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Beginners: The joy and transformative power of lifelong learning
By Tom Vanderbilt. 2021
The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now gives us a thought-provoking, playful journey into the transformative…
joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to be bad at something? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of beginning from the ground up? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, and stymied by his own rut of mid-career competence, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five main skills (and picks up a few more up along the way) choosing them for their difficulty to master and their distinct lack of career marketability—chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. What he doesn't expect is that the circuitous paths he takes while learning these skills will prove even more satisfying than any knowledge he gains. He soon finds himself having rapturous experiences singing the Spice Girls in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to eight-year olds, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica. Along the way, he interviews dozens of experts to explore the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner. Weaving comprehensive research and surprising insight gained from his year of learning dangerously, Vanderbilt shows how anyone can get better at beginning again — and, more importantly, why they should take those first awkward steps. Ultimately he shares how his refreshed sense of curiosity opened him up to a profound happiness and a deeper connection to the people around him. It's about how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magicalA woman like her: The story behind the honor killing of a social media star
By Sanam Maher. 2020
The murder of a Pakistani social media star exposes a culture divided between accelerating modernity and imposed traditional values—and the…
tragedy of those caught in the middle. In 2016, Pakistan's first social media celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, was murdered in a suspected honor killing. Her death quickly became a media sensation. It was both devastatingly routine and breathtakingly brutal, and in a new media landscape, it couldn't be ignored. Qandeel had courted attention and outrage with a talent for self-promotion that earned her comparisons to Kim Kardashian—and made her the constant victim of harassment and death threats. Social media and reality television exist uneasily alongside honor killings and forced marriages in a rapidly, if unevenly, modernizing Pakistan, and Qandeel Baloch's story became emblematic of the cultural divide. In this deftly reported and artfully told account, Sanam Maher reconstructs the story of Qandeel's life and explores the depth and range of her legacy from her impoverished hometown rankled by her infamy, to the aspiring fashion models who follow her footsteps, to the Internet activists resisting the same vicious online misogyny she faced. Maher depicts a society at a crossroads, where women serve as an easy scapegoat for its anxieties and dislocations, and teases apart the intrigue and myth-making of the Qandeel Baloch story to restore the humanity of the woman at its centerDo nothing: How to break away from overworking, overdoing, and underliving
By Celeste Headlee. 2020
&“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.&”—Arianna Huffington &“This book is so important and could truly save…
lives.&”—Elizabeth Gilbert &“A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.&”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can&’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we&’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won&’t find what we&’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It&’s time to reverse the trend that&’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thriveDesert notebooks: A road map for the end of time
By Ben Ehrenreich. 2020
As inhabitants of the Anthropocene, what might some of our own histories tell us about how to confront apocalypse? And…
how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act toward time—the pasts we have erased and paved over, this anxious present, the future we have no choice but to build? National Magazine Award winner Ben Ehrenreich examines how the unprecedented pace of the destruction of our environment and an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape have led us to the brink of a calamity greater than any humankind has confronted before. But in the canyons and oases of the Mojave and in Las Vegas's neon apocalypse, Ehrenreich finds beauty, and even hope, surging up in the most unlikely places, from the most barren rocks and the apparent emptiness of the sky. He draws on that stark grandeur to ask how we might reckon with the uncertainty that surrounds us and fight off the crises that have already begun. Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present—perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush—that's unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profoundMongolian Chronicles: A Story of Eagles, Demons, and Empires
By Allen Smutylo. 2019
Longlisted, RBC Taylor PrizeIn the shadows of the Altai Mountains live the Kazakh nomads of western Mongolia. These hard-living nomads…
survive on windswept steppes, grazing their herds and keeping an ancient practice alive: hunting not with traps or guns, but on horseback with golden eagles.The Mongolian Chronicles recounts a story of this untamed world, seen through the eyes of artist, writer, and traveller Allen Smutylo. Smutylo lived with seven eagle hunters and their families for several weeks over two years, affording him rare insight into a disappearing culture. His extraordinary narrative is set within the context of Mongolia's turbulent past — the long shadow cast by the empire of Genghis Khan, the deprivations of early twentieth century warlords-cum-mystics — and its protean present, where ancient customs and shamanistic beliefs exist among an increasingly urbanized people.Smutylo's vivid prose and powerful artwork portray a Mongolia of contradictions and extremes. Readers will encounter a country with a vast wilderness that nonetheless has one of the most polluted capitals on earth; a modern economy in which tent-dwelling nomads still rely on their animals for survival; a people unchanged for millennia, yet recognizing that their way of life may disappear with their generation.Successful aging: A neuroscientist explores the power and potential of our lives
