February 25, 2025

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.)

Here are our choices:

Dylan’s pick: The Habitation Society: Creating Sustainable Prosperity by Fred Block, Agenda Publishing

In The Habitation Society, leading economic and political sociologist Fred Block argues that we are at a time of “blocked transition” from one mode of economic and social organization to another. We now have a habitation economy because most people work at creating, maintaining or improving the soft and hard infrastructure of the communities in which we live. The problem, however, is that we do not yet have a habitation society since our economy continues to be organized through the structures, institutions and concepts of an industrial economy. While the old industrial economy is dying, the new habitation society cannot yet be born.

But it is more than this, our methods for understanding how the economy works are also built around the analysis of industrial production, which are completely inadequate, Block shows, for grasping the new reality of how we buy and consume services in the habitation economy. In the absence of concepts to make sense of what is happening, the political space becomes filled with conspiracy theories and disinformation. Specifically, it has become extremely difficult for people to understand their own relationship to the larger economy and society, in particular, there is no longer an obvious relationship between the amount or intensity of work effort and economic output.

Fred Block’s compelling analysis offers a path through this confusion and a means to understand our transition and what form this will take. He examines the economy as it actually exists in the present and maps out what would make that economy work more effectively in the hope that this will empower individuals to recognize the kinds of changes that could be made to improve things for themselves, their families and their communities.

Sally’s pick: How to Stop Trying: An Overachiever’s Guide to Self-Acceptance, Letting Go, and Other Impossible Things by Kate Williams, Flatiron Books

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m trying to make it work,” and thought, “That sounds like a great idea”? Probably not. Because the thing about trying is that it’s tiring; it’s labor. Anyone who has tried to have fun or to relax or to fall asleep knows this to be true.

And yet: we exist within a culture that encourages us—often with a frantic urgency—to try, and try harder. We are told to try a different approach, try to do or be better, try to squeeze in a little bit more. This is especially true of women, who not only have to try harder than men to receive access to the same opportunities and resources, but who are also conditioned to try in the name of meeting others' needs and expectations, often at the expense of their own well-being.

In this galvanizing and illuminating read, Kate tackles hustle culture head-on, exploring the ways in which women are primed to become relentless strivers. From the workplace to motherhood, from relationships to “self-care”—no arena of a woman’s life is safe from the pressure to exceed expectations. This conflation of self-worth with achievement, she argues, is both toxic and counterproductive, as the qualities we most seek—happiness, meaning, purpose—are not earned but rather owned.

Known for her astute cultural analysis and pitch-perfect observations of generational trends, Williams takes readers on a journey rooted in her own struggle to divest from an overachieving identity, including the realizations that came in the wake of a painful fertility challenge. Deeply felt, passionately argued, and often laugh-out-loud funny, this is a book for every woman who has ever wondered what would happen if she stopped trying so hard—and just let go.

Gabbi’s pick: The Narrative Brain: The Stories Our Neurons Tell by Fritz Alwin Breithaupt, Yale University Press

As humans, we think in stories—stories that allow us to feel and share emotions. In order for this phenomenon to work, our brains and the ways in which we tell stories must be attuned to each other. But how exactly does this happen?

Tapping into the essence of thinking in stories, Fritz Breithaupt draws on the latest scientific research, including a retelling study (comparable to the telephone game) with more than 12,000 participants, and experiments in which ChatGPT functions as storyteller. This wide-ranging study includes analyses of political history, novels, fairy tales, and everyday office gossip; proposes a new theory of narrative that focuses on emotions and affects; and hypothesizes on the evolution of narratives among our hominid ancestors. Redefining us as beings who anchor ourselves in the world through narratives, Breithaupt introduces a new kind of psychology that cuts to the core of how and why humans feel the need to tell stories.

Jasmine’s pick: Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work by Shari Dunn, Harper Business

The advancement of Black and other people of color in the workplace is under attack as there is a turn away from the promise of the "racial reconciliation" of 2020. This period saw Black talent rise in the workplace from DEI managers to CEOs to junior-level hires. Yet, the post-2020 workplace is seeing an alarming retreat from creating workplaces and leadership that reflect the nation’s diversity.

That retreat is characterized by underemployment, cracked glass cliffs, toxic work environments, and claims of “empty pipelines.” More concerning, Black professionals and other people of color often face greater scrutiny than their peers regarding job applications, work experience, and qualifications to even be considered for employment or advancement. And that scrutiny has a name: Competency Checking.

When it comes to hiring Black talent, the pipeline isn’t broken; rather, it is the assumptions we make about who is competent and qualified. In Qualified, award-winning executive and journalist Shari Dunn combines deep research with enlightening interviews and anecdotes from across the broad spectrum of her career to uncover the history of Competency Checking, how it manifests in the workplace, and what can be done to change it. Competency checking, Dunn argues, continues to be practiced consciously and unconsciously and is the key reason why Black people and other people of color are underrepresented in so many industries and why there continues to be a revolving door of Black talent even after the hiring surges of 2020.