future of an augmented reality humanity, and the far future it could possibly lead to.”

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. “Culture novels are the world I would want to live in, and Player of Games shows what ‘gaming’ can actually reveal about us.”

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. “An excellent read on both the military and bureaucracy, as well as what happens when you outlive the world you grew up in.”

The Belgariad by David Eddings. “Enjoyable high fantasy. They don’t all have to be complex.”

On Basilisk Station by David Weber. “Enjoyable space opera. Lasers — pew pew!” God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. “A day without Vonnegut is like a day without cranky, wistful insight into humanity.”

On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony. “More fantasy, as well as a look at how to deal with a job one may not have wanted.”

Ringworld by Larry Niven. “Hard SF. Also, makes HALO fans angry. Win/win.”

The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F. Hamilton. “Honestly, anything by Peter F. Hamilton is packed full of concepts, ideas and brilliant extrapolating of humanity’s spread to the stars. Read all of them.”

Karen Wickre’s book picks

The editorial director of Twitter, Karen Wickre is an an avid reader and supporter of TED. Her curation philosophy: “These six titles reflect my passions — graphic non-fiction, home and Buddhism, loosely defined. I hope you discover something that speaks to you in any one of them.”

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit. “Such a terrific story: how Northern California became the nexus and nurturer of early technologies, outsized dreams and failures. Little has changed in 150 years.”

Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel. “The saga of Alison’s gnarly relationship with her complicated, mixed-signal-emitting mother. It’s rich in self-awareness, humor, and a hard-won understanding of how life works.”

Comfortable With Uncertainty by Pema Chodron. “I have my share of Buddhism for Westerners titles; the ones I return to are by Pema Chodron. The chapters are short readings that guide us through the various difficulties of being human in a modern world.”

Home: What It Means and Why It Matters by Mary Gordon. “A lovely exploration of what makes a space into home, and how acutely we feel longing for that ideal. As a nester of the first order, I love understanding the deeper impulses.”

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? by Brian Fies. “A whimsical (and dark) graphical exploration of our old ideas of what the future could mean, and our grownup understanding of its limitations.”

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. “This cabinet of wonders offers a secret bookstore, Google, magical characters and digital natives interacting and exploring the pull of old and new. Sloan is deft and affectionate.”

Colleen Keegan’s book picks

Co-chair of the endowment committee and Creative Capital Foundation Creator Colleen Keegan is an amazing patron of the TED, who regularly works with TED Fellows specializing in the arts. Her curation philosophy: “I am fascinated by books that illuminate the creative process or that utilize art to explore the human condition. I think that books worth recommending are complex but accessible, inspirational and aspirational.”

Julia Reyes Taubman: Detroit, 138 Square Miles by Julia Reyes Taubman and Elmore Leonard. “An astonishing photographic exploration of Detroit, combined with Elmore Leonard’s essay, it’s an examination of the postindustrial city.”

The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert. “This stunning graphic novel/photo-journal tells the story of the remarkable humanitarian response of Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan after the war with the Soviet Union.”

Paul Chan: Waiting for Godot in New Orleans by Kalamu Ya Salaam, Nato Thompson and Paul Chan. “An exploration of the terrible symmetry between Samuel Beckett’s Godot and post-Katrina New Orleans.”

Houston It’s Worth It by ttweak. “A poignant and humorous photographic portrait of the city drawn by artists’ and citizens’ submissions to an unofficial, unsolicited campaign for the city of Houston.”

Ride with Me NYC, a New York City Biking Guide by Roos Stallinga. “A biking guide and love letter to the city of New York.”

Selected Letters Of William Styron by William Styron, Rose Styron, R. Blakeslee Gilpin. “These remarkable letters span the period from 1943 to 2002 and insightfully and eloquently illuminate the art of writing, his extraordinary life and his long battle with depression.”

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Bers. “Chronicles the remarkable life and process of the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. It is a beautifully written story of literature, privilege, responsibility and creativity.” 

Physics On The Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, And Alternative Theories Of Everything by Margaret Wertheim. “Written by a TED Speaker this is a fascinating and respectful examination of the bizarre world of ‘outsider physicists.’”

Because . . . by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Vladimir Radunsky. “A beautifully executed whimsical book for children that encourages and celebrates non-conformity and artistry.”

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter. “The extraordinary story of a turning point in America’s long civil rights struggle.”

At the Elbows of My Elders: One Family’s Journey toward Civil Rights by Gail Milissa Grant. “The extraordinary and surprising personal story by TEDster, Gail Grant chronicles the journey of one black family from disadvantage to independence to influence.”

Why Are Artists Poor?: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts by Hans Abbing. “An unconventional multidisciplinary analysis.”

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk. “A wildly inventive novel about art and religion in The Ottoman Empire. One of the Nobel Prize winner’s best novels, it is a fascinating story of a murdered artist in sixteenth-century Istanbul.”

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. “A haunting and poetic exploration of the longing and weakness of the human heart, rooted in an understanding of the frailty of human nature.

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