By Daniel J Levitin. 2020
INSTANT TOP 10 BESTSELLER *New York Times *USAToday *Indie List *Publisher's Weekly "Debunks the idea that aging inevitably brings infirmity…
and unhappiness and instead offers a trove of practical, evidence-based guidance for living longer and better." —Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive SUCCESSFUL AGING delivers powerful insights: Debunking the myth that memory always declines with age Confirming that "health span"—not "life span"—is what matters Proving that sixty-plus years is a unique and newly recognized developmental stage Recommending that people look forward to joy, as reminiscing doesn't promote health Levitin looks at the science behind what we all can learn from those who age joyously, as well as how to adapt our culture to take full advantage of older people's wisdom and experience. Throughout his exploration of what aging really means, using research from developmental neuroscience and the psychology of individual differences, Levitin reveals resilience strategies and practical, cognitive enhancing tricks everyone should do as they age. Successful Aging inspires a powerful new approach to how readers think about our final decades, and it will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens within a society where the average life expectancy continues to riseA timely and impassioned exploration of how our society has commodified feminism and continues to systemically shut out women of…
color—perfect for fans of White Fragility and Good and Mad . Join the important conversation about race, empowerment, and inclusion in the United States with this powerful new feminist classic and rousing call for change. Koa Beck, writer and former editor-in-chief of Jezebel , boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragettes to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. She also examines overlooked communities—including Native American, Muslim, transgender, and more—and their difficult and ongoing struggles for social change. In these pages she meticulously documents how elitism and racial prejudice has driven the narrative of feminist discourse. She blends pop culture, primary historical research, and first-hand storytelling to show us how we have shut women out of the movement, and what we can do to course correct for a new generation—perfect for women of color looking for a more inclusive way to fight for women's rights. Combining a scholar's understanding with hard data and razor-sharp cultural commentary, White Feminism is a witty, whip-smart, and profoundly eye-opening book that challenges long-accepted conventions and completely upends the way we understand the struggle for women's equalityGuns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
By Jared Diamond. 2011
In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that…
geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religionas well as nasty germs and potent weapons of warand adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal.Witches: the transformative power of women working together
By Sam George-Allen. 2020
Covens. Girl Bands. Ballet troupes. Convents. In all times and places, girls and women have come together in communities of…
vocation, of necessity, of support. In Witches, Sam George-Allen explores how magic happens wherever women gather. Female farmers change the way we grow our food. Online beauty communities democratize skin-care rituals. And more than any other demographic, it's teen girls that shape our culture. Patriarchal societies have long been content to champion boys' clubs while viewing groups that exclude men as sites of rivalry and suspicion. This deeply personal investigation takes us from our workplaces to our social circles, surveying our heroes, our outcasts, and ourselves in order to dismantle the persistent and pernicious cultural myth of female isolation and competition...once and for allSurrender: The Call of the American West
By Joanna Pocock. 2019
An evocative blend of narrative nonfiction, personal memoir, nature writing, and reportage in the style of Barry Lopez and Annie…
Dillard, Surrender explores the changing landscape of the American West and the outsider eco-cultures that have taken root in an era of increasing climatic disruption.The mid-life crisis handed to Joanna Pocock came in a box marked with one simple word: Montana. With their seven-year-old daughter in tow, Joanna and her husband packed up their house, filled one suitcase each, and left the rhythms of life in England behind for their great adventure in the American West.Blending personal memoir with insightful reportage and vivid nature writing, award-winning writer Joanna Pocock investigates the changing landscape of the West and the radical environmental movements that have taken root in the Mountain States. She witnesses the annual tribal bison hunt near Yellowstone Park, where she meets a scavenger community honing ancestral skills. She joins Finisia Medrano, a transgender rewilder who for many years has been living on the “hoop,” following her food source by seasonal migration. She attends the Ecosex Convergence — an annual gathering of people who place their relationship with the earth above everything else — and attends a workshop led by Reverend Teri Ciacchi, a sexologist, priestess of Aphrodite, and holistic spiritual healer in the Living Love Revolution Church.In the style of Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, and Eula Biss, Surrender explores the outsider cultures oblossoming in the new American West in an era of increasing climatic disruption, rising sea levels, animal extinctions, melting glaciers, and catastrophic wildfires.This Too Shall Pass: Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings
By Julia Samuel. 2021
