Book Synopsis: Why do we refresh our wardrobes every year, renovate our kitchens every decade, but never update our beliefs and our views? Why do we laugh at people using computers that are ten years old, but yet still cling to opinions we formed ten years ago?
This book sounds equal parts minimalist and environmentalism. Right up my alley and I’m excited to read it when it publishes on February 2. Also, it’s from the author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.
Book Synopsis: Bill Gates shares what he’s learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions.
I may be in the minority here as I know that he created a monopoly with Windows but I like Bill Gates. I think he and his wife are truly giving back a lot of their wealth and time to try to make things better for people all over the world. In this book, I hope to gain some insight into how he thinks we can beat this thing. It releases, February 16, 2021.
Book synopsis: In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a super coral that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.
Publishing February 9, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote The Sixth Extinction. Even though, I’m not sure I loved that book, it is wildly popular and I heard her speak on Bill Gates podcast, so I want to give this new book a chance.
Book Synopsis: In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
Another book coming out on February 2, this one looks to be a lighter read, but still with an important message. I like lost city stories like Atlantis (I know fictional) and I’m looking forward to see how Annalee helps these cities of the past come alive and tell us the story of why they disappeared.
Book synopsis: Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group’s ringleaders—including Eve, who narrates the story—decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
This one came out last year but still sounds very interesting to me. It’s the only thing on this list that is fiction, but it is a powerful story. The Sierra Club calls this one out as a Must-Read. That’s a strong endorsement.