March 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:

Sally’s pick: Connection: The Easiest Solution to the World's Greatest Problem by Rabbi Asher Gottesman, Rise Books 

Rabbi Asher Gottesman grew up surrounded by a family who loved him, a strong and loving Jewish community, and people who showed him that faith was everywhere. But as a young addict, Asher found that the more isolated he became, the easier it was to ignore the communities and connection around him. After recovering from his own addictions, Asher began to rebuild the connections around him - with his family, through his recovery community, and ultimately, with himself. And what he discovered was that connection is the most important tool we have against addiction, depression, and the terrifying feeling that we are all alone. 
 
Connection: The Easiest Solution to the World's Greatest Problem is a series of 36 conversations on the ways we can all reconnect--through what we believe, what we do, what we say, and what we embody. As a leader in the recovery movement, and with deep connections within the Jewish community, Rabbi Asher Gottesman has over 12k followers on social media and connections throughout business, film/TV, politics, and more. He has learned the hard way what disconnection feels like and what it can lead to - and has discovered through the power of connection, a world of healing, recovery, and hope. 
 
Connection explores how disconnection creeps in unnoticed, whether from early family dynamics or later social interactions and offers a hopeful message: reconnection is possible. With practical steps and a focus on grace and forgiveness, it guides readers on a journey to combat loneliness and rebuild a fulfilling life. Drawing on the author's experiences as a Jewish rabbi and addict in recovery, the book blends spiritual and secular wisdom to help everyone—regardless of faith or background—forge meaningful connections. 
 
Through this powerful book, readers will discover how to love yourself, embrace your life, and realize your powerful role in connecting everything and everyone. 

Dylan’s pick: Embracing Uncertainty: How writers, musicians and artists thrive in an unpredictable world by Margaret Heffernan, Policy Press 

Most people hate and fear uncertainty. It causes such stress and anxiety that we often choose certain surrender over doubt, becoming passive, dependent, addicted—and more anxious than ever. Doubling down on the certainties promised by technology and micro-management only makes things worse, leaving no opportunity for innovation, adaptation or invention. 

Artists live with uncertainty constantly—but instead of waiting for the future, they run towards making it, with agency and freedom. What can we learn from them, about facing into a future that grows more uncertain daily? 

At a time when organizations of all kinds crave innovation but complain their people lack creativity and initiative, the arts have never been so essential to our future. We may not all be artists, but we can learn to think like them. 

Margaret Heffernan makes a compelling argument for the vital integration of art into all aspects of our lives and for artists to guide us with their stamina, freedom and endurance. 

Gabbi’s pick: Healing the Modern Brain: Nine Tenets to Build Mental Fitness and Revitalize Your Mind by Drew Ramsey, M.D., Harper 

The human brain—the complex organ responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and actions—has long been misunderstood. Dr. Drew Ramsey argues that to heal our brains, we must start considering conditions like depression, anxiety, ADHD and addiction—and the patients living with them—more holistically. 

Healing the Modern Brain offers a new approach to revitalizing and protecting mental health and achieving Mental Fitness. Simply defined, Mental Fitness is the knowledge, patterns, habits, and skills that culminate in a more mentally healthy life: an approach to living that takes into consideration the unrealistic demands of modern living, time, choice, genetics, lifestyle, diet, habits, chemistry, movement, rest, and mindset. It is a process that will put your brain in a perpetual state of self-repair and evolution, and ensure it has the support it needs to overcome daily stress, decision-fatigue, and uncertainty. 

Clear and straightforward, Healing the Modern Brain provides the knowledge and tools needed to nurture Mental Fitness—bringing together the latest scientific research with results from Dr. Ramsey’s clinical practice to show us how we can put ourselves on the road to healing anxiety and depression, and better care for our miraculous, modern brains. 

Jasmine’s pick: Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives by Patricia Grabarek and Katina Sawyer, Wiley 

Through a straightforward, science-based approach, Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives explains the steps to become a Generator—the type of leader who people want to work for and organizations want to hire—by leading in a way that fosters trust and positive connections with employees. This book is based on two in-depth studies conducted by the authors, where they found that the keys to employee satisfaction, wellbeing, retention, and productivity were found in the behavior of leaders and the environment those leaders cultivated. 

Written by experienced industrial/organizational psychologists Dr. Patricia Grabarek and Dr. Katina Sawyer and packed with real-life stories to add context, this book explores topics including: 

• Addressing the mismatch in the definition of wellness between employees and employers 
• Focusing on the tone leaders set at work, as opposed to time they spend at work 
• Crafting work to support life, instead of the other way around, to support and respond to employees' unique needs. 

At a time when employee morale has never been lower, Leading for Wellness is an essential read for current and aspiring business leaders and managers seeking exclusive data-based insights on how to solve one of the most pressing problems in business today.