Books to Watch | September 17, 2019

Each and every week, our marketing team—Marketing Director Blyth Meier (BRM), Digital Marketing Specialist Gabbi Cisneros (GMC), and Editorial Director Dylan Schleicher (DJJS)—highlights the five books being released that we are most excited about.

This week, our choices are:

Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection by Brian Grazer, Simon & Schuster | The job of a movie producer encompasses many disciplines, and Brian Grazer is one of the most successful there’s ever been. Every film is, in a sense, a startup business. Each project requires creative direction, finance and leadership, the hiring and managing of people, sales and marketing. His new book is about how “getting to know one another is almost always the most effective path to getting anything done, both in the near term and the long run.” And being in the business he’s in, he’s gotten to know a lot of really interesting people—from heads of state and business titans, to artists and athletes—which provides great fodder for a storyteller such as himself. The story of Prince regaling him and his daughter with Christian conspiracy theories after finding out he was producing The Da Vinci Code is alone worth the price of admission. (DJJS)

Happiness—Found in Translation: A Glossary of Joy from Around the World by Tim Lomas, illustrated by Anika Huett, TarcherPerigee | A beautiful little coffee table book that features various forms or sources of happiness in multiple languages: Ataraxia (Greek for “Robust and lucid tranquility”). Frisson (French for “A spine-tingling shiver”). Smultronställe (Swedish for “A forest berry patch”). I could imagine this book in the hands of anyone from a greying grandmother feeling wistful to a curious five year old, perhaps a future polyglot, to anyone in between who is searching for new ways and languages in which to think positively. (GMC)

Shuk: From Market to Table, the Heart of Israeli Home Cooking by Einat Admony and Janna Gur, Artisan | Each chapter in the new cookbook from chef/owner of NYC’s Balaboosta, Einot Admony, and Tel Aviv-based food writer Janna Gur could be a stand-alone deep-dive cookbook on a single topic: salads, chickpeas, rice, couscous. Together, they become an immersive journey into Israeli cuisine by way of the infamous shuks (or open-air markets) around the country. Every single recipe of this gorgeous book sets my cooking heart afire: maybe I’ll make Little Herb Omelets for dinner with Lazy Baklava for dessert, or maybe tomorrow’s breakfast is a Tahini, Banana, and Date Shake. I want to cook it all! And until I can book that flight to walk through the shuks myself, my grocery list will be filled with pomegranates, amba powder, silan, dried rosebuds, and all the fresh herbs I can find. (BRM)

Think Black: A Memoir by Clyde W. Ford, Amistad | In the introduction to his new memoir, Clyde Ford likens Thomas J. Watson’s offer of a job to his father—making John Stanley Ford the first black systems engineer at IBM—to Branch Rickey’s signing of Jackie Robinson. Clyde would eventually follow in his father’s footsteps to work at IBM. Ford’s memoir chronicles their different experiences and different reactions to working there. It is a story not only of the technological contributions his father made and the institutional racism he encountered but about the interaction between technology and race in American history. It includes a history of IBM’s highly checkered past in that regard and an explanation of how, despite its promise, “Technological progress is now a significant barrier to progress in race relations” due to the bias embedded in big tech’s algorithms. (DJJS)

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Historical events like World War II and the Civil Rights Movement serve as reminders that humans rarely act before the first bomb has already been dropped (figurative or literal). They also serve as strong reminders that every person plays a part in large-scale change. Jonathan Safran Foer encourages readers to re-evaluate their importance in the world and in the fight to change the fate of the planet. The author effectively uses details of the past to reveal the foreseen future, and he does this in his personable, reasonable, and urgent voice that makes the book so compelling and important. (GMC)

What we're reading away from work:

“I started Jenny Slate's new book Little Weirds....so far it's amazing and oh so weird....I did not think I could love Jenny Slate more than I do now. Definitely a must-read, especially after an intense read.” —Emily Porter, Customer Service Specialist