Readers will remember my recommendation for Paul Gibbon’s book “The Science of Successful Organizational Change” from a previous post. Paul published his list of the best non-fiction books of 2018 in early January, and I believe the list deserves serious consideration for our reading lists this year. I have already read Stephen Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” and I highly recommend it as a thoughtful presentation of constructive data and rationale to combat our overexposure to negative news and our need to work together productively as individuals, communities, and countries. It’s another book that recommends Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”, too; we should all read this latter book to challenge our own ways of thinking.

I note that several of Mr. Pinker’s points match the topics on the other books on Mr. Gibbon’s list (the italics are my comments):

“How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them” – Jason Stanley (fascism is a bit of a trigger word; it’s helpful to translate these triggers into more a pragmatic framework for discussion)

“The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics” – Mark Lilla (it’s important to remember that identity rhetoric constrains the left and middle as well as the right)

“New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyper-connected World – and How to Make it Work for You” – Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms (this will be an interesting look at network power in its various forms)

“Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts” – Annie Duke (more ideas consistent with Kahneman’s theses)

“The Spiritual Atheist” – Nick Jankel (the title seems a bit of a trigger for this book on leadership)

These books are on my reading list (hopefully the library will have e-copies!); I encourage you to try at least 1 yourself.

Text Copyright © 2019 Katrina Rogers