Summer, reading tips from Egea
Egea Editore's Top Picks
"Breathe – Tackling the Climate Emergency" by Sadiq Khan
Aegean - €19.90
Concern for the environment is now part of our lives, yet it is often accompanied by the feeling that nothing can be done to change things. Sadiq Khan's book shows us the opposite. Mayor of London since 2016, Khan recounts the process – which began with an asthma diagnosis – with which he transformed the city into a green metropolis. The book is an autobiographical journey in which politics gives way to emotional personal experiences, both alternating in a lively narrative riddled with irony.
"Rare Earth Elements: China and the Geopolitics of Strategic Minerals" by Sophia Kalantzakos
Bocconi University Publisher - €28.00
Lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium and terbium – they are not the names of unlikely Carolingian rulers but of some of the most contentious chemical elements on the planet, also known as rare earth elements. Vital resources for high-tech applications and sustainable development are at the center of a geopolitical confrontation between China and the West at the forefront, which increasingly appears on the media agenda. Sophia Kalantzakos' book helps us to get to know these elements better and orient ourselves in the future.
"Artificial Communication: How Algorithms Produce Social Intelligence" by Elena Esposito
Bocconi University Press - €22.00
Cornerstone of a more efficient world or a Pandora's box just waiting to be opened? ChatGPT has put artificial intelligence center stage, dividing public opinion between whether it can be apocalyptic or adapted. What if, however, the assumption of the debate is wrong? What if artificial intelligence was not that intelligent? Elena Esposito's book encourages us to consider the AI revolution from another perspective: that of communication.
"Decision-Making: Perspectives and Best Practices From The Leaders of Today to Those of Tomorrow" by Gianmario Verona
Aegean - €24.50
Financial crises, the war in Europe, a pandemic and a technological revolution that seems to accelerate day by day: there has been a lot going on at the international level and even the most authoritative think tanks are struggling to predict what will happen tomorrow. Is it still possible, then, to be able to make decisions? Gianmario Verona shares new leadership perspectives for present and future leaders, called to find their way around this complex world every day.
"Digital Euro – A Challenge To Be Met in The Interests of All" by Emilio Barucci
Egea, 2023 - €18.00
The year 2028 will be one to remember, but the road is already marked; the silhouette of the digital euro is looming on Europe's horizon. Which will be this new currency's characteristics? What are the effects for the functioning of the financial system? Finally, why does it play a crucial role in the race for European monetary sovereignty? Emilio Barucci's work is the first guide to electronic money, destined to change different aspects of our daily lives.
Egea Library's Top Picks
"Under a White Sky – The Nature of the Future" by Elizabeth Kolbert
Neri Pozza - €18.00
The story of the search for climate change remedies, which intertwines unusual science and exotic settings, with rigor yet without catastrophe. Elizabeth Kolbert tracks environmental issues for the New Yorker and won the Pulitzer Prize with "The Sixth Extinction", in which she argues the deadly man-made impact on the planet over the last 200 years. In this next book, Kolbert recounts the efforts of some brilliant minds to reverse the trend.
"Xi Jinping: The Most Powerful Man in the World" by Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges
Countries Editions - €18.00
Autocrat, bureaucrat, military man: this is the biography of a president who has recently begun his third consecutive term, a record that makes him the most significant president of superpower China since Mao Zedong. The book's authors are among the leading European experts on China, accompanying us through the past of this incredibly important, yet mysterious figure in history.
"A World Without Borders" by William Atkins
Adelphi – €28.00
Seven journeys to seven deserts in the most extreme regions of the world; this is the story of nature, people and events that have made history, from hippie gatherings to the geopolitical adventures of the Great Game. It is also an inner journey nourished by solitude and silence, away from an increasingly noisy world that is always within reach of a WiFi signal.
"American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Garzanti – €20.00
Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize, this work dives deep into the events narrated in the upcoming homonymous film by Christopher Nolan. In the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the Project Head of the Manhattan Project, the great turning point of the 20th century unfolds: a grandiose yet horrific endeavor, whose blaze marks a before and after in human history.
" If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future" by Jill Lepore
Rizzoli – €24.00
Predicting human behavior by harnessing the computational power of computers; this is not the name of a Big Data conference, but the objective of Simulmatics at the time of its foundation in 1959. If they had collected as much data on a group of people and fed it into a computer, every human mind could have been simulated, predicted and targeted. It is a lesson on hubris and the Cold War, covering a range of themes from science fiction to headline news.