About TED Books
Long enough to explore a powerful idea, but short enough to read in a single sitting, TED Books pick up where TED talks leave off. An 18-minute speech can plant a seed or spark the imagination; but many talks create a need to go deeper, to learn more, to tell a longer story. TED Books fills this need.
In September 2014, we published our first TED Book in print. Since then, we have been proud to release many exciting and innovative titles to the hardcover collection, with many more to come. The wide-ranging series covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love, and is perfect for anyone with an expansive love of learning.
TED Books authors
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He is the founder and director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, and a three-time New York Times bestselling author. His books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and Irrationally Yours.
TED Book: Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations
Zak Ebrahim was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 24, 1983, the son of an Egyptian industrial engineer and an American school teacher. When Ebrahim was seven, his father shot and killed the founder of the Jewish Defense League, Rabbi Meir Kahane. From behind bars his father, El-Sayyid Nosair, co-masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Ebrahim spent the rest of his childhood moving from city to city, hiding his identity from those who knew of his father. He now dedicates his life to speaking out against terrorism and spreading his message of peace and nonviolence.
TED Book: The Terrorist's Son
Dr. Hannah Fry is a mathematician at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. In her day job she uses mathematical models to study patterns in human behaviour, from riots and terrorism to trade and shopping.
Alongside her academic position, she is currently a UCL public engagement fellow, taking the joy of maths into theatres, pubs and schools. She also co-presents the BBC Worldwide YouTube channel and regularly appears on TV and radio in the UK.
Hannah lives in London with her husband Phil, who – luckily - came along at exactly 38 per cent. She has several leftover Python codes from her wedding planning, which can be distributed upon request.
TED Book: The Mathematics of Love
Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, chief executive, and author. She was born in Texas, raised in Holland, and educated at Cambridge University. She worked for the BBC producing television and radio programs and also developed interactive multimedia products with Peter Lynch, Tom Peters, Standard & Poors, and The Learning Company. She has served as Chief Executive Officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation, and iCAST Corporation. Her book, Willful Blindness, was named one of the best business books of the decade by the Financial Times, and her most recent book, A Bigger Prize won the Transmission Prize in 2015. She blogs for the Huffington Post and Inc.com.
TED Book: Beyond Measure
Pico Iyer, a British born essayist and novelist, has an entirely singular sensibility. His various books are linked by his interest in cultural crossroads and the values that transcend boundaries. He has established himself as major presence in culture life of Japan, where he is based, and in the United States, (where he lives during part of the year) Britain (where he was educated), and India where his family traces its roots. An Oxford graduate, he taught at Harvard and is one of few writers whose work, like his interests, transcend cultures.
TED Book: The Art of Stillness
Chip Kidd is a designer and writer living in New York City. His book cover designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked nonstop since 1986, have helped create a revolution in the art of American book packaging. He is the recipient of the National Design Award for Communication Design, as well as the Use of Photography in Design Award from the International Center of Photography. Kidd has published two novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners. A distinguished and prolific lecturer, Kidd has spoken at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, RISD, and a zillion other places.
TED Book: Judge This
Marc Kushner is a practicing architect who splits his time between designing buildings at HWKN, the architecture firm he co-founded, and amassing the world's architecture on the website he runs, Architizer.com. Both have the same mission: to reconnect the public with architecture.
Kushner's core belief is that architecture touches everyone - and everyone is a fan of architecture - even if they don't know it yet. New forms of media empower people to shape the built environment, and that means better buildings that make better cities that make a better world.
Rob Knight is a Professor of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering and Director of the Microbiome Initiative at the University of California, San Diego. He is co-founder of the American Gut Project and the Earth Microbiome Project.
TED Book: Follow Your Gut
Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is the author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, and The New York Times. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
TED Book: The Laws of Medicine
Carrie Nugent is an asteroid hunter who works with a small team to discover and study asteroids at Caltech/IPAC. Dr. Nugent earned her PhD in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA in 2013 and is a 2016 TED Fellow. Specializing in thermophysical modeling, Dr. Nugent uses observations from the spacebased infrared telescope NEOWISE to better understand asteroid surfaces. Asteroid 8801 Nugent was named in her honor.
In her free time, Dr. Nugent hosts and produces Spacepod. On this weekly podcast, she invites astronomers, planetary scientists, and engineers to sit, share a drink, and tell the world about their corner of the cosmos.
TED Book: Asteroid Hunters
Stephen Petranek’s forty-year career in the publishing world is marked by numerous prizes and awards for his writings on science, nature, technology, politics, economics, and more. He has been editor in chief of the world’s largest science magazine, Discover, editor of the Washington Post’s magazine, founding editor and editor in chief of This Old House magazine for Time Inc., senior editor for science at LIFE magazine, and group editor in chief of Weider History Group’s ten history magazines. His first TED Talk, "10 Ways the World Could End", has been watched more than one million times. He is now the editor of Breakthrough Technology Alert, for which he finds the investment opportunities that aim to create true value and move the human race forward.
TED Book: How We'll Live on Mars
David J. Rothkopf is CEO and editor of the FP Group, which publishes Foreign Policy magazine and the foreignpolicy.com website, presents FP Events worldwide, and produces research through FP Analytics. He is also the host of The Editor’s Roundtable podcast. David is a widely published author and has written numerous books, including most recently National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, as well as Power, Inc., Superclass, and Running the World, and has given a TED Talk on how fear drives American politics. He is a visiting professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
TED Book: The Great Questions of Tomorrow
Andrés Ruzo grew up in the United States, Nicaragua, and Peru. Besides giving him a bit of a national identity crisis, his background helped him see that the world’s problems are not confined by borders, but rather share a common root in energy and resources. This realization inspired him to become a geothermal scientist: obtaining degrees in Geology and Finance at Southern Methodist University, where he is currently finishing his PhD in Geophysics. He believes that environmental responsibility and economic prosperity can go hand in hand, and uses science to unite both aims. He is a National Geographic Explorer, an avid science communicator, and a passionate developer of educational content.
TED Book: The Boiling River
Barry Schwartz is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and the author of Why We Work, The Paradox of Choice, and Practical Wisdom. His articles have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Parade Magazine, USA TODAY, Advertising Age, Slate, Scientific American, The New Republic, Harvard Business Review, and The Guardian, and he has appeared on dozens of TV and radio shows, including Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, Anderson Cooper 360, the Lehrer News Hour, the Colbert Report, and CBS Sunday Morning.
TED Book: Why We Work
Kio Stark wrote the novel Follow Me Down and the independent learning handbook Don’t Go Back to School. She lives and talks to strangers in Brooklyn, NY. You can follow her conversations with strangers through her newsletter tinyletter.com/kio and on Twitter @kiostark.
TED Book: When Strangers Meet