What We Are Reading Today: Let’s Talk About Hard Things by Anna Sale

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Updated 06 July 2021
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What We Are Reading Today: Let’s Talk About Hard Things by Anna Sale

In Let’s Talk About Hard Things, Anna Sale uses the best of what she’s learned from her award-winning podcast  to reveal that when we have the courage to talk about hard things, we learn about ourselves, others, and the world that we make together. 

Diving into five of the most fraught conversation topics — death, sex, money, family, and identity — she moves between memoir, fascinating snapshots of a variety of Americans opening up about their lives, and expert opinions to show why having tough conversations is important and how to do them in a thoughtful and generous way. She argues that we all experience these hard things, and by not talking to one another, we cut ourselves off, leading us to feel isolated and disconnected. 

She uncovers that listening may be the most important part of a conversation, and that the end goal should be understanding without the pressure of reconciliation.

The book is a profound meditation on why communication can connect us instead of divide us and how we can all do it better.


What We’re Reading Today: Work Life Well-lived

Updated 25 April 2024
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What We’re Reading Today: Work Life Well-lived

Author: Kelly Mackin

This book will disrupt how you think about creating your best work life and workplace and give you a road map to get you there, says a review published on goodreads.com.

Through years of research and truth-finding, Kelly Mackin and her company, Motives Met, have discovered a completely new mindset and approach around what well-being at work is all about, how to get there, and why it’s so important that we do get there.

This book is a personal guide and a call to action for a shift in our approach to work.


What We Are Reading Today: Natural Magic

Updated 25 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Natural Magic

Author: Renee Bergland 

Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls.

The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was exploring the Pacific aboard the Beagle and Dickinson was a student in Amherst, Massachusetts.

“Natural Magic” intertwines the stories of these two luminary 19th-century minds whose thought and writings captured the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time strove to preserve the magic of nature.


What We Are Reading Today: Frogs of the World: A Guide to Every Family

Updated 24 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Frogs of the World: A Guide to Every Family

Authors: Mark O’Shea & Simon Maddock

With more than 7,600 known species, frogs exhibit an extraordinary range of forms and behaviors, from those that produce toxins so deadly that they could kill a human many times over to those that can survive being frozen in ice.

“Frogs of the World” is an essential guide to this astonishingly diverse group of animals. An in-depth introduction covers everything from the origins and evolution of frogs to their life cycles and defense strategies.


What We Are Reading Today: Sixty Miles Upriver

Updated 23 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Sixty Miles Upriver

Author: Richard E. Ocejo

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some 28,000 people located 60 miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley.

Like many similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.

“Sixty Miles Upriver” tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways.


What We Are Reading Today: A Death in the Rainforest

Updated 22 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: A Death in the Rainforest

Author: Don Kulick

As a young anthropologist, Don Kulick went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death of the native Tayap, an endangered Papuan language.

“A Death in the Rainforest” takes readers inside the village, revealing what it is like to live in a place carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

This book offers insight into the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe — and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.

An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, the book takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.