In My Hands Today…

Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife – Barbara Bradley Hagerty

A dynamic and inspiring exploration of the new science that is redrawing the future for people in their forties, fifties, and sixties for the better—and for good.

There’s no such thing as an inevitable midlife crisis, Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in this provocative, hopeful book. It’s a myth, an illusion. New scientific research explodes the fable that midlife is a time when things start to go downhill for everybody. In fact, midlife can be a great new adventure, when you can embrace fresh possibilities, purposes, and pleasures. In Life Reimagined , Hagerty explains that midlife is about It’s the time to renegotiate your purpose, refocus your relationships, and transform the way you think about the world and yourself. Drawing from emerging information in neurology, psychology, biology, genetics, and sociology—as well as her own story of midlife transformation—Hagerty redraws the map for people in midlife and plots a new course forward in understanding our health, our relationships, even our futures.

In My Hands Today…

The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World… via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes – Carl Hoffman

Indonesian Ferry Sinks. Peruvian Bus Plunges Off Cliff. African Train Attacked by Mobs. Whenever he picked up the newspaper, Carl Hoffman noticed those short news bulletins, which seemed about as far from the idea of tourism, travel as the pursuit of pleasure, as it was possible to get. So off he went, spending six months circumnavigating the globe on the world’s worst conveyances: the statistically most dangerous airlines, the most crowded and dangerous ferries, the slowest buses, and the most rickety trains. The Lunatic Express takes us into the heart of the world, to some its most teeming cities and remotest places: from Havana to Bogotá on the perilous Cuban Airways. Lima to the Amazon on crowded night buses where the road is a washed-out track. Across Indonesia and Bangladesh by overcrowded ferries that kill 1,000 passengers a year. On commuter trains in Mumbai so crowded that dozens perish daily, across Afghanistan as the Taliban closes in, and, scariest of all, Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by Greyhound.

The Lunatic Express is the story of traveling with seatmates and deckmates who have left home without American Express cards on conveyances that don’t take Visa, and seldom take you anywhere you’d want to go. But it’s also the story of traveling as it used to be — a sometimes harrowing trial, of finding adventure in a modern, rapidly urbanizing world and the generosity of poor strangers, from ear cleaners to urban bus drivers to itinerant roughnecks, who make up most of the world’s population. More than just an adventure story, The Lunatic Express is a funny, harrowing and insightful look at the world as it is, a planet full of hundreds of millions of people, mostly poor, on the move and seeking their fortunes.

In My Hands Today…

On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good – Elise Loehnen

Women congratulate themselves when they resist the doughnut in the office break-room. They celebrate their restraint when they hold back from sending an e-mail in anger. They feel virtuous when they wake up at dawn to get a jump on the day. They put others’ needs ahead of their own and believe this makes them exemplary.

In On Our Best Behavior, journalist Elise Loehnen explains that these impulses–often lauded as unselfish, distinctly feminine instincts–are actually ingrained in women by a culture that reaps the benefits, via an extraordinarily effective collection of mores known as the Seven Deadly Sins.

Since being codified by the Christian church in the fourth century, the Seven Deadly Sins–pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth–have exerted insidious power. Even today, in our largely secular, patriarchal society, they continue to circumscribe women’s behavior. For example, seeing sloth as sinful leads women to deny themselves rest; a fear of gluttony drives them to ignore their appetites; and an aversion to greed prevents them from negotiating for themselves and contributes to the 55 percent gender wealth gap. Loehnen reveals how women have been programmed to obey the rules represented by these sins and how doing so qualifies them as “good.”

This probing analysis of contemporary culture and thoroughly researched history explains how women have internalized the patriarchy, and how they unwittingly reinforce it. By sharing her own story and the spiritual wisdom of other traditions, Loehnen shows how women can break free and discover the integrity and wholeness they seek.

In My Hands Today…

India Moving: A History of Migration – Chinmay Tumbe

From adventure to indenture, martyrs to merchants, partition to plantation, from Kashmir to Kerala, Japan to Jamaica, and beyond, the many facets of the great migrations of India and the world are mapped in India Moving, the first book of its kind.

To understand how millions of people have moved-from, to and within India—the book embarks on a journey laced with evidence, argument, and wit, providing insights into topics like the slave trade and migration of workers, travelling business communities such as the Marwaris, Gujaratis, and Chettiars, refugee crises, and the roots of contemporary mass migration from Bihar and Kerala, covering terrain that often includes diverse items such as mangoes, dosas, and pressure cookers.

India Moving shows the scale and variety of Indian migration and argues that greater mobility is a prerequisite for maintaining the country’s pluralistic traditions.

In My Hands Today,,,

Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You – Ali Abdaal

We’re told that to achieve more we need to work longer, focus harder, sacrifice more. But it’s a lie.

Because the secret to true productivity isn’t graft. It’s joy.

In this revolutionary book, Ali Abdaal, Cambridge-educated doctor and the world’s most-followed productivity expert, offers a scientifically proven way to get more done – by finding radical pleasure in everything you do. He starts by introducing the three ‘energisers’ that make work invigorating rather than draining – Power, Play and People.

Then he delves into cutting-edge science that reveals how to integrate these forces into your daily routine – so you end every day feeling uplifted rather than exhausted.The result is a revolutionary way to get more done without stressing out, freaking out or burning out. It is the first productivity book that is 100% guaranteed to not ruin your life.