Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wood AND Embrace Your Weird by Day

GOOD HABITS, BAD HABITS by Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California, Wendy Wood is all about “The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.” Wood divides her work into three parts (How We Really Are, The Three Bases of Habit Formation, and Special Cases, Big Opportunities and the World Around Us). She writes in an accessible manner, opening with an anecdote about a cousin trying to lose weight, and then explains some of the obstacles to success, including the idea that “we act out of habit [approximately forty percent of the time] without having to make a decision to do so.” The second part of Wood’s text, which deals with context, repetition and reward, is really quite informative. For example, Wood discusses the decline in smoking in America, noting that knowledge of the dangers and willpower (desire to quit) were often not enough until regulations and environment (e.g., limited advertising, fewer vending machines and more non-smoking areas) became prevalent. However, I think I like best her short “useful story” at the book’s end which is titled “How to Stop Looking at your Phone So Often” – it provides a wonderful application of her ideas and was recently highlighted in The Los Angeles Times’ review of this book. Wood also includes extensive notes, a lengthy bibliography and an index, all of which may interest our Psych student researchers. GOOD HABITS, BAD HABITS received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was named one of “10 books to read in October” by The Washington Post.

EMBRACE YOUR WEIRD by professional actress Felicia Day was actually recommended recently by another member of the Library staff. In this “part guided journal, part workbook” Day encourages her readers to “Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity.”  Early on, she encourages readers to write “I am the greatest thing since Swiss cheese” over and over and to REALLY believe it.  She encourages her readers to let go of self-consciousness by keeping the process of working through the book private – and offers a quick exercise about adjectives and dancing to explain why. I think that Psych classes and advisories will find this book amusing and quirky, but also perceptive and helpful. There could be some really great prompts for journaling and introspection. Potentially, Creative Writers classes could also have fun and learn to “loosen-up” with this text. Day writes humorously and yet offers some serious suggestions to unlock our weird, creative voices, “combining the inventory we already have in our brains in new and interesting ways.” There is an entire chapter called Playtime! And another labeled Quests; as Day says, “What do you have to lose?”

More Business-related books ...

I am including reviews on several books related to business here:  

CREATING THINGS THAT MATTER by David Edwards focuses on innovations that last. In particular, Edwards discusses the value of interdisciplinary work, stressing the need to perceive art and science as one.  Of course, this is critical for any environment that we create for our students and one with which the district is continually grappling.  In the second part of his text, Edwards explains three elements of the Creator’s Cycle: Ideation, Experimentation, and Exhibition.  As teachers, I believe that we encourage the first two, but are less than successful at creating authentic audiences for student work AND for our own educator ideas and piloted lesson plans. Edwards spends the third part of this text reviewing the Grassroots Creator Movement (GCM) and includes several diagrams illustrating the emotions and actions involved. Both business students and educators will be interested in Edwards’ writing on creativity (one of the 4 c’s of 21st century learning with critical thinking, communication, and collaboration); they may also be intrigued by his thoughts on other “c’s:” challenges, curiosity, community, and cultural/commercial contrast. For an additional text on human-centered design, consider The Fuzzy and the Techie (2017) by Stanford-educated venture capitalist Scott Hartley which is also in our collection.

 

THE PAN-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION by Richard D’Aveni is subtitled “How New Manufacturing Titans Will Transform the World.” D’Aveni is a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and he makes a thorough examination of history (beginning with early 1980s experiments) and growth of 3D Printing, now called additive manufacturing (AM).  Building on his extremely popular Harvard Business Review article on this topic, D’Aveni explores subtopics like machine wars, platform wars, and branding strategies for AM. While a key part of his audience will be manufacturers and business managers who are interested in this industry, our Business students will find aspects of this text and its future orientation to be valuable, too. For example, I can readily see a teacher assigning Chapter 12 (“The Path to Tomorrow”) which provides useful overview of the four phases of adoption for this technology.  He contends that much of AM currently lies in the “early adoption” phase and is very positive about growth through mainstream and ubiquitous adoption with diagrams interspersed throughout the text. D’Aveni also provides several pages of sources and a helpful index. Kirkus gave THE PAN-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION a starred review and called it “essential business reading.”

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

JANE, UNLIMITED by Kristin Cashore was a book that I eagerly anticipated because I know how much I – and students – have liked her writing, particularly Graceling. And I found the first two-thirds or so of JANE, UNLIMITED to be a fun, engaging read. Jane, just out of high school and looking for a life direction, is mourning the aunt who raised her and is creating one-of-a-kind umbrella works of art when she is invited to Tu Reviens, the family home of a very well off acquaintance.  She visits, remembering her promise to Aunt Magnolia to go there, if anyone ever asks. And then the strange behaviors start: disappearing works of art; spies and espionage; magical realism as the house seems to have powers of its own.  While I liked the mystery element, there is a significant shift in the story and Jane starts repeating her day, depending on the choices she makes (kind of a choose-your-own adventure feature ultimately across five genres) with the events becoming more weird, horrific, and unreal.   

Honestly, these multiple realities felt like more of an interesting writing challenge for the author than an entertaining story for the reader. At over 450 pages, this book may appeal to ambitious readers, but I wonder if most students will be patient enough to keep struggling with Jane through all of the strange events.  JANE, UNLIMITED received a starred review from School Library Journal.  

A year or so ago, I had some very positive comments about Jessica Cluess’ A Shadow Bright and Burning and I am happy to see that a second book in the series, A POISON DARK AND DROWNING, was recently released. This one, too, is filled with magic, romance, secrets and monsters! And isn’t the cover absolutely beautiful?  Read both of Cluess' books, in order. Then you will be ready for the third!  Yes, these titles also appear long, but the lexile levels are low (670) and both middle school and reluctant high school readers will enjoy the page-turning fantasy adventures of Henrietta (Nettie), her dear friend Rook, flirtatious Magnus, and the Earl of Sorrow-Fell.  Author Jessica Cluess is a graduate of Northwestern University and I love that she has worked for Writopia Lab – here’s hoping that we can get a representative to consider attending our annual Literary Festival held every Fall.