Tag Archives: Non Fiction

In My Hands Today…

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Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion – Nancy MacDonell

Calvin Klein. Ralph Lauren. Donna Karan. Halston. Marc Jacobs. Tom Ford. Michael Kors. Tory Burch. Today, American designers are some of the biggest names in fashion, yet before World War II, they almost always worked anonymously. The industry, then centered on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, had always looked overseas for “inspiration”—a polite phrase for what was often blatant copying—because style, as all the world knew, came from Paris.

But when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, the capital of fashion was cut off from the rest of the world. The story of the chaos and tragedy that followed has been told many times—but how it directly affected American fashion is largely unknown.

Defying the naysayers, New York-based designers, retailers, editors, and photographers met the moment, turning out clothes that were perfectly suited to the American way of life: sophisticated, modern, comfortable, and affordable. By the end of the war, “the American Look” had been firmly established as a fresh, easy elegance that combined function with style. But none of it would have happened without the influence and ingenuity of a small group of women who have largely been lost to history.

Empresses of Seventh Avenue will tell the story of how these extraordinary women put American fashion on the world stage and created the template for modern style—and how the nearly $500 billion American fashion industry, the largest in the world, could not have accrued its power and wealth without their farsightedness and determination.

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The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore – Evan Friss

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.

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How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease – Michael Greger, Gene Stone

The vast majority of premature deaths can be prevented through simple changes in diet and lifestyle. In How Not to Die, Dr. Michael Greger, the internationally-renowned nutrition expert, physician, and founder of NutritionFacts.org, examines the fifteen top causes of premature death in America — heart disease, various cancers, diabetes, Parkinson’s, high blood pressure, and more — and explains how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can sometimes trump prescription pills and other pharmaceutical and surgical approaches, freeing us to live healthier lives.

The simple truth is that most doctors are good at treating acute illnesses but bad at preventing chronic disease. The fifteen leading causes of death claim the lives of 1.6 million Americans annually. This doesn’t have to be the case. By following Dr. Greger’s advice, all of it backed up by strong scientific evidence, you will learn which foods to eat and which lifestyle changes to make to live longer.

History of prostate cancer in your family? Put down that glass of milk and add flaxseed to your diet whenever you can. Have high blood pressure? Hibiscus tea can work better than a leading hypertensive drug-and without the side effects. Fighting off liver disease? Drinking coffee can reduce liver inflammation. Battling breast cancer? Consuming soy is associated with prolonged survival. Worried about heart disease (the number 1 killer in the United States)? Switch to a whole-food, plant-based diet, which has been repeatedly shown not just to prevent the disease but often stop it in its tracks.

In addition to showing what to eat to help treat the top fifteen causes of death, How Not to Die includes Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen — a checklist of the twelve foods we should consume every day. Full of practical, actionable advice and surprising, cutting edge nutritional science, these doctor’s orders are just what we need to live longer, healthier lives.

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The PARA Method: Simplify, Organize, and Master Your Digital Life – Tiago Forte

Living a modern life requires juggling a ton of information. But we were never taught how to manage this information effectively so that we can find what we need when we need it. In The PARA Method , Tiago Forte outlines a simple and intuitive four-step system that will help us sort all the information flooding our brains into four major categories—Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives—allowing us to manage our commitments while achieving our goals and dreams.

  • P rojects are specific, short-term efforts that you are actively working on with a certain goal in mind, such as completing a website or renovating your bathroom.
  • A reas are the larger, ongoing areas of responsibility (health, finances, etc.) that encompass those specific projects.
  • R esources include content on a range of topics you’re interested in or that could be useful for your projects and areas.
  • A rchives include anything from the previous three categories that is now inactive, but you want to save for future reference.

With his easy-to-understand and engaging voice, Forte outlines his best practices and tips on how to successfully implement PARA, along with deep dives on everything from how to adopt habits to stay organized to how to use this system to enhance your focus. The PARA Method can be implemented in just seconds but has the power to transform the trajectory of your work and life using the power of digital organization.

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The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder – Robert I. Sutton, Huggy Rao

Every organization is plagued by destructive friction—the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get anything done. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers,” so that teams and organizations don’t squander the zeal, damage the health, and throttle the creativity and productivity of good people—or burn through cash and other precious resources.

Sutton and Rao kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others’ time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, which ranges from reframing friction troubles they can’t fix right now so they feel less threatening to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.

Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).