📚 The Reading Journal #013

👋 Hey Everyone

Good Monday Morning! We are excited to welcome the 223 of you that joined the Reading Journal last week.

Today's newsletter is brought to you by Aneace Haddad, author of The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar.

The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar will take you on a five-step journey, that has the power to transform you, your team, and your organization.

In today's newsletter:

📚 Staff Pick of the Week

📈 Rising Quickly - Week of September 19, 2022

🪄 Most Talked About Fiction - Week of September 19, 2022

✍️ Most Talked About Non-Fiction - Week of September 19, 2022

🆕 New and Noteworthy

The London tube introduced vending machines that print out random short stories of a selected genre on receipt-like scrolls. The commuters can choose between one-, three- and five-minute-long stories.

Scattered around the busy financial area Canary Wharf, the machines print out bite-sized short stories at the touch of a button. They are completely free of charge and printed on eco-friendly papyrus in just a couple of seconds.

📷 Bookshelf Humble Brag

📝 Note

• Want to show off your library? Send us a picture to be featured in the Reading Journal.

• Looking to read some of our previous Journals? You can find them here.

📚 Staff Pick of the Week

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi

Is happiness something you choose for yourself? The Courage to Be Disliked presents a simple and straightforward answer. Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of nineteenth-century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, this book follows an illuminating dialogue between a philosopher and a young man. Over the course of five conversations, the philosopher helps his student to understand how each of us is able to determine the direction of our own life, free from the shackles of past traumas and the expectations of others.

Rich in wisdom, The Courage to Be Disliked will guide you through the concepts of self-forgiveness, self-care, and mind decluttering. It is a deeply liberating way of thinking, allowing you to develop the courage to change and ignore the limitations that you might be placing on yourself. This plainspoken and profoundly moving book unlocks the power within you to find lasting happiness and be the person you truly want to be. Millions have already benefited from its teachings, now you can too.

The Courage to Be Disliked is ranked number 58 on our top 100 most recommended book list. It has been recommended by the likes of Anthony Pompliano, Tobi Lütke and 9 others.

🎥 Reading Talk's

📈 Rising Quickly - Week of September 19, 2022

Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone by Amy Gallo

Work relationships can be hard. The stress of dealing with difficult people dampens our creativity and productivity, degrades our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions, and causes us to disengage. We might lie awake at night worrying, withdraw from work, or react in ways we later regret—rolling our eyes in a meeting, snapping at colleagues, or staying silent when we should speak up.

Too often we grin and bear it as if we have no choice. Or throw up our hands because one-size-fits-all solutions haven't worked. But you can only endure so much thoughtless, irrational, or malicious behavior—there's your sanity to consider, and your career.

In Getting Along, workplace expert and Harvard Business Review podcast host Amy Gallo identifies eight familiar types of difficult coworkers—the insecure boss, the passive-aggressive peer, the know-it-all, the biased coworker, and others—and provides strategies tailored to dealing constructively with each one. She also shares principles that will help you turn things around, no matter who you're at odds with. Taking the high road isn't easy, but Gallo offers a crucial perspective on how work relationships really matter, as well as the compassion, encouragement, and tools you need to prevail—on your terms. She answers questions such as: Why can't I stop thinking about that nasty email?! What's behind my problem colleague's behavior? How can I fix things if they won't cooperate? I've tried everything—what now?

Full of relatable, sometimes cringe-worthy examples, the latest behavioral science research, and practical advice you can use right now, Getting Along is an indispensable guide to navigating your toughest relationships at work—and building interpersonal resilience in the process.

🪄 Most Talked About Fiction - Week of September 19, 2022

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” (The Washington Post)—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.

Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart—the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.

📚 Most Talked About Non-Fiction - Week of September 19, 2022

Slouching Towards Utopia by J. Bradford DeLong

Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.

Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.

🆕 New and Noteworthy

Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson

In a time when our political and cultural views feel more polarized than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin chariots of enlightenment―a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science.

After thinking deeply about how science sees the world and about Earth as a planet, the human brain has the capacity to reset and recalibrates life’s priorities, shaping the actions we might take in response. No outlook on culture, society, or civilization remains untouched.

With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant and beautiful truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.

👀 In Case You Missed It

✍️ Quote of the Week

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