January 16, 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: All In: Cancer, Near Death, New Life by Caitlin Breedlove, AK Press 

It's often said that cancer does not discriminate. But some groups are more likely to suffer from cancer, and some are more likely to die from the disease. And we know classism and racism increase exposure to some carcinogens, including pesticides, corroded public water systems, and workplace toxins.

Diagnosed with a deadly form of ovarian cancer in her 30s, Caitlin Breedlove draws on lessons offered by her political work, early motherhood, and her values in All In: Cancer, Near Death, New Life.

With the lens—and heart—of an organizer, she chronicles harms caused by our profit-driven health care system; explores the rigors of single parenting while living with acute, chronic illness; and reveals her challenges with addiction. And like Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Brightsided) Breedlove calls out the insidious impact of "toxic positivity" on women who live with cancer.

As she shares her individual journey, Breedlove connects it to broader struggles for health and social justice. The result is a intensely powerful narrative, centering experiences elided in other narratives.

Gabbi’s pick: Creative Endurance: 56 Rules for Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Your Goals by Mike Schnaidt, Rockport Publishers 

Are you experiencing creative burnout? Using the effective strategies for creative endurance developed by creative director of Fast Company and accomplished marathon runner Mike Schnaidt, you can remain imaginative and inventive through any tough situation, throughout your life and career. 
 
Featuring inspiring stories from designers, astronauts, illustrators, ultramarathoners, chefs, photographers, and an Olympic Gold medalist, Creative Endurance provides a unique combination of practical advice, in the form of 56 “rules,” alongside inspiring examples to help you overcome creative obstacles and thrive.

• Learn from graphic designer Sagi Haviv, the creator of the US Open logo, as he shares his experience of generating over 6,000 sketches for the iconic design. 
• Join photographer Peter Yang behind the scenes of his most memorable celebrity shoots, including with Barack Obama. 
• Hear from astronaut Jeanette Epps, who went from a Ford Motor Company employee to a member of NASA’s space crew. 
• Get tips from celebrated cookbook author Molly Baz on crafting compelling recipes. 
• Discover the mental preparation strategies of Olympic Gold medalist Billy Demong. 
• Learn expert tactics and advice for maintaining focus and motivation in your career from endurance racing legend Hurley Haywood. 

With lush illustrations across four sections of increasing time increments (Your Day, Your Project, Your Job, and Your Life), Creative Endurance will guide you through the daily grind of work to the big-picture goals of your life. Learn how to overcome obstacles in your daily routine, develop focus and imagination, and establish a sustainable practice. Refine your creative process, pitch ideas to clients, and handle negative feedback and massive projects. Discover practical tactics for hiring, budgeting, and navigating career challenges, along with advice on finding your creative voice and making a lasting impact in your industry.

Each chapter concludes with an interactive and inspiring spread of suggested activities.

Creative Endurance is the ultimate guide to achieving your goals and thriving in your creative career without sacrificing your well-being.

Sally’s pick: The Life Brief: A Playbook for No-Regrets Living by Bonnie Wan, Simon Element 

We all have moments when we doubt the path we’re on. Is this the right career? Am I in the right relationship? Is this as good as it gets? The Life Brief is the practice for answering these uncomfortable questions, and many more: Get Messy, Get Clear, and Get Active. The first phase, Get Messy, is a set of open-ended writing prompts that cut through limiting beliefs and false assumptions about what’s possible. The second phase, Get Clear, offers prompts for finding clarity around what you truly, deeply want. The third phase, Get Active, catapults you into the steps to making those desires a reality. This powerfully adaptive tool has transformed thousands of lives, from refining career paths to repairing relationships, rediscovering passion to cutting through overwhelm.

Dylan’s pick: One Day I'll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America by Benjamin C. Waterhouse, W.W. Norton 

“One day I’ll work for myself.” Perhaps you’ve heard some version of that phrase from friends, colleagues, family members—perhaps you’ve said it yourself. If so, you’re not alone. The spirit of entrepreneurship runs deep in American culture and history, in the films we watch and the books we read, in our political rhetoric, and in the music piping through our speakers.

What makes the dream of self-employment so alluring, so pervasive in today’s world? Benjamin C. Waterhouse offers a provocative argument: the modern cult of the hustle is a direct consequence of economic failures—bad jobs, stagnant wages, and inequality—since the 1970s. With original research, Waterhouse traces a new narrative history of business in America, populated with vivid characters—from the activists, academics, and work-from-home gurus who hailed business ownership as our economic salvation to the upstarts who took the plunge. We meet, among others, a consultant who quits his job and launches a wildly popular beer company, a department store saleswoman who founds a plus-size bra business on the Internet, and an Indian immigrant in Texas who flees the corporate world to open a motel. Some flourish; some squeak by. Some fail.

As Waterhouse shows, the go-it-alone movement that began in the 1970s laid the political and cultural groundwork for today’s gig economy and its ethos: everyone should be their own boss. While some people find success in that world, countless others are left bouncing from gig to gig—exploited, underpaid, or conned by get-rich-quick scams. And our politics doesn’t know how to respond.

Accessible, fast-paced, and eye-opening, One Day I’ll Work for Myself offers a fresh, insightful cultural history of the U.S. economy from the perspective of the people within it, asking urgent questions about why we’re clinging to old strategies for progress—and at what cost. 

WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING AT HOME

"What We Will Become by Mimi Lemay. This memoir tells about the author's child and their gender transition at a young age, and then also about the author's own transition out of Orthodox Judaism and into a more secular lifestyle. The narrative alternates between scenes from Lemay's adolescence and early adulthood, and scenes of her parenthood, her child's behaviors and indicators that point her toward the eventual realization that her child wishes to transition. She does a terrific job connecting these episodes in a way that helps to affirm her own belief (which I share) that it's good to trust our own feelings and impulses about who we are and what we are meant to do."

—Michael Jantz, Logistics Director