Showing results by publisher "Instaread" in All Categories

Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government offers a critique of conventional wisdom surrounding popular theories of democracy. Authors Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that the public, journalists, and political scientists rely on a group of common-sense understandings of democracy. The authors collectively refer to these beliefs as the "folk theory" of democracy.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a legal memoir by Bryan Stevenson. It is set in the 1980s and early 1990s and follows Stevenson's legal career as an advocate for Alabama prisoners who have been condemned to death, especially prisoners who have been wrongly condemned and unjustly treated by the legal system. Stevenson focuses on the case of Walter McMillian, a black man who was falsely convicted of the murder of Ronda Morrison and placed on death row.

Beginning in the 17th century, institutions emerged in colonial America that contributed to the creation of a racial caste system. America's current racial caste system builds upon the legacy of both chattel slavery that existed in the United States prior to the Civil War and on the system of Jim Crow laws that designated African Americans to second-class citizenship in many parts of the American South prior to the civil rights movement.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2011) is a book about human motivations. Many of the prevailing ideas about why humans make decisions and operate the way they do aren't true or, at least, they are incomplete. Businesses, schools, and organizations are stuck in outdated, unexamined beliefs about human motivation. These beliefs are rooted in the idea of extrinsic motivation - that people make decisions based on external rewards and punishments.

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict, Second Edition, is an expanded version, including additional appendices, of a successful 2006 publication by the Arbinger Institute. The book, which uses fictional characters to illustrate its points, details strategies for defusing political, personal, and business conflicts. It argues that conflict must be approached with a heart at peace rather than a heart at war. Before people can change another's behavior, they must rid themselves of hatred and self-deception.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is the story of a Russian aristocrat-turned-waiter who lives 32 years of his life under house arrest at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. Set in post-revolutionary Russia, the novel follows its protagonist, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, as he develops new friendships, family, and loves, all while confined within the walls of the Metropol.

How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success is a book of parenting advice. The author, Julie Lythcott-Haims, is a former freshman dean at Stanford University and the mother of two teenagers....

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek advocates for a leadership style that focuses on serving others rather than pursuing shareholder goals or personal interests. Modern trends in leadership prioritize profits and executive bonuses over creating a healthy environment for employees. Leaders who think of themselves as serving their employees like family can increase job satisfaction and engagement, which reduces stress and increases productivity because employees feel secure.

Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman whose cervical cancer cells became one of the most important factors in bringing about important scientific and medical advancements in the 20th century. Her family, however, did not know that researchers were using Henrietta's cells in their experiments until much later. When the family learned the truth, they endured turmoil and heartache in the decades that followed.

An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Matthew Miller, Andy Fleming, and Deborah Helsing is an academic description of unconventional employee management systems implemented by three example businesses. Cinema chain ArcLight Cinemas, investment firm Bridgewater Associates, and corporate rewards company Next Jump each exemplify the deliberately developmental organization, or DDO.

This is a summary and analysis of the book in which Bessel van der Kolk, MD, explores the ways in which trauma rewires the brain and changes the way people experience the world. Trauma affects the mind and body immensely and prevents those affected from living in the present. Van der Kolk, who has researched trauma since the 1970s, first became interested in trauma after meeting with Vietnam veterans who had a very hard time living their lives after returning from the war.

The Whole-Brain Child offers recommendations for a whole-brain approach to parenting. This approach emphasizes the importance of integrating the four quadrants of a child's brain, whether in challenging or joyous moments. Geared toward the brain development of children from birth to age 12, the whole-brain approach includes 12 parenting strategies based on current brain research, as well as a concise breakdown that describes how to apply these strategies at different ages and stages.

A group of old school friends meet to catch up. They end up discussing the unexpected, unforeseen changes to their lives, and one friend offers to tell a story about adapting to change. The story he tells involves four characters, two mice named Sniff and Scurry, and two "Littlepeople" named Hem and Haw. All of them are in a maze, looking for cheese, which they need to survive. For the "Littlepeople", cheese also has a larger, metaphysical connotation in the sense that it also makes them happy - their Cheese is thus spelled with a capital C....

In The God Delusion, philosopher Richard Dawkins evaluates popular arguments for the existence of God. The idea that God is not an object that can be accessed and reviewed using human reason is rejected. Instead, evidence that proves with at least 51 percent certainty is presented to prove that God does, in fact, not exist, casting reasonable doubt on the efficacy and usefulness of belief in God.

Robert B. Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion examines the compliance methods by which marketers, salespeople, and others, such as cult leaders, pressure people into doing things they would not otherwise do. There are six basic compliance tools: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Listeners can learn specific techniques to resist each.

The Obesity Code addresses the history, causes, and treatments of obesity and today's rising obesity rates. By understanding it through scientific and social study, obesity becomes less of a blanket term for metabolic complications and a more tangible problem with real, though not widely practiced, solutions.

There is no such thing as a natural prodigy. Even children who display seemingly advanced abilities owe their skills to many hours of practice and effort. Mozart, for example, the quintessential child prodigy, was likely the product of a very early, immersive education in music as prescribed by his father, who was also a musician. This type of purposeful effort aimed at developing expert ability is called "deliberate practice."

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson explores several crucial years in Berlin through the eyes of the US ambassador and his family. Their experiences serve as both a cautionary tale about the insidiousness of evil and a harbinger of the hard realization that the rest of America was forced to make in a few short years.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Afghan American novelist Nadia Hashimi tells an intergenerational story of two Afghan women whose lives are different but connected. Rahima, a teenage girl, lives in 21st-century Afghanistan. In the wake of Taliban rule, Afghanistan's government is divided and the culture is fractured. Shekiba, Rahima's great-great-grandmother, lives in early 20th-century Afghanistan, under a monarchy.

In 1904 Tomás Lobo, a young man who has lost his father, lover, and son in the span of one week, sets out on a journey from Lisbon to Northeast Portugal in an automobile - one of the first of its time. Tomás is an assistant curator intent on finding an iconoclastic relic he learned about in the journal of a 17th-century priest involved in the slave trade in Portuguese Angola....