Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents


Isabel Wilkerson - 2020
    The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

You Will Be Safe Here


Damian Barr - 2019
    I left this book bruised yet somehow better for it.” – Tayari Jones.“Brutal, haunting, redemptive and...beautiful.” – Jojo Moyes. This extraordinary debut set in South Africa reveals legacies of abuse and redemption exploring the extraordinary strength of the human spirit - from the Boer War in 1901 to brutal camps for teenage boys now. There is always darkness but there is always light in it if we just look.South Africa, 1901 - the height of the second Boer War. Sarah van der Watt and her six-year-old son Fred are forced from their home on Mulberry Farm by British troops. As the polite invaders welcome them to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp they promise Sarah and Fred that they will be safe there.2010. Sixteen-year-old Willem is an outsider. Hoping he will become the man she wants him to be, his Ma and her boyfriend send Willem away to the New Dawn Safari Training Camp where they are proud to 'make men out of boys'. They promise Willem he will be safe there.You Will Be Safe Here is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories with universal relevance. Inspired by real events, it uncovers a hidden colonial history, reveals a dark contemporary secret, and explores the legacy of violence and our drive to survive and to love. An Observer, Guardian, Financial Times, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Big Issue Pick of the Year

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America


Colin Woodard - 2011
    North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory.In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary sharply from one region to another. Woodard reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.

Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life


Judith Orloff - 2009
    Imagine being unflappable and relaxed when your supervisor loses her temper. What if you were peaceful instead of anxious? What if your life were filled with nurturing relationships and a warm sense of belonging? This is what it feels like when you’ve achieved emotional freedom. National bestselling author Dr. Judith Orloff invites you to take a remarkable journey, one that leads to happiness and serenity, and a place where you can gain mastery over the negativity that pervades daily life. No matter how stressed you currently feel, the time for positive change is now. You possess the ability to liberate yourself from depression, anger, and fear. Synthesizing neuroscience, intuitive medicine, psychology, and subtle energy techniques, Dr. Orloff maps the elegant relationships between our minds, bodies, spirits, and environments. With humor and compassion, she shows you how to identify the most powerful negative emotions and how to transform them into hope, kindness, and courage. Compelling patient case studies and stories from her online community, her workshop participants, and her own private life illustrate the simple, easy-to-follow action steps that you can take to cope with emotional vampires, disappointments, and rejection.Emotional Freedom is a road map for those who are stressed out, discouraged, or overwhelmed as well as for those who are in a good emotional place but want to feel even better. As Dr. Orloff shows, each day presents opportunities for us to be heroes in our own lives: to turn away from negativity, react constructively, and seize command of any situation. Complete emotional freedom is within your grasp.

The Victorious Attitude


Orison Swett Marden - 1997
    To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766127435.

Hunter


John A. Hunter - 1952
    Hunter, a professional big-game hunter and former chairman of Tanganyika National Parks. J A. Hunter led a life of adventure, but, perhaps, the most astonishing tale in this book is his incredible adventures while hunting rhino. As a game ranger, he was ordered by the Tanganyikan government to clear out dozens of rogue rhinos from the area around Makueni, and the accounts of his experiences are spine-tingling. Hunter hunted throughout East Africa-for bongo in the Ituri rain forest (former Zaire), lion in Masailand (Kenya), and the man-killing buffalo near Thomson's Falls with his favorite dog (Kenya).

Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation


John Carlin - 2008
    First he earned his freedom and then he won the presidency in the nation's first free election in 1994. But he knew that South Africa was still dangerously divided by almost fifty years of apartheid. If he couldn't unite his country in a visceral, emotional way--and fast--it would collapse into chaos. He would need all the charisma and strategic acumen he had honed during half a century of activism, and he'd need a cause all South Africans could share. Mandela picked one of the more farfetched causes imaginable--the national rugby team, the Springboks, who would host the sport's World Cup in 1995.Against the giants of the sport, the Springboks' chances of victory were remote. But their chances of capturing the hearts of most South Africans seemed remoter still, as they had long been the embodiment of white supremacist rule. During apartheid, the all-white Springboks and their fans had belted out racist fight songs, and blacks would come to Springbok matches to cheer for whatever team was playing against them. Yet Mandela believed that the Springboks could embody--and engage--the new South Africa. And the Springboks themselves embraced the scheme. Soon South African TV would carry images of the team singing "Nkosi Sikelele Afrika," the longtime anthem of black resistance to apartheid.As their surprising string of victories lengthened, their home-field advantage grew exponentially. South Africans of every color and political stripe found themselves falling for the team. When the Springboks took to the field for the championship match against New Zealand's heavily favored squad, Mandela sat in his presidential box wearing a Springbok jersey while sixty-two-thousand fans, mostly white, chanted "Nelson! Nelson!" Millions more gathered around their TV sets, whether in dusty black townships or leafy white suburbs, to urge their team toward victory. The Springboks won a nail-biter that day, defying the oddsmakers and capping Mandela's miraculous ten-year-long effort to bring forty-three million South Africans together in an enduring bond.John Carlin, a former South Africa bureau chief for the London Independent, offers a singular portrait of the greatest statesman of our time in action, blending the volatile cocktail of race, sport, and politics to intoxicating effect. He draws on extensive interviews with Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and dozens of other South Africans caught up in Mandela's momentous campaign, and the Springboks' unlikely triumph. As he makes stirringly clear, their championship transcended the mere thrill of victory to erase ancient hatreds and make a nation whole.

