Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

TALKING TO STRANGERS by Malcolm Gladwell is his latest work and explores “What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know.”  As is his style, Gladwell uses multiple real-life examples to illustrate his points.  Here, he refers to the cases of Brock Turner (convicted Stanford rapist), Amanda Knox, Bernie Madoff, Adolf Hitler, and the perils of community policing which led to Sandra Bland’s death. Gladwell explores the psychology related to the “Stranger Problem” by describing the work of Tim Levine and his commentary on our tendency to “default to truth,” often misunderstanding or “giving the benefit of the doubt,” believing the stranger when we should tend to be more skeptical. While entertaining as always, it was sometimes difficult to reconcile Gladwell’s analysis with racism, sexism and other unconscious biases which may have as much or more impact on our interactions. In The Washington Post, Wray Herbert remarked upon Gladwell’s “impressive range of historical conundrums,” but also noted that he “dances around the topic of torture” and provides an “unconvincing and troubling” analysis regarding Sandra Bland. Gladwell has written numerous best-sellers (The Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink) and TALKING TO STRANGERS garnered much attention. Carol Tavris, writing for the Wall Street Journal, described Gladwell as “an enjoyable raconteur, but a somewhat lazy researcher” so that for this particular book, it’s “often hard to find the chocolate in the trail mix.” TALKING TO STRANGERS did receive a starred review from Kirkus.

Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas

FASHIONOPOLIS by Dana Thomas is subtitled “The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes” and it is clearly a topic of interest to millennials and their younger counterparts in Generation Z. In fact, I have two students who independently chose to explore fast fashion for Junior Theme so far this year. Thomas is a best-selling author and frequent contributor to a number of publications on topics related to style.  In this new non-fiction work, she begins by describing the problem and noting that “in the last twenty years, the volume of clothes Americans throw away has doubled – from 7 million to 14 million tons. That equals 80 pounds per person per year.” Thomas continues, offering numerous examples to illustrate the “creative thievery, indifference to others, corruption [and] pollution” which she argues categorizes the industry. Later in the book, Thomas shares interviews with innovative practitioners and points to more efforts towards sustainability, like exploring the use of organic cotton or more natural dyes.  She also outlines efforts by Amazon (now a major player in retail apparel) to manufacture clothing on demand – after it has been ordered.

Although less practical and action-oriented than The Conscious Closet, FASHIONOPOLIS is an intriguing blend of social issues (working conditions, NAFTA, environmental impact), fashion and technology (robots who sew, new bio-fabrics, and 3D-printing). Thomas has included almost thirty pages of notes, a selected bibliography and a helpful index for researchers. We will be purchasing and pairing FASHIONOPOLIS with other relevant titles like Inconspicuous Consumption or the much older The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy when we make book recommendations on this topic.

 

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?”

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

THE LAST TRUE POETS OF THE SEA by Julia Drake has a beautiful cover, doesn’t it? This young adult novel introduces the story of Sam, who has tried to kill himself, but it focuses primarily on Violet, his sister who feels guilt, remorse, anger. Well actually, she is not sure what she feels or how to react when she is sent to live with her Uncle Toby for the summer in a small, coastal town named Lyric, Maine.  Violet meets new friends (Orion, Liv, Mariah, and Felix) and develops a romantic relationship as she struggles to repair her ties with her brother (under treatment in Vermont) and parents (working in New York City).  Drake explores bisexuality in this coming of age novel that also has an element of suspense and family history due to a long ago shipwreck. I thought that THE LAST TRUE POETS OF THE SEA started well and was quite engaging, but it also slowed a bit in the middle (too much angst over boyfriends and girlfriends?) before resolving many of the issues (“no one thing could fix us, because no one thing was wrong. The fixing would be in keeping going, in trying.”) and chronicling some of the healing. Drake writes beautifully: “I felt the weight of my brother’s sadness in my own chest. He was a jellyfish being asked to float on land.” Loosely evoking Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, THE LAST TRUE POETS OF THE SEA received a number of starred reviews, including ones from Booklist (grades 10+), Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Connection, and School Library Journal (grades 8+).