My Most Recent Reads - May, 2015

May was a strong month for reading for me.  A lot of that credit goes to listening to audiobooks when working out--whether riding or running.  And man, this month's reads were amazing.  I'm recommending 3 here but in truth, most of them were excellent reads that I would encourage you to check out.  And you can always see what I've rated them by clicking over to my GoodReads bookshelf.  But I nailed 19 books this month and am feeling ready for a lighter reading month as I go into PhD program next week.  


Charity Case: How the Nonprofit Community Can Stand Up for Itself and Really Change the World by Dan Pallotta

Charity Case - Dan Pallotta bookcover
Pallotta's book is essential for anyone working in the nonprofit sector.  He turns long-held beliefs and prejudices about how nonprofits should function and turns them on their heads.  For a sneak preview, definitely check out his Ted Talk on charity work.  Essentially, he explores issues the dreaded term, "overhead" and why there is a framing battle that nonprofits are losing (emphasizing that by using the term "nonprofit" and the ways that is understood).  Pallotta points out that we lock nonprofits into situations in which they become limited to scale and make the impact that we hope they want to.  However, Pallotta also shows a variety of ways that the system can be fixed.


Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age by Cory Doctorow

Information Doesnt Want to Be Free - Cory Doctorow book cover
Doctorow lays out a very good discussion and exploration into the realm of copyright and the problems it presents in the modern age.  Doctorow's approach is philosophically interested in that he explains that the systems created by publishers, record producers and others have made it extreme hard for people to actually own things to the degree that they can do anything they want with them.  He calls for reform of copyright law, emphasizing that the failure to do so is likely to increase theft and resistance since companies often are limiting the individual's ability to do things with their supposedly own property.  All of this has significant implications as we move into a future of driverless cars, embedded wearable tech, and increased automation.


The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell

The Knowledge - Lewis Dartnell book cover
This is likely a book that will be exciting to the survivalist in all of us.  But rather than a traditional book on how to survive in the wild, Dartnell provides a great guide to understanding our past civilization with all of its amazing breakthroughs by guiding readers through what one would need to recreate the modern world if there were every an end-of-civilization event.  Beyond how to find food, Dartnell delves into chemistry, medicine, physics, agriculture, and other sciences and branches of knowledge to capture the most salient ideas needed for recreating the modern world. 



Here 2015's reading reflections thus far:
BOOKS
  • They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff 

AUDIOBOOKS
  • The End of College by Kevin Carey
  • Simpler: The Future of Government by Cass Sunstein
  • The Hole in the Top of the World by Fay Weldon
  • The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch by Jonathan Gottschall
  • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford.
  • Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News by A. Brad Schwartz
  • Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
  • Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
  • Horror Genre Secrets For Screenwriters: Your Next Scary Movie Made Scarier by Anthony Metivier
  • Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age by Cory Doctorow
  • Guns by Stephen King
  • The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
  • How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
  • Charity Case: How the Nonprofit Community Can Stand Up for Itself and Really Change the World by Dan Pallotta
  • Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
  • The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell

GRAPHIC NOVELS
  • Fables, Vol. 21: Happily Ever After by Bill Willingham
  • The Walking Dead, Vol. 23: Whispers Into Screams by Robert Kirkman
  • Birthright, Vol 1: Homecoming by Joshua Williamson

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