Content strategy, across languages and markets

Two picks for the dead of winter: The Peter Principle explains why incompetent bosses keep getting promoted, in classic satirical form. Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell gets a sly twist—part of the review was ChatGPT-generated, proving its own point about AI’s flat, generic prose.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg’s essay collection The Years of Talking Dangerously mixes wit and social commentary on language, Wikipedia, and branding. Charles Arthur’s Social Warming traces how social media platforms—built to connect—now amplify outrage, harassment, and conspiracy, offering a clear-eyed, non-ranting analysis of the damage.

Dan Lyons’ Disrupted recounts his fish-out-of-water year at a startup as a 51-year-old amid candy walls and teddy-bear-toting CEOs. Emma Byrne’s Swearing Is Good for You makes the science case that cursing builds team cohesion, manages stress, and deserves more research respect than it gets.

Here’s what we’ve been pondering throughout the month of October, in preparation for the big November reveal.

Chris Bailey’s The Productivity Project balances energy, time, and attention with no one-size-fits-all system, while David Amerland’s Google Semantic Search reframes SEO around topics and user intent rather than keyword density—two backlisted picks worth revisiting.

Two survival manuals, one AI-focused and one cult-focused: Marketing Artificial Intelligence by Roetzer and Kaput unpacks AI’s role in marketing and content creation, while Amanda Montell’s Cultish dissects how language manufactures belief systems—together redefining what counts as a “business book.”