A leading therapist shares memorable patient stories to explore the key crises in life and what we can learn from…
them.If change is the natural order of things, why do so many people struggle with the milestones of life--from first jobs and first loves to children leaving home and retirement?We live in a culture of limitless choice--and life is now more complex than ever. In This Too Shall Pass, acclaimed psychotherapist Julia Samuel draws on hours of conversations with her patients to show how we can learn to adapt and thrive during our most difficult and transformative experiences. Illuminated by the latest social and psychological research, this book unflinchingly deals with the hard times in family, love, work, health and identity.From a woman deciding whether to leave her husband for a younger lover, to a father handling a serious medical diagnosis. And from a new mother struggling with the decision to return to work, to a young man dealing with the aftermath of coming out, and a woman starting over after losing her job.These twenty powerful, unforgettable and deeply intimate stories about everyday people will inform our understanding of our own unique response to change and enlighten the way we approach challenges at every stage of life.How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human
By Melanie Challenger. 2021
What makes us human, and why are we so sure we're different from other animals?Humans are the most inquisitive, emotional,…
imaginative, aggressive, and baffling animals on the planet. But how well do we really know ourselves? How to Be Animal rewrites the remarkable human story and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal.Most of our effects on the planet are the consequences of technological improvements and advances in our understanding of natural mechanisms. But why did this cognitive and technological edge come about in the first place and what kind of being has it made us? In How to Be Animal, Challenger brilliantly argues that this dizzying trajectory is the result of a singular characteristic of our species: the struggle with being an animal. Using a combination of memoir, historical texts, interweaving interviews and cultural and environmental history, How to Be Animal is lively and thought-provoking, bursting with ideas. This is a book for anyone who has ever contemplated what humans are and what makes our species so simultaneously brilliant and awful. Even more so, it is a book that asks tantalizing philosophical questions, such as whether and how human life matters. How to Be Animal is a tough-minded but ultimately sympathetic portrait of humanity. It exposes human beings as extraordinary animals defined by a profound struggle. In the third millennium, the way humans respond to being an animal among animals is the greatest and most inspiring challenge we face.A little devil in america: Notes in praise of black performance
By Hanif Abdurraqib. 2021
A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead in the…
Rain &“Whether heralding unsung entertainers or reexamining legends, Hanif Abdurraqib weaves together gorgeous essays that reveal the resilience, heartbreak, and joy within Black performance. I read this book breathlessly.&”—Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. &“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,&” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it&’s the twenty-seven seconds in &“Gimme Shelter&” in which Merry Clayton wails the words &“rape, murder,&” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib&’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance. Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, OhioWhite fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism
By Robin DiAngelo. 2018
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged,…
and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this &“vital, necessary, and beautiful book&” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and &“allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to &‘bad people&’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructivelyHunt, gather, parent: What ancient cultures can teach us about the lost art of raising happy, helpful little humans
By Michaeleen Doucleff. 2021
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The oldest cultures in the world have mastered the art of raising happy, well-adjusted children. What…
can we learn from them? " Hunt, Gather, Parent is full of smart ideas that I immediately wanted to force on my own kids." —Pamela Druckerman, The New York Times Book Review When Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff becomes a mother, she examines the studies behind modern parenting guidance and finds the evidence frustratingly limited and the conclusions often ineffective. Curious to learn about more effective parenting approaches, she visits a Maya village in the Yucatán Peninsula. There she encounters moms and dads who parent in a totally different way than we do—and raise extraordinarily kind, generous, and helpful children without yelling, nagging, or issuing timeouts. What else, Doucleff wonders, are Western parents missing out on? In Hunt, Gather, Parent , Doucleff sets out with her three-year-old daughter in tow to learn and practice parenting strategies from families in three of the world's most venerable communities: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. She sees that these cultures don't have the same problems with children that Western parents do. Most strikingly, parents build a relationship with young children that is vastly different from the one many Western parents develop—it's built on cooperation instead of control, trust instead of fear, and personalized needs instead of standardized development milestones. Maya parents are masters at raising cooperative children. Without resorting to bribes, threats, or chore charts, Maya parents rear loyal helpers by including kids in household tasks from the time they can walk. Inuit parents have developed a remarkably effective approach for teaching children emotional intelligence. When kids cry, hit, or act out, Inuit parents respond with a calm, gentle demeanor that teaches children how to settle themselves down and think before acting. Hadzabe parents are world experts on raising confident, self-driven kids with a simple tool that protects children from stress and anxiety, so common now among American kids. Not only does Doucleff live with families and observe their techniques firsthand, she also applies them with her own daughter, with striking results. She learns to discipline without yelling. She talks to psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and sociologists and explains how these strategies can impact children's mental health and development. Filled with practical takeaways that parents can implement immediately, Hunt, Gather, Parent helps us rethink the ways we relate to our children, and reveals a universal parenting paradigm adapted for American familiesBe empowered and equip yourself with tools to live a full and fruitful life at any age with renowned Bible…
