At the end of a six-year stint in Beijing as the China correspondent for NPR, Rob Gifford sent his wife and children ahead to London to start their new lives. Gifford, who first arrived in China as a language student in his early 20s, embarks on...
The award-winning team that brought you the fascinating bite-sized statistics of If America Were a Village and If the World Were a Village delves into the lives of children all around the world. The statistics here might surprise you ("children make up about one-third of the...
From the age of 16 when she took a biology class at a community college (making up for a failed high school freshman year because "she never showed up"), award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot has seemingly spent the majority of her life preparing to write...
Seth Godin has written a dozen worldwide bestsellers. I admit I'm late in discovering him; this is my first Godin title, which Godin himself read to me (it's loaded on my iPod so I can take it on my training runs – Leadville 100 in...
If you're a parent, go get this book and start reading NOW. Even if you don't have a son. While you're ordering, make sure to also include Leonard Sax's latest, Girls on the Edge, another life-changing read. If you're a parent, truly, you owe it...
That it has taken me months to write this specific post is NOT an indicator in any way that this book was not informative, entertaining, useful, and often just downright fun. I also 'read' most of it via iPod, which I'd also highly recommend because...
If you're a parent (or a parental figure) to a girl (even if that girl is still an infant!), you MUST read this book. Which means you can stop reading this post here. Go get the book already ...
Vollmann (Imperial; Europe Central), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty – its creation and consumption– with a spotlight on highly stylized traditional Japanese Noh theater. Because male actors wearing strictly codified masks perform all Noh roles, men,...
Coming from a family of urban planners and architects (Pops was head of urban planning graduate department at major university, baby bro is mega-award winning architect and professor at Harvard's GSD, middle bro used to make all his ex-girlfriend's architecture models when he got tired...
Today begins Black History Month ...
What does a manga artist do when he lands in jail as severe punishment for a minor offense? For Kazuichi Hanawa, an established artist known for his fantasy volumes set in the Middle Ages, reality shockingly became a tiny cell for three years in the...
Just before the last election, legendary former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, then 82, wanted so much for Americans to take full advantage of the 15th Amendment ["The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United...
Half the Sky is a remarkable, life-changing book. It should be required reading for all adults (and more mature young adults), but especially for us overprivileged, lucky-solely-by-chance-of-birth citizens of the West. If there is ONE book you read this new year, let it be this...
Four years ago (could say five, actually, as we just entered 2010 – already!), University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt and noted journalist Stephen Dubner debuted with Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. That first duo-effort quickly became a mega-bestseller...
Confession: This is not my favorite Malcolm Gladwell title. But that's not to say that I didn't enjoy parts of it more than probably 75% of the titles collected in this whole blog. Really. Gladwell is one phenomenal, erudite entertainer ...
Here's the assertion: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me ...
For the past week, I've been talking nonstop about this book to friends, even those who don't have children. This is one of those titles that should be on every bookshelf, regardless of breeding status. Really. Because it's as much about relationships with all people,...
Stupendous and spectacular come immediately to mind when you look at this book. Not to mention a bit of "oof!" over its hefty size and weight – it's full of gravitas, after all! Mike Tauber's photographs are breathtaking, laid out simply to let the gorgeous...
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified ...
Using the same simple metaphor he used in his previous bestselling If the World Were a Village, educational consultant David J. Smith presents America as a village of 100 (a far less intimidating number than the 306 million we’ve become!) to help kids (and anyone...
