The holidays are a great time to catch up
on reading.
Here are five books that really stood out
to me.
These Truths by Jill Lepore
A lot of people once you leave school,
you never really go through the broad scope
of American history again.
She brings this lens of looking backwards.
How do we compare to other countries?
What was controversial?
What hung in the balance?
Particularly slavery and gender and immigrants.
I think the book is very worth reading.
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
I’m a night person, but I’ve been paying
more attention to sleep.
This guy is super persuasive about
if you want to lose weight, get good sleep.
If you want to really learn things, get good
sleep.
He literally tells you,
if you’re reading this when you should be
sleeping,
please close the book.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
This is about a black couple in the south
and an injustice that totally reshapes the
lives of the husband and the wife
and eventually dooms their marriage.
The husband and wife are put into a difficult
position.
You wouldn't call it a happy ending, because
they've been through so much.
Prepared by Diane Tavenner
She asks the right questions about middle
school and high school systems.
What she’s done is really amazing.
Not many people are brave enough to create
a new school system.
You have self-confidence, the ability to learn,
the ability to manage your time,
a sense of what you want to go and do.
Sometimes, kids will get discouraged.
You just hope your kid gets curious about
something.
Growth by Vaclav Smil
Modern civilization has performed all these
miracles,
and yet, you do hit limits.
We've been on various plateaus.
When did we figure out how to build certain
big buildings?
What was holding us back in terms of doing
that?
Why don't we build them to the sky now?
If you said to me "Oh, when you're young,
you can travel over the speed of sound,
but then when you get older, you won't be
able to travel over the speed of sound,"
I would have been like, ‘That's crazy.’
I found these books to be really clever and
engaging.
I hope you find them as intriguing as I did.
