Here is The Friday List! Every week, new books are arriving at RLB Library and to keep you up-to-date on what has come in, we’ll be posting the most recent 30 days of arrivals every Friday. The link below will take you to a catalog listing so that you can explore and find titles that interest you. Be sure to check back regularly to see what else has arrived!
THE FRIDAY LIST
If you want some ideas on what to read, here are some highlights:
Fire weather : a true story from a hotter world, John Vaillant, 2023
A stunning, panoramic exploration of the symbiotic relationship between humans and combustion and why we are entering a new century of fire. In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta–the seat of the Canadian oil industry, from which the U.S. derives almost half its oil imports–burned to the ground. The unprecedented disaster forced 88,000 people from their homes and showed us what the fires of the future look like: increasingly destructive, already here. While the chemistry and physics of wildfires remain unchanged over the last century and a half, climate change has created conditions that give fire exponentially more opportunity to burn. And yet there is no other natural force or element over which we have such a compelling illusion of control. Fire yearns, above all, for freedom, and takes at any opportunity and at any cost. In our unchecked consumption of fossil fuels, it has enabled the same impulses in us. In masterly prose and cinematic style, John Vaillant weaves together an enthralling, multifaceted story of how Fort McMurray revealed a new normal of fires burning longer and with greater intensity than at any other time this planet has ever known. From the large-scale histories of North American resource extraction and climate science, to the intimate tales of lives scarred by the Fort McMurray disaster, Valliant’s urgent work is a book for–and from–our new century of fire.
How psychologists failed : we neglected the poor and minorities, favored the rich and privileged, and got science wrong, Fathali M Moghaddam, 2023
This book explains what has gone wrong in psychology, and what steps need to be taken for psychology to become a constructive global force”– Provided by publisher.”Psychology is a discipline with global influence, but continues to neglect disadvantaged minorities and continues to adopt an incorrect model of science. This volume explains what has gone wrong, and what steps should be taken for psychology to become a constructive international force. Historically, psychologists have focused only on causal explanations of behavior, neglecting normatively regulated behavior and intentionality. By giving greater importance to context and collective processes, moving from ‘societies to cells,’ psychologists can better understand and explain individual behavior. Poverty is an extremely powerful context that shapes cognitions and actions, with destructive consequences for disadvantaged individuals. The advocation of ‘be happy psychology’ and ‘resilience’ as solutions to problems faced by the disadvantaged leads to entrenched group-based inequalities, with the poor stuck at the bottom. Moving forwards, this volume proposes that psychologists should focus on normative systems to ultimately foster a more balanced field of study for the future.
The perennials : the megatrends creating a postgenerational society, Mauro F Guillén, 2023
In today’s world, the acceleration of megatrends–increasing longevity and the explosion of technology among many others–are transforming life as we now know it. In The Perennials, bestselling author of 2030 Mauro Guillén unpacks a sweeping societal shift triggered by demographic and technological transformation. Guillén argues that outmoded terms like Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have long been used to pigeonhole us into rigid categories and life stages, artificially preventing people from reaching their full potential. A new postgenerational workforce known as “perennials”–individuals who are not pitted against each other either by their age or experience–makes it possible to liberate scores of people from the constraints of the sequential model of life and level the playing field so that everyone has a chance at living a rewarding life. Guillén unveils how this generational revolution will impact young people just entering the workforce as well as those who are living and working longer. This multigenerational revolution is already happening and Mauro Guillén identifies the specific cultural, organizational and policy changes that need to be made in order to switch to a new template and usher in a new era of innovation powered by the perennials.
The civil rights road to deeper learning : five essentials for equity, Kia Darling-Hammond and Linda Darling-Hammond, 2022
This concise and compelling book outlines the key civil rights conditions that are essential to deeper learning–the skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in 21st-century jobs and life. It describes schools that enable young people, including those traditionally furthest from opportunity, to develop into caring and critical problem solvers, effective communicators, collaborators, and scholars. The book also describes the community and school inequities that have created persistent obstacles to these goals and the civil rights actions that have been and continue to be needed to remove them.