Spending my childhood and early teenage years in Singapore, I took for granted how smoothly everything worked — the infrastructure, the reliability, the sense that the city was designed to function. This book explained where it all came from.

What struck me most was the thinking behind it: making decisions based on what works rather than what sounds right, and being unsentimental about changing course when something doesn’t. That mindset applies far beyond running a country. The Charlie Rose interviews are worth watching alongside it.