Early last summer, I read Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. It’s an amazing book I highly recommend, and I recommended it in my most recent post, Be an Antiracist. It was in that book that I first heard…
On August 19, 2015, I published a post about #BlackLivesMatter. In that post, I wrote about the movie Fruitvale Station, the true story about the tragic killing of Oscar Grant, which I had seen in 2013, coincidentally, around the same time I had read the extremely important, highly acclaimed book The…
In this horribly sad time of COVID, with so many families experiencing illness and the death of loved ones, by complete coincidence I just finished reading a book about death and dying. Many years ago, I read Complications by Atul Gawande. Gawande is a surgeon and his writing about his…
At least once a year, an event in the speaker series at 92Y in Manhattan catches my eye. I’ve seen several of my favorite writers, including Malcom Gladwell (three times) and Michael Lewis. This year, I saw Arthur Brooks in conversation with Simon Sinek. I have become a fan of…
Because gratitude, happiness, and positive leadership are favorite subjects of my blog posts, I was given the opportunity to read a pre-publication edition of The Kindness Cure, by Tara Cousineau, PhD, which will be published on February 2. "Be Nice" is the second of my Six Simple Rules and when I…
This is a guest post by Courtney Carver. I had the opportunity to read a pre-publication edition of Courtney’s new book Soulful Simplicity, which will be published December 26th by Tarcher/Perigee, a division of Penguin Random House, and I asked if she would like to write a piece about one…
I have been a long-time student of the power of our thoughts. That's part of why I enjoyed Waking Up by Sam Harris, a book that focuses a great deal on the power of our thoughts. Before cell phones, when we saw someone walking down the street talking to himself,…
I recently read The Power of Having Fun, the brand-new book by Dave Crenshaw. I am a big believer in taking time off to make time for yourself and for your family. I've had the good fortune of having taken that time over most of the past 20 years. I…
My next door neighbor invited me over a few months ago to check out his "Alexa" (the electronic device from Amazon you can ask to do things for you). I had only heard a bit about Alexa at that point. He showed me the way he uses it to control…
"Be Organized" is one of my Six Simple Rules for a Better Life. I felt very qualified to write about that subject because I'm about as organized as a person can be. That also makes me feel very qualified to review the new book, Super-Productive: 120 Strategies to Do More…
I recently read Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture—and What We Can Do About It, by Kate Harding. Harding pulls no punches in her assault on rape culture. She gives examples that will surely disgust any thinking person. “If we all abhor rape,” she says, “how did…
For several years, I’ve been wanting to read “Thinking, Fast and Slow," by Daniel Kahneman. When the book came out, the reviews made me feel I would love it. I finally read and found it an incredibly interesting read. It wasn’t a fast read, which is part of why it…