● The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-first Century
By Ryan Avent
Summary via publisher (St. Martin’s Press)
None of us has ever lived through a genuine industrial revolution. Until now. Digital technology is transforming every corner of the economy, fundamentally altering the way things are done, who does them, and what they earn for their efforts. In The Wealth of Humans, Economist editor Ryan Avent brings up-to-the-minute research and reporting to bear on the major economic question of our time: can the modern world manage technological changes every bit as disruptive as those that shook the socioeconomic landscape of the 19th century?

● Making Money with Option Strategies: Powerful Hedging Ideas for the Serious Investor to Reduce Portfolio Risks
By Michael C. Thomsett
Summary via publisher (Career Press)
Making Money With Option Strategies is a practical, down-to-earth guide that introduces and fully explains an action plan to reduce risk in any stock portfolio. There are many options books available already, and they fall into two major categories: basic primers limited to explaining the terminology and market of options; and more advanced books discussing theory and pricing models of options. None of these books addresses the largest audience of all—those who know the basics but are not interested in theories and pricing models. They want clear, practical ways to apply these principles to make money and reduce their risks. Making Money With Option Strategies is designed for this market.

● The Debt Trap: How leverage impacts private-equity performance
By Sebastien Canderle
Summary via publisher (Harriman House)
Over the last 40 years, LBO fund managers have demonstrated that they are good at making money for themselves and their investors. But when one looks beneath the surface of the transactions they engineer, it is apparent that these deals can, at times, go spectacularly wrong. Through 14 business stories, all emanating from the noughties’ credit bubble and including headline-grabbing names like Caesars, Debenhams, EMI, Hertz, Seat Pagine Gialle and TXU, The Debt Trap shows how, via controversial practices like quick flips, repeat dividend recaps, heavy cost-cutting and asset-stripping, leveraged buyouts changed, for better or for worse, the way private companies are financed and managed today.

● The Fix: How Nations Survive and Thrive in a World in Decline
By Jonathan Tepperman
Review via Kirkus Reviews
Foreign Affairs managing editor Tepperman (co-editor: Iran and the Bomb: Solving the Persian Puzzle, 2012, etc.) offers a stirring account of the achievements of risk-taking political leaders. Based on more than 100 interviews and the author’s deep understanding of international affairs, this welcome book makes “a data-driven case for optimism at a moment of gathering darkness” by exploring how leaders in nations from Brazil and Canada to South Korea and Indonesia have successfully tackled major world problems, including inequality, immigration, corruption, civil war, Islamic extremism, and others.

● Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead
By Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman
Summary via publisher (MIT Press)
In the year 2014, Google fired a shot heard all the way to Detroit. Google’s newest driverless car had no steering wheel and no brakes. The message was clear: cars of the future will be born fully autonomous, with no human driver needed. In the coming decade, self-driving cars will hit the streets, rearranging established industries and reshaping cities, giving us new choices in where we live and how we work and play.