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
Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Historically, women have been defined by their biology, namely their uterus and ability to bear children. Elinor Cleghorn's new book argues for medicine to look beyond biological evidence and communicate with and listen to those who know women’s bodies best: women themselves.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
One of the most overlooked discoveries in all the advancements we've made in understanding how the brain functions in recent decades is that it has its limits. Science journalist Annie Murphy Paul helps us overcome some of those limits by teaching us how our cognition extends into our bodies, our environment, and our relationships with others.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Gillian Tett explains how the tools of anthropology can be used in every aspect of our life and work to better understand what is happening around us and why—and how to make it work better.
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Blog / Staff Picks
An Emotion of Great Delight
Book Review by Lauren Kohlenberg
How do you walk through sorrow so deep that you cannot see past it? How do you find yourself when it feels like the world is standing against you?
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Blog / Staff Picks
Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five sets a healthy example for focusing more on finding strength within oneself to improve the world in the future rather than expending energy on the injustices one has faced in the past.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Secret World of Weather: How to Read Signs in Every Cloud, Breeze, Hill, Street, Plant, Animal, and Dewdrop
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Author and natural navigator Tristan Gooley passes down the wisdom of the weather, decodes the clouds, defines the many shades and densities of fog, and much more in his new book, The Secret World of Weather.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
A wonder-filled survey of the world humans have inhabited and created for ourselves in which many disparate elements of the author’s personal life come together with our collective past and present.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Something as simple as a bakery string tied around the wrist can be the most romantic gesture just as easily as a trip to Ikea can induce someone to consider driving both parties into the East River. Authors and podcast hosts Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink describe both in this ten-year-long love story told from alternating perspectives.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Goodbye, Again: Essays, Reflections, and Illustrations
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Striving for comfort in a culture that encourages him to push himself to exhaustion, Goodbye, Again is a place for Jonny Sun and us readers to process the world.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
When you learn enough about the beasts, you may be surprised to see a part of yourself reflected back.
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