teacher and #1 New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer. Everything is beautiful in its time. Life is a journey through beautiful and varied seasons, with a dynamic cadence and full of continued discovery. Embrace each season of your life and learn to live into it fully with grace and help from Joyce Meyer, as she shows you: How to truly cast even your lifelong cares upon the LordHow to live dynamically, embracing and delighting in the journey How to embrace God's grace for this seasonHow to live abundantly as your body and mind change God's timing is always perfect, and there is a distinct and meaningful purpose for this season of your life. Joyce says, "Only a fool thinks they can always do what they have always done." How to Age Without Getting Old equips us to become wise enough to embrace God's changing grace and the evolution of our calling to the next season of lifeHorizontal vertigo: A city called mexico
By Juan Villoro. 2021
At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening…
tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city &’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world&’s leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: &“Living in the City,&” &“City Characters,&” &“Shocks,&” &“Crossings,&” and &“Ceremonies.&” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City&’s genius loci, its spirit of placeOur team: The epic story of four men and the world series that changed baseball
By Luke Epplin. 2021
The riveting story of four men — Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige — whose improbable union…
on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians. Though Doby, as the second Black player in the majors, would struggle during his first summer in Cleveland, his subsequent turnaround in 1948 from benchwarmer to superstar sparked one of the wildest and most meaningful seasons in baseball history. In intimate, absorbing detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy. Together, as the backbone of a team that epitomized the postwar American spirit in all its hopes and contradictions, these four men would captivate the nation by storming to the World Series—all the while rewriting the rules of what was possible in sports. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books "Epplin's epic saga is simultaneously a riveting drama and a searing portrait of the racism that plagued baseball for decades. This sharp and well-documented history will be a hit with baseball lovers and general interest readers alike." — Publishers Weekly, starred reviewThe black church in the african american experience
By C. Eric Lincoln. 2021
Black churches in America have long been recognized as the most independent, stable, and dominant institutions in black communities. The…
Black Church in the African American Experience, based on a ten-year study, is the largest nongovernmental study of urban and rural churches ever undertaken and the first major field study on the subject since the 1930s. Drawing on interviews with more than 1,800 black clergy in both urban and rural settings, combined with a comprehensive historical overview of seven mainline black denominations, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya present an analysis of the Black Church as it relates to the history of African Americans and to contemporary black culture. In examining both the internal structure of the Church and the reactions of the Church to external, societal changes, the authors provide important insights into the Church's relationship to politics, economics, women, youth, and music. Among other topics, Lincoln and Mamiya discuss the attitude of the clergy toward women pastors, the reaction of the Church to the civil rights movement, the attempts of the Church to involve young people, the impact of the black consciousness movement and Black Liberation Theology and clergy, and trends that will define the Black Church well into the next centuryThe soul of a woman
By Isabel Allende. 2021
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea comes &“a bold exploration of womanhood,…
feminism, parenting, aging, love and more&” (Associated Press). &“ The Soul of a Woman is Isabel Allende&’s most liberating book yet.&”— Elle &“When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating,&” begins Isabel Allende. As a child, she watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children without &“resources or voice.&” Isabel became a fierce and defiant little girl, determined to fight for the life her mother couldn&’t have. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the second wave of feminism. Among a tribe of like-minded female journalists, Allende for the first time felt comfortable in her own skin, as they wrote &“with a knife between our teeth&” about women&’s issues. She has seen what the movement has accomplished in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three passionate marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one&’s sexuality. So what feeds the soul of feminists—and all women—today? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over our bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work yet to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will &“light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.&rdquo