Your Ultimate Book Guide to Fresh Takes on Common Things

Learn something new about exercise, drugs, Amazon, cancer and more

One of my favorite types of non-fiction book are those that are able to discuss something that is so typical in our daily lives and spin it on its head to become profoundly interesting. I only recently realized that I had quite the collection of books just like that and thought it would be a unique list to share with you all.

So, this month is full of fresh takes on common things that will stimulate a new perspective on things as banal as toilets, Amazon, and working out. If you have more books like these you think me or your fellow readers should check out, drop them in the comments below.

Happy reading!

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Exercise

Coming in for another recommendation list is Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding (2021) by Daniel Lieberman. This has become one of my most popular books to recommend because of its sheer practicality. Exercise is something that we all should be doing regularly, but why? And what is the best way to approach it? Lieberman expertly reviews the science of our physical evolution and needs to demonstrate why daily, consistent exercise is necessary for our health despite the fact that our ancestors never dedicated time to do so. Because we live such inactive lifestyles in our modern environments, daily dedicated exercise is necessary for most of us to live long, healthy lives.

Toilets

The porcelain throne is largely taken for granted in our modern society, but 60% of the world’s population does not have a toilet in their home or a way to safely dispose of human waste. The toilet plays such an underrated role in our modern society that we often forget just how much our lives would be impacted without it.  In Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet (2021), Chelsea Wald shares everything you didn’t know you needed to know about toilets, waste sanitation, and the research and development that is currently trying to bring toilet solutions to the 4+ billion folks on our planet who need somewhere to poo.

Depression

Mental illness has undergone a PR makeover in recent years, with many wearing their depression and anxiety proudly on their sleeves. It’s no question that depression and anxiety are the most diagnosed psychiatric conditions (for many good and bad reasons), but why are they so common? In Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry (2019), leading evolutionary psychiatrist, Randolph Nesse, presents a provocative thesis for why so many of us experience depression and anxiety. What are these mood states trying to tell us? Are there good reasons for these bad feelings? Understanding why we experiences these moods may be able to help us to overcome them.

Technology

Our social technology has rapidly advanced since the blissful MySpace days of the early 2000s. Today, we have a variety of social apps to connect, create, love, and lament. In Artificial intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers (2021), Rob Brooks, explores the implications of our evolutionary history crossing with a technological future, and what both might mean for each other. As big tech plays and increasingly large role in our social lives, how can we ensure that we use technology in a way that allows intimacy to flourish rather than be owned and controlled by technology?

Cancer

Cancer is an unfortunately common disease in our modern environments, with more than half a million people dying from cancer in the US each year with billions of dollars spent on cancer research trying to find treatments and cures. But what if we’re approaching our battle with cancer wrong? In The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer (2020), Athena Aktipis takes a fresh look at cancer using an evolutionary lens in an effort to better understand why we get cancer, and how we can best live with cancer by controlling its evolution.

Drugs

What if we changed our outlook on drug use from a negative substance to be controlled to a recreational substance to enhance our life experience? Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear (2021) by Carl Hart explores this possibility by arguing that drug use should be looked at from the perspective of enhancing our happiness. It should be our personal liberty to take drugs if we wish, especially so by responsible adults. Drugs are made infinitely worse by their criminalization and the myriad negative environments that are created by doing so. Hart presents a brave argument for a radical shift in how we perceive, regulate, and use drugs.

Education Technology

EdTech has been booming since the start of the pandemic and the large shift to online-enabled learning. But what if the fancy EdTech of today is just more of the same EdTech that has been around for a century? In Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education (2020), Justin Reich shows how all EdTech largely fits into the same few functional categories as it always has, and also argues that technology alone won’t lead to some enormous shift in education, as is always promised. Although we are undergoing a technological transformation in education, pedagogy and teachers still matter, and are what will ultimately make the biggest impact on education moving forward.

Amazon

Amazon has become so central in the ecommerce era that it’s hard to imagine its absence. With same day or next day delivery common for most items if you live in a major city, it’s frustrating to order from anywhere else and having to wait days or weeks for your order. But how did Amazon go from selling books to being one of the most successful companies of all time? In Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon (2021), Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, two former Amazon execs, spill all the secrets of how Amazon runs as a business. There are a lot of practical insights in this book, from how to run productive meetings (which includes banning powerpoints), interviewing and hiring the best candidates, and structuring teams.

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