I avoid reading nonmath recent books. But if I do, best heuristic: avoid books on the NYT list of "Notable Books" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is far easier to figure out if something is fragile than to predict the occurrence of an event that may harm it.

Many amateurs believe that plants and animals reproduce on a one-way route toward perfection. Translating the idea in social terms, they believe that companies and organizations are, thanks to competition (and the discipline of the quarterly report), irreversibly heading toward betterment. The strongest will survive; the weakest will become extinct. As to investors and traders, they believe that by letting them compete, the best will prosper and the worst will go learn a new craft (like pumping gas or, sometimes, dentistry). Things are not as simple as that. We will ignore the basic misuse of Darwinian ideas in the fact that organizations do not reproduce like living members of nature — Darwinian ideas are about reproductive fitness, not about survival.

The opposite of success isn't failure; it is name dropping.