If you’ve ever found yourself desperately trying to save a group project from total collapse, this book is for you. If you’ve ever worked on something—at home or at the office—and wondered why it’s somehow three months late and hemorrhaging money, this book is for you. And if you’ve ever looked at the Sydney Opera House, thought “that’s a beautiful building” and are open to having that awe nuked and completely obliterated… yep, this book’s for you.

A few book club members groaned—loudly—when this one won the vote. But by the end, the same people were sheepishly admitting it was actually incredibly useful, both personally and professionally. All of us liked it, and several of us liked it way more than we expected. The biggest surprise? Just how directly applicable the lessons were to solving everyday problems in our own lives.

The book isn’t perfect. The climate change bits felt tossed in without enough follow-through, and the bigger mix of factors that make technologies scale or keep projects on track didn’t get as much love as we’d hoped. The writers were a little into themselves but it’s for good reason… you would have an ego too if you were the best in the world at something. But the core lessons were honestly pretty damn valuable. The text even made us appreciate people like Frank Gehry and Jeff Bezos in a whole new way. One member even declared it “mandatory reading for anyone doing anything that matters.”

Bottom line: it’s worth reading. This is a manual for how to not fuck up a big project. And if you don’t have time for the whole thing, just jump to the last chapter—you’ll get the point.

BUY THIS BOOK