What I’ve Been Reading

This book, written by a physicist, a philosopher and a psychologist/lawyer  is basically about how to apply the “thinking tools” used by experts in these disciplines to everyday life and decision making. It’s about managing information overwhelm, and learning how to think.  The book developed from a UC Berkeley course called “Big Ideas” that taught […]

This book is about how we easily we become habituated to our surroundings, and how this can be problematic for many reasons (although it’s also practical in some ways). We can habituate to good things, and then reduce our appreciation of them. We can also habituate to bad things, and then become less motivated to

John Gottman is a very well known researcher in the field mental health and relationships. Julie, his wife, is an award winning psychologist. Together, they founded the Gottman Institute, which includes the “Love Lab” in which they have observed over 3,000 couples interact, especially when in conflict. Their analysis of these couples’ behaviours has enabled

I honestly cannot say enough about this book.  This book is ESSENTIAL reading for anyone working in the conflict space. There is a lot of current interest in topics like trauma-informed practice, neurodiversity, difficult people, high conflict personalities and mental health.  This book cuts through the often misguided popular culture and easy fixes and gets

Brian Grazer is an American film and television producer, who founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 with Ron Howard.  While you may think him an usual candidate for authoring a book about curiosity, it turns out he is perfect for this task.  For the past 35 years, Grazer has been sitting down and having ‘curiosity conversations’

This book focuses on the importance of curiosity in business, for transformational leadership, and for personal growth. Hamilton asks: How do we recognize the things that hold us back from exploring our curiosity? How do we maintain and develop our natural sense of curiosity? How do we keep our spotlight bright and ready for deployment?

This book is in three parts: the first part covers how curiosity works, the second the curiosity divide, and the third staying curious.  Leslie argues that curiosity is one of the most important attributes required for our complex and unpredictable world. However, he explains that, “our ideas about how curiosity works are muddled and misguided”. 

Mario Livio is an astrophysicist curious about science and art… and curiosity itself! In this book he explores the questions What is it that triggers curiosity? and What are the underlying mechanisms of curiosity and exploration? This is a well-researched and easy to read book about curiosity. I found it fascinating and it left me

I absolutely loved this book! It is full of useful information, easy and often entertaining to read, and has very practical activities to enhance our curiosity. The title comes from a quote attributed to Rumi: “What you seek is with you.” The first part of the book explores the role of curiosity, the difference between

I was excited about this new book, but have to say that I ended up underwhelmed by it. In essence, the book argues that the concept of “flow” might be too high a bar for most people to aspire to in their daily life, and rather that reaching our “optimal zone” is more useful. The