The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System
James Rickards
Portfolio, $33.00

The international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years: in 1914, 1939, and 1971. Each collapse was followed by a period of tumult: war, civil unrest, or significant damage to the stability of the global economy. Now James Rickards, the acclaimed author of Currency Wars, shows why another collapse is rapidly approaching—and why this time nothing less than the institution of money itself is at risk.

It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz
Harvard Business Review Press, $31.00

Why surround yourself with the best? Because it matters—in all aspects of life. In fact, in professional environments, getting people right—what global leadership authority Claudio Fernández-Aráoz calls “the art of great ‘who’ decisions”—marks the difference between success and failure. To thrive, you need to identify those with the highest potential, get them in your corner and on your team, and help them grow. Yet surprisingly very few of us are able to meet that challenge. This series of short and engaging essays outlines the obstacles to great “who” decisions and offers solutions to address them in a systematic way.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Greg McKeown
Crown Publishing Group, $26.95

Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin? Do you simultaneously feel overworked and under-utilized? Are you often busy but not productive? Do you feel as if your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the Essentialist. The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting “only the right things” done. It’s not a time management strategy or a productivity technique. It’s a “systematic discipline” for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.

The Chief Financial Officer: What CFOs Do, the Influence They Have and Why it Matters
The Economist, Jason Karaian
Public Affairs, $29.00

The rapid rise in importance of the role of the chief financial officer—from back-office accountant to front-line executive—is unrivalled by that of any other corporate position. With access to every facet of the business, CFOs now wield a level of influence matched only by chief executives. This book explains how CFOs earned their privileged status and what the future may hold for them.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer
Harvard University Press, $47.50

Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.

Thomas Piketty is Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics.

Arthur Goldhammer received the French–American Translation Prize in 1990 for his translation of A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son and the Golden Age of Marijuana
Tony Dokoupil
Knopf Doubleday, $32.00

The Last Pirate is a vivid, haunting, and often hilarious memoir recounting the life of Big Tony, a family man who joined the biggest pot ring of the Reagan era and exploded his life in the process. Three decades later, his son came back to put together the pieces.

As he relates his father’s rise from hippie dealer to multi-ton smuggler extraordinaire, Tony Dokoupil tells the larger history of marijuana and untangles the controversies still stirring furious debate today.

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The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
Neil Irwin
Penguin Books, $20.00

The inside story of the world’s most powerful central bankers—and the most intense exercise in economic crisis management the world has ever seen. Suddenly, without warning, in August 2007, three men who had never been elected to public office found themselves the most powerful people in the world. They were the leaders of the world’s three most important central banks: Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank. In The Alchemists, Washington Post reporter Neil Irwin presents the truly global story that we have been missing—the central bankers’ role in the world economy. Definitive, revelatory, and riveting, it shows us where money comes from— and where it may well be going.

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
Adam M. Grant
Penguin Books, $18.00

For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. In Give and Take, Adam Grant, an award-winning researcher and Wharton’s highest-rated professor, examines the surprising forces that shape why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom.