Staff Picks Book Reviews
Porchlight is a company filled with voracious readers—talented, creative individuals who know books, and who excel at moving them. Whenever we can, we like to do that by telling you about the books we’re reading.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light in the Deep Sea
Book Review by Emily Porter
In her new memoir, renowned marine biologist and oceanographer Edith Widder, PH. D, known for her research on bioluminescence, shares the experiences she had that lead her to become one of the leading scientists in her field.
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Blog / Staff Picks
A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
A thoughtful memoir from filmmaker Rodrigo García is about processing and learning how to deal with the fame, aging, and death of his father, Gabriel García Márquez.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Finding Your Treasure: Our Family's Mission to Recycle, Reuse, and Give Back Everything--And How You Can Too
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Angel Williams is committed to sharing wealth with others by donating useful items, living a more sustainable life, and inspiring others to join her in this journey.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Essential Kerner Commission Report
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Jelani Cobb reintroduces us to a neglected report commissioned by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s about unrest in American cities—and issues of economic inequality, race, and policing that created them—that is both sadly relevant and illuminating to us today.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Dr. Gwen Adshead offers an honest and profound look at what it takes to unpack violence in individual situations rather than from statistics, and how the work she puts into it teaches her about her own mind and emotions too.
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Blog / Staff Picks
New Women in the Old West : From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American Story
Book Review by Emily Porter
Winifred Gallagher paints a picture of a hostile migration landscape with women—settlers who were White, Black and Asian—coming into their own, laying down the foundation for equal rights for generations to come—while uprooting the lives of Native Americans and Hispanic peoples.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Cult of We: Wework, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell ask if WeWork was "an outlier, or was it simply the most vivid example of a cultural rot that had formed within twenty-first-century entrepreneurial and investment culture?"
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Blog / Staff Picks
Becoming Heroines: Unleashing Our Power for Revolution and Rebirth
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin has effectively compiled her experience as CEO of Gaia Project Consulting, LLC, with personal traumas and accomplishments throughout her life, crafting a book that perfectly balances vulnerability and instruction.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Comfort of Monsters
Book Review by Emily Porter
Richards writes a beautiful ballad to the missing and to those who survive, trying to pick up the pieces without knowing what that means. The pages illustrate the world of those who survive and the many missing faces of those who disappear.
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Blog / Staff Picks
All the Lonely People
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
All the Lonely People is a heartfelt story of human friendship that will make any reader feel a little more hopeful about our divided society.
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