While we are waiting for the last snowflakes to melt and the grass to turn green again, here are some book recommendations to help you get through the final stretch before Summer!
Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell
Malcom Gladwellis a highly influential author who also wrote #1 New York Times BestsellerOutliers. Grab a copy and cozy up on a chair with one of our favoriteblankets.
"Malcom Gladwell offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong. Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt.
Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times."
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
This is abookthat you won’t be able to put down. This is an inspiring true story about a remarkable woman!
She possessed a stunning beauty. She also possessed a stunning mind. Could the world handle both?
"Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star. But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she knew a few secrets about the enemy. She had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis...if anyone would listen to her."
Coconut Cowboy by Tim Dorsey
Dreaming about Summertime? This is abookmade for the poolside. It's totally dumb, but a fun read while the sun is cooking your outsides and a tasty summer beverage is pickling your insides.
"Florida’s favorite trigger-happy, shoot-from-the-hip vigilante history teacher is back—and he has a few scores to settle.
Serge A. Storms is hitting the road. Inspired by the classic biker flick Easy Rider, the irrepressible trivia buff and his drug-addled travel buddy, Coleman, head out on a motorcycle tour down the length of the Sunshine State, on a mission to rediscover the lost era of the American Dream. But going from small town to small town, they discover that some have lost much of their former charm—including one particular hamlet of sleazy rural politicos hell-bent on keeping prying eyes out of their ineptly corrupt style of local government.
Serge and Coleman engage in some high-life hijinks, complete with the state’s trademark crop of jerks, lethal science experiments, drug kingpins, double-crosses, unearthed bodies, barbecue, and groovy tunes. And when a few innocent newcomers stumble into the mix, the stakes are raised to new backwoods heights."
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
We love using Basecamp as our project management system for Sticky Toffee. The Basecamp team published thisbookto explain how to escape the stressful culture of it always being crazy at work. Here is how they explain it:
“It’s crazy at work.” How often have you heard that? Or said it yourself? Probably too often. For many, “it’s crazy at work” has become their normal. But why's that? At the root is an onslaught of physical and virtual real-time distractions slicing work days into a series of fleeting work moments. Tie that together with a trend of over-collaboration, plus an unhealthy obsession with growth at any cost, and you’ve got the building blocks for an anxious, crazy mess."
