What We Are Reading Today: First: Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas

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Updated 28 September 2020
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What We Are Reading Today: First: Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas

Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings — doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness.

This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family and believed in serving her country, who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for the women who followed her, according to a review published on goodreads.com.

She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her class at law school in 1952, no firm would even interview her.

She became the first-ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona State Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the Supreme Court, appointed by Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij

Updated 03 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij

Geerat Vermeij wrote this “celebration of shells” to share his enthusiasm for these supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature.

Most popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology.

How are shells built? How do they work? And how did they evolve?

With lucidity and charm, the MacArthur-winning evolutionary biologist reveals how shells give us insights into the lives of animals today and in the distant geological past.


What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 

Updated 02 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 

Author: Gregory S. Paul

The bestselling “Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs” remains the must-have book for anyone who loves dinosaurs, from amateur enthusiasts to professional paleontologists. Now extensively revised and expanded, this dazzlingly illustrated large-format edition features nearly 100 new dinosaur species and hundreds of new and updated illustrations, bringing readers up to the minute on the latest discoveries and research that are radically transforming what we know about dinosaurs and their world.


What We Are Reading Today: The Virtue Proposition by Sig Berg

Updated 01 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Virtue Proposition by Sig Berg

Sig Berg, founder of the Severn Leadership Group, explains what’s missing from traditional leadership, with its emphasis on the rules and rituals of boardrooms and C-suites, and from iconoclastic leadership, which urges you to move fast and break things.

Neither of these embrace virtues, and neither has, nor ever will, deliver consistent superior results.

There is a courageous third way: virtuous leadership.

This book speaks to men and women who witness the absence of virtues and know they can do better, says a review published on goodreads.com.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Stellar English’

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Updated 30 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Stellar English’

Author: FRANK L. CIOFFI

“Stellar English” lays out the fundamentals of effective writing, from word choice and punctuation to parts of speech and common errors.

Frank Cioffi emphasizes how formal written English—though only a sub-dialect of the language—enables writers to reach a wide and heterogenous audience.

Cioffi’s many example sentences illustrating grammatical principles tilt in an otherworldly direction, making up a science fiction story involving alien invasion.

 


What We Are Reading Today: A Deadly Indifference

Updated 29 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: A Deadly Indifference

Author: Marshall Jevons

Harvard professor Henry Spearman—an ingenious amateur sleuth who uses economics to size up every situation—is sent by an American entrepreneur to Cambridge, England.

Spearman’s mission is to scout out the purchase of the most famous house in economic science: Balliol Croft, the former home of Professor Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes’s teacher and the font of modern economic theory.

After a shocking murder, Spearman realizes that his own life is in danger as he finds himself face-to-face with the most diabolical killer in his career.