A few recommendations for something to read, listen to, or play with to finish the summer in style.

Books!

I’m particularly excited for 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It Shattered a Nation, journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin’s narrative of the stock market crash, and why it has eerie echos of today, as well as Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by one of my favorite writers, David Epstein, the author of Range and The Sports Gene. I’m also looking forward to Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment, a science-based blueprint for cultivating a meaningful life by Dan Coyle, author of The Culture Code, and Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away, which explains how to succeed while also doing good by New York Times writer David Gelles.

Podcasts!

You may have already discovered it, but I absolutely love 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. (Host Rob Harvilla is amazing. I particularly recommend the episode about They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul”.) And if you haven’t yet listened to the latest season of Michael Lewis’s Against the Rules, explaining how legalized sports betting overtook America, you are in for an enormous treat. Finally, I keep hearing about The Redefector, a tale of KGB colonel Vitlay Yurchenko, who became a spy for the United States (or maybe a double agent? Who knows!)

Music!

I recently attended my first Elderbrook concert, and I am a fan for life. (The video for Something About You is amazing.) Or, if you’re feeling more soulful, let me recommend the Black Pumas, and in particular Colors. If you want something upbeat, Saint Motel is - as I might have put it in 2000 - da bomb. (Check out the horns on My Type.) And, lastly, if you’re craving 1970s-sounding Cambodian rock (who isn’t?), the delightfully named Drakkar by Drakkar will completely satisfy.

Gadgets!

I recently decided I needed a walking desk, and was shocked at how affordable walking treadmills and adjustable height desks have gotten. (It used to cost a thousand dollars to walk while typing.) If you travel - and all those charging wires drive you nuts - here’s a power bank with a retractable cord. I am always a sucker for a good label maker. Or a ridiculous (but possibly awesome?) robotic cocktail maker. And, finally, if you’ve been thinking of getting a drone, let me suggest you wait until January and then check out the Antigravity A1, which looks like something from the future.