The Case for Falling in Love: Why We Can't Master the Madness of Love -- And Why That's the Best Part


Mari Ruti - 2011
    A must-read for anyone who has ever fallen in love, wants to, or wants to know what went wrong." -Arianne Cohen, creator of TheSexDiariesProject.com"At last, a relationship advice book that will actually work. If you're intelligent, interested in love, and like a book you can't put down, this is it. John Gray, move over. The brilliant Mari Ruti has arrived." -Juliet Schor, professor of sociology, Boston College, and author of Born to Buy and Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth"Groundbreaking...Ruti opens the eyes of her readers so that they can love better...A must-read." -Nancy Redd, New York Times bestselling author of Body Drama"Finally, a book that takes love seriously. Written with passion and verve...I wish I had read this book years ago!" -Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of TimeAre you tired of reading book after book and playing game after game, trying to avoid heartbreak? It seems impossible, and maybe that's because you can't lock up your heart like that-not if you want the real thing. And maybe that's one of the best things about love.We've been thinking about it all wrong. Our culture's insistence that women need to learn how to catch and keep a man is actually doing much more harm than good. The more we try to manipulate our relationships, the less we are truly able to experience love's benefits and wonders.Love is a slippery, unruly thing, and trying to control and manage it robs us of its delicious unpredictability.Sure, letting go of the reins a bit might mean a broken heart, but heartbreak, in fact, offers a wealth of possibilities-creativity, wisdom, and growth-that we need in order to make the most of our lives.Liberating for women who are frustrated by the idea that they just need to learn the right "formula," The Case for Falling in Love shows that there isn't a method to mastering the madness of love. But that might be exactly what's so wonderful about it.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture


Roxane GayLisa Mecham - 2018
    Cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay has edited a collection of essays that explore what it means to live in a world where women are frequently belittled and harassed due to their gender, and offers a call to arms insisting that "not that bad" must no longer be good enough.

I Know How You Feel: The Joy and Heartbreak of Friendship in Women’s Lives


F. Diane Barth - 2018
    “Do I have enough friends?” “Why did my friendship end?” and “What makes a good friendship work?"These are questions that F. Diane Barth, a psychotherapist widely recognized for her expertise in women’s relationships, fields all the time. In I Know How You Feel, she draws out engaging stories from a lively and diverse cast of women, many of whom speak about feelings they haven't shared before. She explores how life changes affect women's friendships in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Interweaving examples from classic women’s literature to chick flicks, she provides grounded advice on how to manage betrayal and rejection, how to deal with a narcissistic or bossy friend, what to do when your best friend and your family don’t get along, how to let go of a friendship that has stopped working, and much more. A timely, empathetic guide for women in their twenties to their sixties and beyond.

Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide


Linda Babcock - 2003
    The women just don't ask. It turns out that whether they want higher salaries or more help at home, women often find it hard to ask. Sometimes they don't know that change is possible--they don't know that they can ask. Sometimes they fear that asking may damage a relationship. And sometimes they don't ask because they've learned that society can react badly to women asserting their own needs and desires.By looking at the barriers holding women back and the social forces constraining them, Women Don't Ask shows women how to reframe their interactions and more accurately evaluate their opportunities. It teaches them how to ask for what they want in ways that feel comfortable and possible, taking into account the impact of asking on their relationships. And it teaches all of us how to recognize the ways in which our institutions, child-rearing practices, and unspoken assumptions perpetuate inequalities--inequalities that are not only fundamentally unfair but also inefficient and economically unsound.With women's progress toward full economic and social equality stalled, women's lives becoming increasingly complex, and the structures of businesses changing, the ability to negotiate is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Drawing on research in psychology, sociology, economics, and organizational behavior as well as dozens of interviews with men and women from all walks of life, Women Don't Ask is the first book to identify the dramatic difference between men and women in their propensity to negotiate for what they want. It tells women how to ask, and why they should.

How to Instantly Connect with Anyone: 96 All-New Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships


Leil Lowndes - 2009
    It has been praised as the 21st century version of "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and was nominated one of the five best books in psychology by "Books for a Better Life!"The author introduces the psychologically sound concept, "Emotional Prediction" or E.P. which you can employ with everyone. Here are the ten sections of the book:7 Little Tricks to Make a Great Impression Before People Even Meet You11 Little Tricks to Take the "Hell" Out of "Hello," and Put the "Good" in "Good-bye"12 Little Tricks to Develop an Extraordinary Gift of Gab10 Little Tricks to Actually Enjoy Parties5 Little Tricks to Handle the Good, the Bad, and the Bummers12 Little Tricks to Avoid the 13 Most Common Dumb Things You Should NEVER Say or Do13 Little Tricks to be a Cool Communicator11 Little Tricks to Give Your E-Mail Today's Personality and Tomorrow's Professionalism10 Little Tricks to Make an Impression on your Cell (A.K.A. "Phone")5 Little Tricks to Deepen the Relationships You Already Have

