Death: An Unwanted Guest*
Shadows take on a moral musk in this unsubtle argument for either heaven or immortality. What kind of society could make a mind so hateful to its one big certainty? The end of one's days have never seemed so unpleasant, in spite of everyone's apparent adeptness at arriving at this terminal station.
How to Make Money and Influence People*
Business school in a book. This one takes Dale Carnegie and helps him into Peter Thiel's overpriced sneakers (these comfy kicks went all the way from zero to one) at a 48 Laws of Power convention. Eat your heart out, Leviathan, you're more necessary than ever, John Kenneth Galbraith be damned. Canadians won't get this one, so if you're an ambitious American, buy this while supply demands.
Educationed: How an American Institution Built a Bored, Silly Population*
Spoiler alert: sitting in a room with a bunch of kids your own age and scribbling in a notebook while an adult talks at you with a slide projector turns you into an uncurious drone easily riled up when people appear to spit on your norms. In this one, democracy dies at an uncomfortable desk, under fluorescent lights, well-prepared to scroll for cortisol in front of other desks.
Merit: The Holy Ghost in an Unholy Trinity*
The Father (government) and the Son (business) are supported by the third leg of this beautiful, damned table: the notion that being better begets goodness, and that this is the level, the fairness, the playing field proper. The Protestant Work Ethic is treated briefly while to each according to ability and luck and percent ownership is rubbed all over Marx's spiritless grave. This unabashed book is filled with zippy quotes from Fortune 500 CEOs past and present:
"The workforce is lazy and needs a strong hand. Let them try to have my life and verve for a day! Bah!"
"Unions are the cesspool of a broken, dog eat cat eat child society. Eat or be killed. Rise or be squashed. Where's my breakfast?"
"If only everyone went to Harvard. I need more Harvard men in my business. Why doesn't everyone just go to Harvard and work as hard as I did?"
*Not a real book.
Roman Ryan 