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking


Oliver Burkeman - 2012
    What they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that it's our constant effort to eliminate the negative that causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. And that there is an alternative "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid. It is a subversive, galvanizing message, which turns out to have a long and distinguished philosophical lineage ranging from ancient Roman Stoic philosophers to Buddhists. Oliver Burkeman talks to life coaches paid to make their clients' lives a living hell, and to maverick security experts such as Bruce Schneier, who contends that the changes we've made to airport and aircraft security since the 9/11 attacks have actually made us less safe. And then there are the "backwards" business gurus, who suggest not having any goals at all and not planning for a company's future. Burkeman's new book is a witty, fascinating, and counterintuitive read that turns decades of self-help advice on its head and forces us to rethink completely our attitudes toward failure, uncertainty, and death.

The Woman Next Door


Yewande Omotoso - 2016
    One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility which they prune with a zeal that belies the fact that they are both over eighty.But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. And gradually the bickering and sniping softens into lively debate, and from there into memories shared. But could these sparks of connection ever transform into friendship? Or is it too late to expect these two to change?

Brandwashed


Martin Lindstrom - 2011
     Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years.  Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars.  Picking up from where Vance Packard's bestselling classic, The Hidden Persuaders, left off more than half-a-century ago, Lindstrom reveals:    • New findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target children at an alarmingly young age – starting when they are still in the womb!    • Shocking results of an fMRI study which uncovered what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising (hint: it isn’t their girlfriends).    • How marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares.    • The first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s (and the shocking reality of cell phone addiction - it can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs and alcohol).    • How companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers ‘perfectly tailored’ to our psychological profiles.    • How certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive.       • What a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all.    • And much, much more.  This searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions – the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever.

American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate


Pete Simi - 2010
    The authors explain the difference between movements such as the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and Skinheads, among others, then discuss the various ways White Supremacists cultivate, maintain, and spread their beliefs, largely under the radar of most Americans. Authors Pete Simi and Robert Futrell draw on over a decade of research and interviews, from the infamous Hayden Lake Aryan compound in Northern Idaho, to private homes in L.A., to hate music concerts around the country. Through descriptive case studies, the authors look at hate in the home, talking with parents who aim to raise "little Hitler" and discussing the impact home schooling and cultural isolation can have on children. The authors also describe Aryan crash pads, Bible studies, and rituals, take readers through the hate music scene from underground bars to massive rallies, and examine how the internet has shaped communication and created disturbing new virtual communities. American Swastika shows how White Power groups sustain themselves and grow, even in a nation that preaches equality and tolerance, and looks toward how we can work to prevent future violence.

Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia


Pamela Spiro Wagner - 2005
    But as the twins approached adolescence, Pamela began to succumb to schizophrenia, hearing disembodied voices and eventually suffering many breakdowns and hospitalizations.Divided Minds is a dual memoir of identical twins, one of whom faces a life sentence of schizophrenia, and the other who becomes a psychiatrist, after entering the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister. Told in the alternating voices of the sisters, Divided Minds is a heartbreaking account of the far reaches of madness, as well as the depths of ambivalence and love between twins. It is a true and unusually frank story of identical twins with very different identities and wildly different experiences of the world around them.

The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood


David Simon - 1997
    But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling story of this desolate crossroad.Through the eyes of one broken family--two drug-addicted adults and their smart, vulnerable 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCollough, Simon and Burns examine the sinister realities of inner cities across the country and unflinchingly assess why law enforcement policies, moral crusades, and the welfare system have accomplished so little. This extraordinary book is a crucial look at the price of the drug culture and the poignant scenes of hope, caring, and love that astonishingly rise in the midst of a place America has abandoned.

You Can Be Right (or You Can Be Married): Looking for Love in the Age of Divorce


Dana Adam Shapiro - 2012
    A serial monogamist for more than two decades, Shapiro had just ended his fifth three-year relationship and wanted to know why the honeymoon phase never lasted until the actual honeymoon. Believing that you learn more from failure than from success, he spent the next four years interviewing hundreds of divorced people, living vicariously through the romantic tragedies of others, hoping to become so fluent in the errors of Eros that he would be able to avoid them in his own love life. The result is a timely treasure trove of marital wisdom—a provocative look inside the hearts, minds, beds, and e-mails of regular people who’d thought they found “The One” and lived to tell the tales of what went wrong. Shockingly intimate, universally relevant, and profoundly personal, this is a page-turning, voyeuristic peek into the private lives of our friends and neighbors that is as racy as it is revelatory. But ultimately, You Can Be Right (or You Can Be Married) is a hopeful investigation of modern love and a practical guide for any couple looking to beat the roulette-level odds of actually staying together forever.

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do


Jennifer L. Eberhardt - 2019
    With a perspective that is scientific, investigative, and personal, Jennifer L. Eberhardt offers a reasoned look into the effects of implicit racial bias, ranging from the subtle to the dramatic. Racial bias can lead to disparities in education, employment, housing, and the criminal justice system--and then those very disparities further reinforce the problem. In Biased, Eberhardt reveals how even when we are not aware of bias and genuinely wish to treat all people equally, ingrained stereotypes infect our visual perception, attention, memory, and behavior.Eberhardt's extensive work as a consultant to law enforcement, as well as a researcher with unprecedented access to data, including footage from police officers' body-worn cameras, informs every aspect of her book and makes it much more than a work of social psychology. Her research occurs not just in the laboratory but in police departments, courtrooms, prisons, boardrooms, and on the street. Interviews are interwoven with memories and stories from Eberhardt's own life and family. She offers practical suggestions for reform, and takes the reader behind the scenes to police departments implementing her suggestions. Refusing to shy away from the tragic consequences of prejudice, Eberhardt addresses how racial bias is not the fault of, or restricted to, a few "bad apples" in police departments or other institutions. We can see evidence of bias at all levels of society in media, education, and business practices. In Biased, Eberhardt reminds us that racial bias is a human problem--one all people can play a role in solving.