Society has forgotten how to have disagreeable conversations, with social media (especially Twitter) fueling this problem over the past decade-plus. One of the many important principles for regaining this ability is by learning how to do disarmingly. Enter Bo Seo, a Harvard-educated, two-time world debating champion and coach. His book provides a blueprint for courteously and creatively expressing your viewpoints. The foundation of Seo’s philosophy on debating, and something that’s present with any good communication, is listening. And, yes, this can even help with the trolls. ESPECIALLY the trolls.

In a world that’s more digitized by the day, some may scoff at the notion expressed in David Sax’s title. But with a pandemic’s worth of humans-staring-at-screens experimentation to draw from, David has more than enough evidence to prove his point. Whether you’re talking about school, work, concerts, festivals, church service, city life, and pretty much every other aspect of our existence…we’re mostly better off in-person. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. And that means looking less at our computers, phones, and televisions in embracing the idea of being present with one another.

When Sesame Street asks for your help, you say ‘yes’. Even if they’re asking you to adapt the popular US children’s show for Russian television, shortly after the fall of the USSR. This was the assignment Natasha Lance Rogoff accepted in 1992. In the years that followed, she and her team overcame mobsters, sausage kings, political killings, military office raids, and cultural creative differences to produce and air Ulitza Sezam for the first time in the fall of 1996, in primetime on Russia’s top two TV stations. This book tells that tale, which coincided with an unexpected love connection.

Pigeons can detect breast cancer that our machines don’t. Crows hold funeral-like rituals for their dead. Elephants get drunk and run amok. And cuttlefish will deceive potential mates for the sake of sex. The jig is up for us humans…we aren’t more intelligent than other animals. We simply express our intelligence differently. Justin Gregg’s sharp book highlights examples of other species matching, or even exceeding, our smarts. And he points out a unique nefariousness in human intellect that’s often destructive to other people, living organisms, and even the planet at large.

Best Book exercise history book that reads like “the da vinci code”

It started innocently enough…Bill Hayes’ curiosity about exercise–his own preferences, the activities of others, and the evolution and origins of modern physical fitness–led to him being shown a book called De arte gymnastica (The Art of Gymnastics) by Girolamo Mercuriale. The book and author were foreign to Bill, as was the language it was written in 1573. What followed is an adventure that takes Bill and the reader around the globe in gaining an understanding of one of an early influence on exercise ideology and his own workout proclivities. Not to mention Bill running buck naked in the country in homage to our fit forefathers.

Brian Cox has wowed audiences for 60 years on stage and screen, including roles in the latter as Hannibal Lector, Winston Churshill, and (currently) Logan Roy in Succession. But where did this drive and acting ability come from? Scotland, where he tragically lost his father at a young age and received his first taste of acting by avoiding a potential school yard fight. Brian recounts those days, the evolution of his career in the United States, and even offers philosophical musings on life, death, and the numerous questions that come between.

John Gleeson provides a firsthand account of how the feds finally caught up to John Gotti. How firsthand? He served as lead prosecutor in the 1992 federal trial that ultimately sent Gotti to jail for life, after being found guilty of multiple murders, racketeering, and more. Gleeson, who also assisted prosecution in an earlier federal trial involving similar charges, shares his detailed perspective from both cases. This includes learning that the first jury was bought and paid for, and the most damning element for Gotti the second time around–how Sammy “The Bull” Gravano flipped to help the prosecution. 

Michael Mann’s vision for the story told in the 1995 crime thriller, Heat, didn’t begin or end with the classic film. Based loosely on a real life cop and robber, Mann wrote the first script in 1979, which fueled a tv-pilot-turned-tv-movie in 1989.  That story turned to gold soon after, with a film that stands the test of time decades later, including an ensemble cast, and Pacino/De Niro sharing a scene for the first time in their careers. Heat 2 takes place before AND after those tense moments in LA. Meg Gardiner joined the podcast to discuss the process of partnering with Mann to continue a story that pays proper tribute while telling its own story.

The key to this book cover isn’t a title that will leave our most sensitive souls aghast. It’s the illustration. The girl standing over cartoon Bryan on a stack of books is his young daughter. “Don’t Be a Feminist” is a love letter to her, the title writing from a series of essays, in which the George Mason economist examines a slew of topics from a statistical perspective. The title essay doesn’t discourage a desire to see equal rights among sexes. Rather, it tests the histrionic way in which feminism is often framed. His evidence suggest that ‘equality’ is subjective to time, place, and even sex. But not always in the ways we may assume. 

China’s influence over Hollywood and pillaging of its intellectual property has been evident since American films re-entered that market in the mid-1990s. Because the major studios saw the revenue potential of Chinese audiences, they played along. But at some point, the US film business no longer had the choice of whether to kowtow–their present and future were tied to the Middle Kingdom. Casting decisions, scenes, even entire plot lines were made with the beliefs and input of the Chinese government in mind. Erich Schwartzel provides a superb account of how Hollywood was (and is) coerced and exploited by China.