WHAT WE’RE READING
2026
Gardiner Harris EPISODE COMING SOON
No More Tears takes us light years away from the image of the child-friendly “baby company” as Harris uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigate journalism.
Victor Montori EPISODE COMING SOON
From an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, Why We Revolt describes what is wrong with industrial healthcare, how it has corrupted its mission, and how it has stopped caring. The organization he founded, The Patient Revolution, proposes a revolution of compassion and solidarity, of unhurried conversations, and of careful and kind care.
Tom Mueller EPISODE COMING SOON
Crisis of Conscience traces the rise of whistleblowing through cases drawn from Big Pharma, the military, finance, and government. Mueller anatomizes what inspires some to speak out while the rest of us avert our eyes. Whistleblowers, we come to see, are the freethinking citizens on whom our republic was conceived. And they are the models we must emulate if our democracy is to survive.
Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe EPISODE COMING SOON
McKinsey has advised tobacco and vaping companies, purveyors of opioids, repressive governments, and oil companies on ways to boost revenue, at the expense of workers and safety measures. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a landmark work of investigative reporting that amounts to a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt, and more dangerous.
2025
Tom Mueller LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
A gripping microcosm of American health care gone wrong, How to Make a Killing recounts how the optimism of the 1950s and 1960s—when transplants and early dialysis machines offered hope—gave way to anguished debates about the ethics of rationing (and profiting from) life-saving care. After Congress made renal disease the only “Medicare for All” condition, Big Dialysis proliferated, and the Hippocratic oath gave way to the profit motive.
Chris Deacon LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
The Great American Healthcare Heist is a searing exposé from an industry insider who pulls back the curtain on the real forces driving America's healthcare crisis. With gripping stories and unflinching analysis, Christin Deacon traces the billions siphoned by insurance companies, hospital systems, and middlemen-while patients pay the price.
Sam Quiñones LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
After nearly a decade on the front lines of America's battle with drug addiction, Sam Quinones delivers another story of our nation, this time brought together by the transformative power of shared joy and humble achievement. The Perfect Tuba tells the astounding stories of the tuba scenes of New Orleans, Orlando, Knoxville, New York City, and in the Rio Grande Valley where a marching band director regularly wins state championships.
Adam Galinsky LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Inspire reveals the science of being inspiring, illustrating how all of us—regardless of status or background—can motivate and elevate others. Social psychologist Adam Galinsky explores the qualities that make leaders, and all of us, inspiring rather than infuriating, presenting research-based insights and actionable advice.
Megan Greenwell LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
In the tradition of deeply human reportage like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar private equity firms, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself. Timely and masterfully told, Bad Company is a forceful rebuke of America’s most consequential, yet least understood economic forces.
Allison Pugh LISTEN TO PART 1 PART 2
Artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories are making the future of work more uncertain, and even jobs requiring high levels of human interaction are no longer safe. The Last Human Job argues that human connection is valuable and worth preserving. It makes a compelling argument for us to recognize, value, and protect humane work in an increasingly automated and disconnected world.
Tim Heaphy LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
What happens when people are betrayed by the system they took an oath to protect? In Harbingers, Tim Heaphy, lead investigator for the January 6 Committee, as well as the independent investigation into the 2017 riot in Charlottesville, VA, shares what he saw and came to understand about what those events reveal about preparing for (and protecting yourself from) moral injury within government systems, and what healthcare practitioners can learn from them.
2024
Andrew Leigh LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
From the dawn of agriculture to AI, How Economics Explains the World tells story of how ingenuity, greed, and desire for betterment have, to an astonishing degree, determined our past, present, and future.
This small book indeed tells a big story. It is the story of capitalism – of how our market system developed. It is the story of the discipline of economics, and some of the key figures who formed it. And it is the story of how economic forces have shaped world history.
Brendan Ballou LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Private equity surrounds us. Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work. Plunder explains how companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them. Perhaps most startling is Ballou’s insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government. But, Ballou has an agenda for reining in the industry and stopping private equity from wreaking further havoc.
Wendell Potter LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
A former VP of corporate communications at Cigna, Potter walked away from a six-figure salary and a decades-long career because he could no longer abide an industry where the needs of the sick and suffering take a backseat to the bottom line. Deadly Spin shows how relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake-from climate change to defense policy. Potter’s book tells us why - and how - we must fight back.
Brian Alexander LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before. Americans are dying sooner, and living in poorer health. Alexander argues that no plan will solve America’s health crisis until the deeper causes of that crisis are addressed.
Frequently Referenced
Wendy Dean, MD & Simon Talbot, MD
There’s a growing sense, referred to as moral injury, that doctors have their hands tied – they know what patients need but can’t get it for them because of constraints imposed by healthcare systems run like big businesses. If I Betray These Words confronts the threat and broken promises of moral injury – what it is; where it comes from; how it manifests; and who’s fighting back against it. We need better healthcare—for patients and for the workforce. It’s time to act.
Sunita Sah
How many times have you wanted to object, disagree, or opt out of something but ended up swallowing your words, shaking your head, and just going along? Featuring groundbreaking research, gripping stories, and easy everyday strategies, Defy reveals how to show up for yourself and others personally, professionally, and beyond.
Jerry Mueller
Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, The Tyranny of Metrics is a brief and accessible book that explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging “gaming the stats” or “teaching to the test.”