The Little Book of Feminist Saints


Julia Pierpont - 2018
    These women broke ground, broke ceilings, and broke molds--includingMaya Angelou - Jane Austen - Ruby Bridges - Rachel Carson - Shirley Chisholm - Marie Curie & Irene Joliot Curie - Isadora Duncan - Amelia Earhart - Artemisia Gentileschi - Grace Hopper - Dolores Huerta - Frida Kahlo - Billie Jean King - Audre Lorde - Wilma Mankiller - Toni Morrison - Michelle Obama - Sandra Day O'Connor - Sally Ride - Eleanor Roosevelt - Margaret Sanger - Sappho - Nina Simone - Gloria Steinem - Kanno Sugako - Harriet Tubman - Mae West - Virginia Woolf - Malala YousafzaiOpen to any page and find daily inspiration and lasting delight.

This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking


John Brockman - 2012
    Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.Contributors include:Daniel Kahneman on the “focusing illusion”Jonah Lehrer on controlling attentionRichard Dawkins on experimentationAubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknownMartin Seligman on the ingredients of well-beingNicholas Carr on managing “cognitive load”Steven Pinker on win-win negotiatingDaniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural worldMatt Ridley on tapping collective intelligenceLisa Randall on effective theorizingBrian Eno on “ecological vision”J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life  Helen Fisher on temperamentSam Harris on the flow of thoughtLawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty

A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas


Virginia Woolf - 1938
    In A Room of One's Own (1929), she examines the work of past women writers, and looks ahead to a time when women's creativity will not be hampered by poverty, or by oppression. In Three Guineas (1938), however, Woolf argues that women's historical exclusion offers them the chance to form a political and cultural identity which could challenge the drive towards fascism and war.

Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes


Elizabeth Lesser - 2020
    Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human.Lesser has walked two main paths in her life—the spiritual path and the feminist one—paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate.Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength.” Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one—woman or man—is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted.Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.better world for all.

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History


Florence Williams - 2012
    But in the modern world, the breast is changing. Breasts are getting bigger, arriving earlier, and attracting newfangled chemicals. Increasingly, the odds are stacked against us in the struggle with breast cancer, even among men. What makes breasts so mercurial—and so vulnerable?In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology, and medicine. Her investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause, taking her from a plastic surgeon’s office where she learns about the importance of cup size in Texas to the laboratory where she discovers the presence of environmental toxins in her own breast milk. The result is a fascinating exploration of where breasts came from, where they have ended up, and what we can do to save them.

Feminasty: The Complicated Woman's Guide to Surviving the Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself to Death


Erin Gibson - 2018
    Since women earned the right to vote a little under one hundred years ago, our progress hasn't been the Olympic sprint toward gender equality first wave feminists hoped for, but more of a slow, elderly mall walk (with frequent stops to Cinnabon) over the four hundred million hurdles we still face. Some of these obstacles are obvious-unequal pay, under-representation in government, reproductive restrictions, lack of floor-length mirrors in hotel rooms. But a lot of them are harder to identify. They're the white noise of oppression that we've accepted as lady business as usual, and the patriarchy wants to keep it that way. Erin Gibson has a singular goal-to create a utopian future where women are recognized as humans. In Feminasty -- titled after her nickname on the hit podcast "Throwing Shade" -- she has written a collection of make-you-laugh-until-you-cry essays that expose the hidden rules that make life as a woman unnecessarily hard and deconstructs them in a way that's bold, provocative and hilarious. Whether it's shaming women for having their periods, allowing them into STEM fields but never treating them like they truly belong, or dictating strict rules for how they should dress in every situation, Erin breaks down the organized chaos of old fashioned sexism, intentional and otherwise, that systemically keeps women down.

For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity


Liz Plank - 2019
    Men grow up being told that boys don’t cry and dolls are for girls. They learn they must hide their feelings and anxieties, that their masculinity must constantly be proven. They must be the breadwinners. They must be the romantic pursuers. This hasn’t been good for the culture at large: 99% of school shooters are male; men in fraternities are 300% more likely to rape; a woman serving in uniform has a higher likelihood of being assaulted by a fellow soldier than to be killed by enemy fire.In For the Love of Men, author Liz Plank offers a smart, insightful, and deeply researched guide for what we're all going to do about toxic masculinity. For both women looking to guide the men in their lives and men who want to do better and just don’t know how, For the Love of Men will lead the conversation on men's issues in a society where so much is changing but gender roles have remained strangely stagnant.What are we going to do about men? Plank has the answer--and it has the possibility to change the world for men and women alike.

