4 September 2023

September book recommendation

Gerald Marzorati: Seeing Serena

There has never been an athlete like Serena Williams. She has dominated women’s tennis for two decades, changed the way the game is played, and—by inspiring Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and others—changed, too, the racial makeup of the pro game. But Williams’s influence has not been confined to the tennis court. As a powerful Black woman who struggled to achieve and sustain success, she has emerged as a cultural icon, figuring in conversations about body image, working mothers, and more.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Seeing-Serena/Gerald-Marzorati/9781982127893

Cait Flanders: The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

In her late twenties, Cait Flanders found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat. Even after she worked her way out of nearly $30,000 of consumer debt, her old habits took hold again. When she realized that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy--only keeping her from meeting her goals--she decided to set herself a challenge: she would not shop for an entire year.

The Year of Less documents Cait's life for twelve months during which she bought only consumables: groceries, toiletries, gas for her car. Along the way, she challenged herself to consume less of many other things besides shopping. She decluttered her apartment and got rid of 70 percent of her belongings; learned how to fix things rather than throw them away; researched the zero waste movement; and completed a television ban. At every stage, she learned that the less she consumed, the more fulfilled she felt.
The challenge became a lifeline when, in the course of the year, Cait found herself in situations that turned her life upside down. In the face of hardship, she realized why she had always turned to shopping, alcohol, and food--and what it had cost her. Unable to reach for any of her usual vices, she changed habits she'd spent years perfecting and discovered what truly mattered to her.

Blending Cait's compelling story with inspiring insight and practical guidance, The Year of Less will leave you questioning what you're holding on to in your own life--and, quite possibly, lead you to find your own path of less.

https://www.amazon.com/Year-Less-Shopping-Belongings-Discovered/dp/1401954871

Daniel Kahneman - Olivier Sibony - Cass R. Sunstein: Noise

Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients - or that two judges in the same court give different sentences to people who have committed matching crimes. Now imagine that the same doctor and the same judge make different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday, or they haven't yet had lunch. These are examples of noise: variability in judgements that should be identical.

In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein show how noise produces errors in many fields, including in medicine, law, public health, economic forecasting, forensic science, child protection, creative strategy, performance review and hiring. And although noise can be found wherever people are making judgements and decisions, individuals and organizations alike commonly ignore its impact, at great cost.

Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise and bias in decision-making. We all make bad judgements more than we think. With a few simple remedies, this groundbreaking book explores what we can do to make better ones.

https://www.libri.hu/idegen_nyelvu/konyv/daniel_kahneman.noise--1.html

Salman Rushdie: East, West

In these nine stories, Salman Rushdie looks at what happens when East meets West, at the forces that pull his characters first in one direction, then the other. Fantasy and realism collide as a rickshaw driver writes letters describing his film star career in Bombay; a mispronunciation leads to romance and an unusual courtship in sixties London; two childhood friends turned diplomats live out in a violent world fantasies hatched by "Star Trek"; and Christopher Columbus dreams of consummating his relationship with Queen Isabella. The stories in "East, West" show the extraordinary range and power of Salman Rushdie's writing.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9868.East_West

 

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