Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire by Brad Stone
Amazon started out as a bookseller that gradually expanded to other areas as it rode the dot com wave. After the bust Amazon's public visibility waned. Revenues went up, but profits were small if they existed at all. In the last decade it has had a coming out party. Amazon created AWS and launched cloud computing. Prime Video took a page from Netflix and jumped into Hollywood and produced its own shows. The online marketplace took off, while Amazon also launched "store brands". Amazon took on much of its own logistics and provided one day and same day delivery. It manufactured devices such as Echos and Kindles. Amazon also went into the physical stores business with the purchase of Whole Foods and the launch of various other stores like Amazon Fresh.
As Amazon rose up, Jeff Bezos increased his profile. He smoozed with Hollywood. He had a messy divorce and became tabloid fodder. He was also asked to appear before congress. And now Amazon was under heavy scrutiny. It was hurting small sellers, possibly illegally. It was allowing counterfeits. Warehouse workers were not being treated well. Even the corporate culture was called into question. The reliance on "data" did not eliminate subjectivity. The company was having a negative impact on Seattle. In the process of all this, government relations became more important. Amazon had to pick its battles. It opted to support collection of sales tax. (This made it easier to support last-mile delivery - and helped even the playing field with others.) It fought unionization and head taxes in Seattle. Bezos turned the company over to a new CEO, but still has a presence. Amazon feels like a "big company" rather than an innovator.
The Russian Revolution was full of contradictions. There were also many "lucky events" that occurred to lead things one way or the other. The author sees the experience as an overall negative for the people. The revolution broke out during World War II. St Petersburg was a cosmopolitan city at the time. However, there was a sharp divide between rich and poor. People were also unhappy with the Czar and the influence of the healer Rasputin. He had a bad reputation and people really wanted him out of there. They finally plotted to kill him. Then they decided the czar must go also. This lead to the February revolution. There was plenty of happenstance and a great deal of incompetence the provisional government. They let the communists infiltrate and thus enabled the communist revolution. The communists came into power and realized they needed money. However, the bank workers went on strike. They thus had to break the strike to try to secure money. They also needed food. So they demanded it from the peasants, killing them if they didn't provide sufficiently. It all makes from a great start for a "peasant workers party". The communists were also against the death penalty and exile - until they needed both to enforce their way. They were strongly anti-war, but then needed further war to cement their power. They advocated nations' right of self-determination. However, that didn't apply when the nations like Ukraine didn't want to be part of the communist confederation. Later, the communists realized there was a great source of wealth in the churches. They thus strongly advocated official state atheism and taking of all the stored wealth from the churches. (Of course this didn't go to the people, but to the central communist organization.) Even communism was sometimes de-emphasized in favor of capitalism when needed. The communists also got some lucky breaks when western bowers decided to stop supporting the opposing groups and gave recognition to the Bolsheviks. (Only to later regret the move.) 
There is actually a "punning" contest where contestants battle each other to make the most (and best) puns in a given topic. Some puns may be reaching, but the ability to continue the wordplay must take a lot of work. Puns have an interesting history. Even the definition of "pun" is clouded uncertainty, with many possible origins, but none fully convincing. Puns today are often degraded as lower forms of humor. However, they were not always thought of as funny. Creating and understanding puns requires a significant understand of the nuances of language. Some puns rely on homophones, while others rely on similar sounds or different meanings of different words. Understanding of the subject matter may be required for an understanding.
Tomatoland is a scathing critique of Florida's industrial tomato agriculture and the many negative impacts. A great deal of time is spent discussing the plight of the farm workers, who are exposed to toxic chemicals and even enslaved. (Often it is "bad immigrants" that have connections to the new workers hometowns that do the enslaving. These guys can threaten both the workers and their families back home.) Activists had worked hard to get workers a penny more per pound from major suppliers. However, most of this remained in escrow with the farmers (who complained they could not easily identify who would receive them.)