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
Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Girly Drinks by Mallory O’Meara is enlightening and encouraging of inclusivity for drinking cultures across the world.
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Blog / Staff Picks
When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky
Book Review by Emily Porter
When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky is a noteworthy story about the souls of animals, friendships that surprise us, and spirits that linger behind on stolen land.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
The story Michael Dell tells of taking his billion dollar company private is the recurring one in his new book. But the reasons for why he did it run through the entire backstory of his life, which he also shares, bouncing back and forth between the two in every other chapter, delivering a quick and compelling read.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
Sofija Stefanovic has brought people together to hear immigrants’ stories at Joe’s Pub in New York City four times a year since 2017, and when the pandemic put a pause on live shows, she adapted thirty-six of her favorites into a book.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth
Book Review by Emily Porter
Patrick Nunn packs many different stories of the submerged—some familiar, others mostly unknown—into this engrossing book of the lands, memories, and people who once were lost to the depths of the oceans.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Right Within: How to Heal from Racial Trauma in the Workplace
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
While workplaces are still struggling to figure out how to incorporate and support diversity, Harts has advice for those who are figuring out how to cope with racial trauma inside and outside of work.
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Blog / Staff Picks
How to Be Sad: Everything I've Learned About Getting Happier by Being Sad
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Happiness is, to some extent, a choice we get to make. Sadness is not. But it can be instructive in both our private and public lives. It should be a catalyst for change, but only if we get comfortable feeling and experiencing it openly and fully. Helen Russell offers us a good guide.
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Hunt for Mount Everest
Book Review by Gabbi Cisneros
This year marked the 100th anniversary of the first expedition that found a successful route to the base of Mount Everest, and this release is a timely, well-researched book that recounts the Westerners’ 70 year quest to climbing the world’s highest mountain.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Fire & Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System
Book Review by Emily Porter
If you’re interested in recapturing some of that fascination you had if you ever made a volcano in school, or were even just intrigued when you saw the experiment on screen (and who hasn’t) take a journey uncovering the universe's volcanoes, hot and cold, in this interesting read by Natalie Starkey.
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Blog / Staff Picks
My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Indra Nooyi did not set out to write a memoir, but it is one of the best we've read from a CEO. Grounded in her life's experience, it also transcends the story of her life alone and explains how we can create a larger culture of care for everyone.
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