That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) about Working Together


Joanne Lipman - 2018
    They discuss these issues amongst themselves all the time.  What they don’t do is talk to men about it. It’s time to end that disconnect. More people in leadership roles are genuinely trying to transform the way we work together, because there's abundant evidence that companies with more women in senior leadership perform better by virtually every measure. Yet despite good intentions, men often lack the tools they need, leading to fumbles, missteps, frustration and misunderstanding that continue to inflict real and lasting damage on women's careers.That's What She Said solves for that dilemma.  Filled with illuminating anecdotes, data from the most recent studies, and stories from Joanne Lipman’s own journey to the top of a male-dominated industry, it shows how we can win by reaching across the gender divide. What can the Enron scandal teach us about the way men and women communicate professionally? How does brain chemistry help explain men’s fear of women’s emotions at work? Why did Kimberly Clark have an all-male team of executives in charge of their Kotex tampon line? What can we learn from Iceland’s campaign to “feminize” an entire nation? That’s What She Said shows why empowering women as true equals is an essential goal for women and men—and offers a roadmap for getting there. That’s What She Said solves for:·         The respect gap·         Unconscious bias·         Interruptions·         The pay and promotion gap·         Being heard·         The motherhood penalty·         “Bropropriation” and “mansplaining”·         And more….

Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women's Lives


Autumn Whitefield-Madrano - 2016
    We feel insecure in the face of retouched, impossibly-perfect images. We worry primping and preening are a distraction and a trap. But in Face Value, journalist Autumn Whitefield-Modrano dispels this one-sided beauty myth and examines the relationship between appearance and science, social media, sex, friendship, language, and advertising to show how beauty actually affects us day to day. Through meticulous research and interviews with dozens of women across all walks of life, she reveals surprising findings, like wearing makeup can actually relax you, you can convince people you’re better looking just by tweaking your personality, and the ways beauty can be a powerful tool of connection among women. Provocative and empowering, it celebrates a relaxed brand of feminism, one in which it’s equally okay to feel fierce in your fake eyelashes and confident when going makeup-free. Face Value is “an immensely valuable work, one that seamlessly—and impressively—combines the tropes of the academic lit review and the memoir and the work of cultural criticism into an engaging, and timely, follow-up to The Beauty Myth” (The Atlantic).

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time


Brigid Schulte - 2014
    It is a deeply reported and researched, honest and often hilarious journey from feeling that, as one character in the book said, time is like a "rabid lunatic" running naked and screaming as your life flies past you, to understanding the historical and cultural roots of the overwhelm, how worrying about all there is to do and the pressure of feeling like we're never have enough time to do it all, or do it well, is "contaminating" our experience of time, how time pressure and stress is resculpting our brains and shaping our workplaces, our relationships and squeezing the space that the Greeks said was the point of living a Good Life: that elusive moment of peace called leisure.Author Brigid Schulte, an award-winning journalist for the Washington Post - and harried mother of two - began the journey quite by accident, after a time-use researcher insisted that she, like all American women, had 30 hours of leisure each week. Stunned, she accepted his challenge to keep a time diary and began a journey that would take her from the depths of what she described as the Time Confetti of her days to a conference in Paris with time researchers from around the world, to North Dakota, of all places, where academics are studying the modern love affair with busyness, to Yale, where neuroscientists are finding that feeling overwhelmed is actually shrinking our brains, to exploring new lawsuits uncovering unconscious bias in the workplace, why the US has no real family policy, and where states and cities are filling the federal vacuum.She spent time with mothers drawn to increasingly super intensive parenting standards, and mothers seeking to pull away from it. And she visited the walnut farm of the world's most eminent motherhood researcher, an evolutionary anthropologist, to ask, are mothers just "naturally" meant to be the primary parent? The answer will surprise you.Along the way, she was driven by two questions, Why are things the way they are? and, How can they be better? She found real world bright spots of innovative workplaces, couples seeking to shift and share the division of labor at home and work more equitably and traveled to Denmark, the happiest country on earth, where fathers - and mothers - have more pure leisure time than parents in other industrial countries. She devoured research about the science of play, why it's what makes us human, and the feminist leisure research that explains why it's so hard for women to allow themselves to. The answers she found are illuminating, perplexing and ultimately hopeful. The book both outlines the structural and policy changes needed - already underway in small pockets - and mines the latest human performance and motivation science to show the way out of the overwhelm and toward a state that time use researchers call ... Time Serenity.