New Releases for the Week of September 9
Featuring a new book from photographer Sally Mann, a business biography on Patagonia, and two psychology-based approaches to navigating and changing the world around us.
We believe in books, and we believe that a great book can shape the way we work, think, and live. Take a look at our picks below and see what speaks to you!
The Porchlight staff members choosing books each week include Porchlight's Managing Director, Sally Haldorson, and the marketing team of Gabriella Cisneros and Dylan Schleicher. As expert booksellers, we browse publisher catalogs and explore new titles from across the book industry to discover what captures our interest, and we're excited to share our findings with readers like you.
Unless otherwise noted, all book descriptions are provided by their respective publishers.
Our Recommended Books This Week
Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann, published by Abrams Press
Art Work, by photographer and writer Sally Mann, offers a spellbinding mix of wild and illuminating stories, practical (and some impractical) advice, and life lessons.
Written in the same direct, fearless, and occasionally outrageous tone of her bestselling memoir, Hold Still, this new book reaffirms Mann as a unique and resonant voice for our times and is destined to become a classic.
Illustrated throughout with photographs, journal entries, and letters that bring immediacy and poignancy to the narrative, Art Work is full of thought-provoking insights about the hazards of early promise; the unpredictable role of luck; the value of work, work, work, and more hard work; the challenges of rejection and distraction; the importance of risk-taking; and the rewards of knowing why and when you say yes.
In sparkling prose and thoughtfully juxtaposed visuals and ephemera, Art Work is a generous, provocative, and compulsively readable exploration of creativity by one of our most original thinkers.
Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away by David Gelles, published by Simon & Schuster
This is the inside story of one of the most extraordinary brands in the corporate world, the rare company that is driven by environmental activism instead of cutthroat capitalism. Founded in 1973, Patagonia has grown into a wildly popular producer of jackets, hats, and fleece vests, with a cultlike following among hardcore alpinists and Wall Street traders alike, posting sales of more than $1 billion a year.
But it's not just the clothes that make Patagonia unique. For decades, the company has distinguished itself as a singular beacon for socially responsible business, the rare company that can legitimately claim to be doing its damnedest to make the world a better place, while also making a profit. From its early efforts to take exemplary care of its employees, to its extensive work trying to clean up its supply chain, to its controversial activism, Patagonia has set itself apart from its peers with one unorthodox decision after another, proving that there is another way to do capitalism.
At the heart of the story is Patagonia's founder, the legendary rock climber Yvon Chouinard. A perennial outsider who forged one of the most impressive resumes in the outdoor world, Chouinard also established himself as a pivotal figure in the history of American business. Guided by his anti-authoritarian streak and his unwavering commitment to preserving the natural world, Patagonia came to exert a powerful influence on other companies, paving the way for a new era of social and environmental responsibility. He started out as a dirtbag--a term affectionately bestowed on poor, itinerant outdoorsmen so uninterested in material possessions they are happy to sleep in the dirt--and he became a billionaire.
Chouinard also proved that there was another way to be a philanthropist. In the twilight of his career, he gave away Patagonia, renouncing his wealth and committing all its future profits to fighting the climate crisis.
Drawing on exclusive access to Chouinard and the Patagonia team, Dirtbag Billionaire offers new insights into the key moments that informed their priorities, shaped the company, and sent ripples across the corporate world.
Play the Game. Change the Game. Leave the Game.: Pathways to Black Empowerment, Prosperity, and Joy by Robert Livingston, published by Crown Currency
It's time to face an inconvenient truth: our current approach to fighting racism is just not working. For a brief moment following the murder of George Floyd, it seemed as though the country had finally acknowledged the destructive legacy of slavery and White supremacy, and had committed to putting things right. Now, a horde of prominent voices--many of whom professed to be antiracist allies--are pulling back, cutting support, and defunding programs that sought to level the playing field.
Harvard psychologist Robert Livingston contends that racism operates like an addiction for so many White people: hard to admit, and even harder to quit. Given their unwillingness to kick the habit, where does this leave Black people? In this provocative book, Livingston has flipped the script, asking: How can Black people attain prosperity and peace of mind despite the enduring presence of racism? Livingston reveals three paths:
- Play the game, or find ways to work within mainstream, predominantly White systems without sacrificing your identity or dignity. Think of Kenneth Chenault, a "tempered radical" who rose through the ranks to become the first Black CEO of American Express.
- Change the game, or challenge the status quo in an effort to upend White supremacy--like Colin Kaepernick, whose idealism cost him his football career but made him an icon.
- Leave the game, or turn away from White environments to carve out spaces where Black people can flourish--from HBCUs to entrepreneurship to the creation of ethnic enclaves, like the all-Black, middle-class neighborhood where Livingston himself grew up.
Trick of the Mind: How the Brain Invents Your Reality by Daniel Yon, published by Grand Central Publishing
How does your brain decide what it's seeing, from the physical world to other people? For decades, scientists have tried to understand how our brains work, not realizing that the answer lies much closer to home. New research in neuroscience and psychology suggests that the brain is doing the same thing that the scientists are: using past experiences to build theories of how the world works, and using these models to predict and make sense of it. Through this process, your brain constructs the reality that you live in.
Daniel Yon takes the research one step further, uncovering how your brain colors your perception of the world, the judgements you make about other people, and the beliefs you form about yourself. These mental processes help us navigate the world--but can also lead us astray, causing us to believe outlandish conspiracy theories or to see things that aren't really there. By understanding the ways each of our brains construct our realities, we can better engage with other communities and make more informed approaches about mental illness. With cutting-edge research and transformative practical applications, A Trick of the Mind will revolutionize the way you think.
