Most business owners look at their bank balance and think they know what they can afford. They don't. That $50,000 sitting there? It's already spoken for—taxes, payroll, planned expenses. Profit First fixes this with a brilliantly simple five-account system that makes profitability structural, not aspirational. And it actually works with how humans behave.

Alex Karp says specialize early. Skip college. Go deep, not broad. But here's the irony: Karp himself took the most generalist path imaginable—liberal arts, law school, philosophy PhD, money management, then tech CEO. David Epstein's "Range" reveals why the advice successful polymaths give rarely matches the path they actually took. In complex, unpredictable environments (which describes most of modern work), generalists consistently outperform early specialists. The evidence is compelling, the implications are profound, and the permission it offers—to explore, to pivot, to be a late bloomer—might be exactly what you need to hear.

The Hike is aggressively weird. Not quirky weird or whimsical weird, but the kind of weird that makes you stop reading and ask "what is happening?" multiple times per chapter. It's The Odyssey for suburban dads, if Odysseus did psychedelics. Drew Magary's frenetic novel follows Ben, an ordinary guy who goes for a hike before a dinner meeting and gets trapped in a nightmare world where the only rule is "stay on the path, or you will die." It's unsettling, relentlessly strange, and somehow one of the most emotionally honest stories about love and persistence you'll ever read.

When I picked up "Unreasonable Hospitality" after Jacob Wayman's recommendation, I was deeply skeptical. Another book about being nice to customers? But Will Guidara's approach revealed something far more profound: how systematic excellence creates the foundation for genuine human connection. From healthcare leadership to fine dining, this book transformed how I think about creating exceptional experiences. It's not just about being friendly, and it's not just about being efficient—it's about building systems that enable both to flourish in remarkable ways.

As someone who spent over a decade in pastoral ministry, I've sat through more faith-based productivity talks than I care to count, each promising that if you could just 'keep the main thing the main thing,' somehow everything would fall into place. However, Jordan Raynor's 'Redeeming Your Time' surprised me.

As someone who grew up in eastern Kentucky in the 1990s, I approached Barbara Kingsolver's 'Demon Copperhead' with deep skepticism. Stories set in Appalachia often miss the mark—they either romanticize a past that I'm pretty sure never existed or dismiss and belittle the communities and people I grew up in. However, upon reading it, I found much of this book feels like home.