August 20, 2024

Finding the right book at the right time can transform your life or your organization. We help you discover your next great read by showcasing four recently released titles each week.

The books are chosen by Porchlight's Managing Director, Sally Haldorson, and the marketing team: Dylan Schleicher, Gabbi Cisneros, and Jasmine Gonzalez. (Book descriptions are provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted.)

This week, our choices are:

Jasmine’s pick: Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship and a Scientist’s Journey into the Secret World of Cows by Gregory Berns, Harper Horizon

When Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns and his wife decided to venture into sustainable farming in rural Georgia, they knew that cows were a key part of a successful operation. But that was where his knowledge of cattle ended.

As Berns and his small herd of three miniature zebus acclimated to each other and Berns received a crash course in being a cattleman, he turned his powers of scientific observation and innovation on his new charges. This wasn’t the first time he’d studied animals through the lens of neuroscience; years earlier, Berns had applied his knowledge to man’s best friend, resulting in two books and important advances in how we understand dogs’ thoughts and emotions. Now it was time to see what he—and all of us—could discover about the interior worlds of cows.

In this moving and captivating memoir, Berns weaves together his hands-on experiences with his growing herd, accessible scientific explanations of animal behavior, and evocative portraits of the animals at the center of his study: the original bull, Ricky Bobby; the two mamas, Lucy and Ethel; and their sweet and spirited calves: BB, Cricket, Princess Xena, Luna, Walker, and Texas Ranger.

Whether cows are a familiar part of your experience or you’re a city dweller longing for life in the country, Cowpuppy offers a deeper understanding of these complex creatures and what we humans can learn from them.

Gabbi’s pick: Loving Corrections by adrienne marie brown, AK Press

Ethical, pondering, and wondrous, adrienne maree brown’s Loving Corrections is a collection of love-based adjustments and reframes to grow our movements for liberation while navigating a society deeply fractured by greed, racism, and war. In this landmark book, brown invigorates her influential writing on belonging and accountability into the framework of “loving corrections”: a generative space where rehearsals for the revolution become the everyday norm in relating to one another.

Filled with practical wisdom on how to be a trustworthy communicator while providing bold visions for a shared future, Loving Corrections can speak to everyone caught in the crossroads of our political challenges and potential. No matter how new to the struggle, or how numerous our failures, brown’s indispensable writing is an invitation to us all.

Sally’s pick: Smart Rivals: How Innovative Companies Play Games That Tech Giants Can't Win by Feng Zhu and Bonnie Yining Cao, Harvard Business Review Press

Companies are fighting the wrong battle. The consensus has been to learn the best practices from tech giants and then imitate them. But new paths for growth aren't created by imitation; they're forged by radical differentiation.

In Smart Rivals, Harvard Business School professor Feng Zhu and former Bloomberg journalist Bonnie Yining Cao show business leaders how to create competitive advantages by offering product features and benefits that tech giants and other competitors cannot match in the digital/AI age.

Taking readers on a global journey, Zhu and Cao showcase a variety of companies—including Domino's, Nike, and Sephora—and fascinating case studies, such as Belle, the leading women's footwear retailer in China; EbonyLife, Nigeria's top media conglomerate; and Telepass, Italy's popular electronic toll payment service. Through these diverse examples, they illustrate how companies identify their path for growth in the digital age by leveraging their unique capabilities.

Drawing on original research and insights gleaned from leaders in a wide range of industries, Smart Rivals is a blueprint for uncovering your company's hidden strengths. It will help you spark innovative solutions and capabilities—including new products, services, strategies, and advantages—that mere imitation could never provide.

Dylan’s pick: The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play by Frank Andre Guridy, Basic Books

Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more.

In this book, historian Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. From the beginning, stadiums were political, as elites turned games into celebrations of war, banned women from the press box, and enforced racial segregation. By the 1920s, they also became important sites of protest as activists increasingly occupied the stadium floor to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and more. Following the rise of the corporatized stadium in the 1990s, this complex history was largely forgotten. But today’s athlete-activists, like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, belong to a powerful tradition in which the stadium is as much an arena of protest as a palace of pleasure.