Books to Watch | September 10, 2019

Each and every week, our marketing team—Marketing Director Blyth Meier (BRM), Digital Marketing Specialist Gabbi Cisneros (GMC), and Editorial Director Dylan Schleicher (DJJS)—highlights the five books being released that we are most excited about.

This week, our choices are:

The Delicious Book of Dhal: Comforting Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes Made with Lentils, Peas and Beans by Nitisha Patel, Ryland Peters & Small | Here in the Midwest, flannel sheet season is drawing near so I’m stockpiling comfort food recipes like a squirrel with her acorns. I can already tell UK-based chef Nitisha Patel’s instantly accessible primer on dhal (a.k.a. dal or daal) will be my go-to cookbook for the fall and winter. What I love about dhal—and this book—is the endless flexibility. Spicy or soothing, thin soup or hearty stew, served with basmati rice or hearty whole grains, dhal has it all. Patel’s recipes, broken down by dhal type, are budget-friendly, earth-friendly, and health-friendly. If you don’t know what to make tonight, put on a pot of dhal. As for me, if I squint I can see a steaming bowl of Yogurty Moong Dal in my snow-covered future.  (BRM)

The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World: The Twin Towers, Windows on the World, and the Rebirth of New York by Tom Roston, Abrams Press | The name of the restaurant was Windows on the World. “‘I’m never going to leave this place,’ Paulo Villela, a captain and sommelier, would say to his friends on staff. Villela had studied agricultural engineering in his native Brazil but had moved to America in 1983 because his son, Bernardo, had a rare metabolic disease that required care he could only find in the United States.” Those words touched me for so many reasons when I read them this week. Windows on the World was possibly the worst place to be on September 11, 2001—on the very top floors of the World Trade Center, above where the first plane hit. Before that day, it was the epitome of the American Dream, not just because it was the nation’s highest grossing restaurant and offered views of the world’s most famous skyline, but because of the living it offered immigrants from over two dozen countries. Waiter Mohammad Quddus tells Roston that “Windows on the World was a dream … We were a family from so many countries.” That is the American dream, and the real windows on the world were the human beings who worked there, seventy-three of whom perished that morning 18 years ago. (DJJS)

Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David A. Sinclair & Matthew D. LaPlante, Atria | Maybe the unstoppable universality of death scares you away from thinking about it further. Maybe you think that diet and exercise is the best we can do (Those are good but there’s more!). The aging process is persistent but what about the limit? This book is dense, but the information is fascinating and understandable for almost anyone. Learn about the disease of aging and how it’s stalled via genetic manipulation, psychology, cold temperatures, and more. This book looks at what’s possible now and what may be possible in the next forty years. The methods for elongating our lives are far from science fiction, and Lifespan gives us a glimpse at the exciting possibilities for more youthful futures. (GMC) 

Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-Luck Jay by Julie Zickefoose, HMH | For nature-lovers, birders, and those who care about caring: Saving Jemima is a diary-like journey of a woman who stops at nothing to save a wild blue jay. The book features plenty of full color photos to immerse you in their story, and it could serve as a manual for everything from recognizing bird illnesses to recognizing the line between lovING and letting go. “Saving Jemima gave me a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt since Liam was born” writes Zickefoose. The author’s enthusiasm for the blue jay translates into an excitement for life that could empower you to search for the pursuits that you, too, could write a book about. (GMC)

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age by Brad Smith & Carol Ann Browne, Penguin Press | “Civilization has always run on data.” Those are the opening lines of Microsoft president Brad Smith’s new book, which examines the promise and problems that come with the new technology that his company is at the center of. Rather than rose-tinting or shirking the responsibility for the changes and challenges that come with progressing technology he helps usher into the world, his new book takes it all head-on, tackling thorny questions about the future of “our jobs, our security, and the world’s most fundamental human rights.” It is, in the end, a call to preserve the very democratic freedoms and values that allowed such innovation in the first place—a reminder that information technology has always shaped the societies that create them, and that we have the power collectively to shape that impact. (DJJS)

What we're reading away from work:

“I’m currently re-listening to Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in preparation for reading his new book, How to Be an Antiracist.” —Aaron Schleicher, Sales & Author Services Director