William Cole

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind is a blueprint of laws to break us free from the shackles of ordinary life. It makes a case that everything we know about the world is mostly decided not by rational choice but instead by conditioning and habit. And thus most people live their lives based on limiting rules and outdated beliefs about pretty much everything - love, work, money, parenting, sex, health, and more - that they inherit and pass on from generation to generation.

Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to become a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout—and lives to tell in this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer.

In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam - a sect many white Americans deemed a hate cult - saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness but as a means of spreading the Nation's message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay's career.

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire.