Nonfiction4Life

Nonfiction4Life

By Janet Perry: podcaster, blogger, nonfiction book loverSociety & CultureArtsBooksRelationships
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Nonfiction4Life episodes

  • N4L 095: "Whole" by T. Colin Campbell, PhD with Howard Jacobson, PhD

     SUMMARY

    Together, T. Colin Campbell and Howard Jacobson have written the book Whole to revolutionize the way we think about food. Jacobson’s early Amazon review of The China Study put him in contact with the author Dr. T. Colin Campbell. Now, years later, the two have collaborated to write Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition. Although the book is a second plea to get us to fundamentally change our approach to eating by adopting a whole foods plant-based (WFPB) diet, Whole is not a diet book. Instead, it’s organized to convince both the lay reader and the most serious student of nutritional science that our bodies are designed to thrive when we eat real food found in nature. 

    KEY POINTS

    • “Reductionism” – looking at science in bits and pieces instead of at the whole picture
    • Individuals and entities with a huge stake in the food industry feel threatened by the scientific findings gathered in the book.
    • Campbell is touted as a visionary while also being vilified, including efforts by his employer Cornell University to block him from teaching certain classes.
    • The whole species hangs in the balance because of the food we eat. 
    • The ideal human diet can be summarized in 66 words.
    • Some foods considered “unhealthy” can still be called “safe”; others are not even considered safe.
    • Our bodies are equipped to absorb from foods what we need in the moment. Like catching a ball, our bodies just know what to do with real food without thinking about it.
    • “Lifestyle medicine” recently became a board-certified sub-specialty of primary care.

    QUOTES FROM JACOBSON

    • “The reason that Whole needs to exist is because of the resistance to this movement [to eat a WFPB diet].”
    • “Our system is set up to provide profit to for-profit corporations, and everyone else in society has allowed them to dictate.”
    • “Every other animal on the planet that feeds itself…[is] not reading books on nutrition. They are not walking around with calculators. They are simply eating what they enjoy eating and what’s available in the quantities available to them…We humans evolved [that way, too].”
    • “Our bodies can interact with a peach, and they know what to do with the peach.”
    • “We will never have enough information to know it all, and we don’t need it…Just eat foods in accordance with nature and our nature, and we will most likely be lean and healthy.”
    • “If human beings needed to combine foods in order to live, we’d all be dead!”


    BUY Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

    RECOMMENDATION
    BUY Forks Over Knives (DVD)

    Connect with Dr. Howard Jacobson at Well Start Health, his online lifestyle medicine program to help people change their health destiny.

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    37 min
  • N4L 094: "Elderhood" by Louise Aronson

    SUMMARY

    Harvard-trained geriatrician and award-winning author Louis Aronson introduces a revolutionary perspective on growing old in her book, “ELDERHOOD: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life.” Sharing stories from her personal and professional life, and drawing from history, Aronson offers clarity and understanding about “elderhood,” the third and final stage of life after childhood and adulthood and a period that can span up to 40 years or more. With new insights into aging, medicine, and humanity itself, Aronson teaches us how to reframe these later decades so we can better prepare for and thrive during our final years.

    KEY POINTS

    • Everyone approaches the topic of aging with some degree of negativity, illustrated by Berkeley professor Guy Micco.
    • “Old” and “elder” have identical denotations but very different connotations.
    • Elderhood has multiple stages, so we need to adopt clearer nomenclature, such as “senior,” “old,” “elderly,” and “aged.”
    • Health and function and how we engage with life can best define our age.
    • Good caregivers connect with older people the way those in a good marriage would: they let the older person speak for him/herself; the two look at each other; they laugh with each other.
    • Just as we learn to take care of children, we need to become comfortable taking care of people in the last stage of life.
    • Choosing to not dye gray hair is one way to let go of internalized ageism.
    • Data shows that becoming socially isolated is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day your whole life.
    • A Harvard longitudinal study on happiness shows that happy adults accept changes and adapt as they go, resulting in optimism and good health.
    • Making friends and creating new relationships makes for happier adults.
    • The number one fear adults have is getting cancer; the second is getting dementia.
    • Exercise is the best way to prevent or delay dementia.

    QUOTES FROM ARONSON

    • “In medicine, we spend most of most days really dealing with some pretty intense things that fill us with emotions and feelings and thoughts and experiences that are the stuff of literature.”
    • “Elderhood, or the specter of being seen old by others...pretty much starts somewhere between 60 and 70 for most people…but if you’re in Silicon Valley, and if you’re over age 30 or 35, you’re already old.”
    • “People start getting happy in their late 50s, and their happiest time of life…is, hands down, the 60s and 70s.”
    • “When asked the recipe for a good old age, I often give a list: good genes, good luck, enough money, and one good kid, usually a daughter.”
    • “A majority of the most powerful people in politics and many other industries are people in their 60s and early 70s.”
    • “We have created a society where we do everything possible to stay alive yet dread being old.”

    BUY Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

    RECOMMENDATION

    Listen to this TEDTalk of a mother and son’s tender photographic journey through dementia.

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    39 min
  • N4L 093: "J. C. Penney" by David Delbert Kruger

    SUMMARY

    David Delbert Kruger, Agricultural Research & Instruction Librarian at the University of Wyoming, captures the life of entrepreneur and retail giant in his biography of J. C. Penney: The Man, The Store, and American Agriculture. Kruger illuminates this entrepreneur’s humble beginnings as a poor farm boy, an identity he never lost, and traces the story of his creating and sharing wealth. From his humble rural upbringing not only did he start JCPenney, the first nationwide department store chain, but he also improved cattle breeding and farms all throughout America. In spite of many setbacks, J. C. Penney was able to live an enthusiastic, largely successful life for the better part of a hundred years.

    KEY POINTS

    • The Golden Rule, a principle he increasingly embraced over time, served as J. C. Penney’s “North Star” to the very end of his life.
    • In his early years, when he was required to earn money to buy his own clothes, his father taught him to never put people before profits.
    • Christian business principles soaked in deep, becoming official company policy.
    • His honest way of dealing with people and helping them make money spanned to communities, suppliers, and even competitors.
    • Penney’s heart was always in farming but didn’t feel cut out for it, mostly because of his poor health. Instead, he became the means of generating wealth for rural America.
    • Breeding Guernsey cows was his response to the grossly inferior American livestock holding back families from having a better life. Furthermore, having a cow on a farm gave farmers potential year-round income, minimizing risk for the rural family.
    • Integrity and efficiency were hallmarks of both his retail and agricultural projects.
    • Penney had the ability to dive deep into and operate several operations concurrently.
    • After a close scrape with debilitating deep depression, Penney had a miraculous healing experience and renewed faith in God, which painted his life forever after.
    • Penney balanced great generosity with a fierce belief in self-sufficiency, never missing a chance to help someone willing to help himself.
    • Giving gratuities seemed patronizing to J. C. Penney.
    • His humility was evident in the way he forged relationships with the common worker, mentored young boys, and took public transportation.
    • Free-market capitalism can elevate others and leave the world better than you found it.

    QUOTES FROM KRUGER

    • “The world isn’t simply about you making money; it’s about other people.”
    • “He felt if he could offer honest value to…customers, [they] would trust you and…would come back.”
    • “Mr. Penney was very much about partnerships—mutually beneficial partnerships that weren’t one-sided. It gave people the opportunity to move up through the business that he had created and to share in its success rather than just simply being an employee.”
    • “Not all his endeavors were designed to make a profit; they were designed to have a positive impact.”
    • “On the surface, some people thought he was less than benevolent because he didn’t believe in blanket charity.”
    • “You can be a good man or a good woman and still ‘finish first.’ You don’t have to compromise your principles in order to be successful.”


    BUY J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture by David Delbert Kruger

    RECOMMENDATION

    Read “The Cowboy Capitalist,” a book review of Kruger’s biography in The Wall Street Journal.

    DEDICATION 

    To Ken Woolley, Janet's brother-in-law who has many striking similarities to J. C. Penney.

    If you don’t have time to watch or listen to the entire talk but would like to get a sense of who Ken Woolley is, start at 11:30.

    Utah State Dean's Convocation Speech by Ken Woolley

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    42 min
  • N4L 092: "Growing Up Country" by Carol Bodensteiner

    SUMMARY

    Business writer turned memoirist, Carol Bodensteiner felt compelled by her mother’s insistence to gather childhood stories, which she compiled in Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl. Each story stands alone, depicting Bodenstein’s happy childhood on a small, family-owned dairy farm in the late 1950s. Her stories help us step back in time, giving us a slice of history and portraying a time of innocence as Bodensteiner experiences farm life between ages ten to twelve. For her, growing up country meant working hard and eating off the land while finding adventures in her own backyard.

    KEY POINTS

    • Along with cows, animals of all kinds—cats, dogs, geese, and pigs—are important characters on a predominantly dairy farm.
    • A rooster who attacked Bodensteiner’s little sister Sue is eaten for dinner.
    • Growing up country includes fried chicken for Sunday dinner, a widespread tradition among farm families.
    • Lunch is a meal served several times a day, both between meals and for guests before they went home. Lunch also provides an opportunity for farm workers to rest a bit.
    • Sunday visiting is customary for people who work the other six days of the week.
    • Bodensteiner cannot recall a time when she did not work on the farm, at first alongside her parents, until she becomes a productive member of the farm.
    • These stories capture a way of life disappearing from the American landscape.

    QUOTES FROM BODENSTEINER

    • “If you grew up on a farm, this [book] will be a trip down memory lane. If you didn’t grow up on a farm, this is a trip into what may seem like foreign territory, but you’re going to enjoy it so much!”
    • “Animals were our livelihood—and the food on our table.”
    • “When you went to someone’s house or they came to your house, you were going to get food. It was just part of the deal…. It was part of the [farm] hospitality.”
    • “Dinner is at noon; supper is at night. It’s a very important distinction that has been lost in modern society.”
    • “Church in our neighborhood, regardless of what religion you were…when Sunday came around, you went to church…. It was part of life.”
    • “Age ten was a rite of passage [because] we got to start carrying milk.”
    • “Dad and Mom involved us kids in everything. If they were outside doing something, we were out there doing it with them. Until a certain age, kids really want to be around our parents, and to be around our parents was to be doing work.”
    • “Kids develop resiliency by being in situations where they have to figure things out. They have to face challenges and overcome and develop that confidence. If kids live in a bubble, I don’t know how they develop that.”
    • “Kids growing up on farms today don’t have the same experience…that insulated family-unit life a small community because now we have media 24/7…. We’re surrounded by contact with the world, and we weren’t then.”

    RECOMMENDATION

    “One of the most brutally revealing records of an America that was ignored by society—a class of people whose level of poverty left them as spiritually, mentally, and physically worn as the land on which they toiled. Time has done nothing to decrease this book’s power.” —Library Journal

    BUY "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families" by Walker Evans and James Agee 

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    42 min
  • N4L 091: "Never Binge Again" by Dr. Glenn Livingston

    SUMMARY

    A formerly food-obsessed psychologist, Dr. Glenn Livingston delivers his free book, Never Binge Again: Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. (Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice). Borne out of his own disillusionment with traditional psychological approaches to overweight and/or food-obsessed individuals, the book cracks the code on binge eating. Contrary to the popular thought that focuses on healing and self-love, Livingston proposes a different approach. After spending several decades researching the nature of bingeing and overeating and self-funding a research program with more than 40,000 participants, Livingston has finally found a way to help us cage the “food monster.” Most importantly, his own personal journey out of obesity and food prison has led him to a normal, healthy weight and a much more lighthearted relationship with food.

    KEY POINTS

    • “Exercise bulimia” = purging by working out really hard
    • Everyone could blame bingeing on some trouble or life trauma.
    • Find the voice of justification, and disempower it.
    • Control of the middle-brain impulses; take charge and assert superiority.
    • “Pig” = reptilian brain; “pig slop” = unhealthy food; “pig squeals” = powerful arguments filled with persuasive lies to get us to overeat
    • Your personal food plan should include when you eat foods: never, always, conditional, and sometimes.
    • Written laws make it possible for people to get along in society. Similarly, we need to write our “laws” for interacting with food.
    • Like an archer aiming for a bullseye, we need to commit to a specific target before eating.
    • Dependency on others to police our eating doesn’t work and leads to failed diets.
    • The deprivation trap: what don’t and do get by not eating certain foods
    • Taking control and deciding the kind of person we want to be is at the center of our personalized food plan.
    • This approach to eating is a codification of common sense.

    QUOTES FROM LIVINGSTON

    • “I figured there must be a hole in my heart, and if I could figure out how to fill the hole in my heart, then I could figure out how to fill the hole in my stomach.”
    • “I went about trying to love myself thin.”
    • “Ask yourself, ‘Do you eat beyond your own best judgment, and would you like to take control over that?’”
    • “Ambiguity is the Pig’s best friend.”
    • “Commit with perfection, and forgive yourself with dignity.”
    • “The way to get started with this is to think about the single worst trigger-food behavior that dogs you, and then make one rule.”

    Get a free copy of Never Binge Again along with starter templates for developing food plans and recorded coaching sessions, OR go to Amazon to buy a print copy by clicking the link below:


    BUY Never Binge Again: Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice!

    RECOMMENDATION


    BUY Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World


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    40 min
  • N4L 090: "Teach Your Children Well" by Dr. Madeline Levine

     SUMMARY

    Psychologist Madeline Levine, in her latest book, Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or “Fat Envelopes,” remains a staunch opponent of hyper-parenting. Sadly, while rates of mental illness escalate among kids and teens, parents continue to insert themselves into their children’s levels of performance. Levine, speaking on behalf of children debilitated by such behaviors, urges parents to stop. Just stop! Instead, backed by mounds of data and 30 years of clinical experience, Levine insists parents let kids explore and help them develop a genuine sense of purpose and well-being. Above all, parents need to express confidence and joy in their child’s unique abilities.

    KEY POINTS

    • Parents who smooth the path to college send a vote of “no confidence” to their kids.
    • Research shows that top-level universities only significantly benefit under-resourced students and first-generation immigrants.
    • Consider reframing intelligence by asking in what way a child is smart.
    • Pay attention to strengths rather than to relative weaknesses.
    • Schools send strong messages about what’s important by what they show off in their entries.
    • In hiring today, knowing content has gone to the bottom of the list. What matters now is working in a group, being creative, connecting the dots, being extremely curious, and evaluating content.
    • Parents need to have the good sense to set boundaries, expectations, and demands.
    • A dearth of collective community activities is creating a lonely landscape for parenting.
    • Work ameliorates boredom while also giving a child a sense of worth. Set an expectation for contribution.

    QUOTES FROM LEVINE

    • “We are spending way too much time worried about our children's performance and grades--their heads--and not nearly enough time paying attention to their hearts.”
    • “The skill set is changing. It’s not just knowing the right answer; it’s also being able to ask the right question.”
    • “The best thing you can do is cultivate your child’s particular talents.”
    • “We learn more than we fail than when we succeed.”
    • “The implicit value of attending a certain school is no longer a consideration as it once was historically.”
    • “Having an involved father is a strong predictor of a child's eventual level of empathy. Optimally, this involvement should begin when children are starting elementary school.”
    • “After 30 years of counseling, I believe most parents know in their gut when something is wrong with their kid.”
    • “What will make you feel you did your [parenting] job right is having a kind, empathic, creative, interested, curious, open-minded kid. And the rest of it is kind of window dressing.”


    BUY Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or "Fat Envelopes"

    Click here to request your copy of the Challenge Success white paper. Get even more articles supporting Dr. Levine’s ideas in Teach Your Children Well.

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    42 min
  • N4L 089: "1001 Ways to Engage Employees" by Bob Nelson, PhD

    SUMMARY

    Dr. Bob Nelson (AKA “The Guru of Thank You”) shares his third book, 1001 Ways to Engage Employees. Although Gallup originated employee engagement identifiers, Nelson bases his findings on research from HR Solutions conducted among 6 million employees. Now, having sold 5 million books on management, Nelson boasts working with 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and presenting on six continents. As the leading authority on employee recognition, he’s gathered the ten top drivers of employee engagement and hundreds of anecdotes to illustrate how to “Help People Do Better What They Do Best.”

    KEY POINTS

    • To attract good talent, you have to find ways to increase employee engagement.
    • Recognition (feeling valued) is the key element in an engaging environment and the most powerful motivator by far.
    • All the top motivators are behavioral and don’t require a big budget.
    • About 75% of workers are millennials, and 88% say money is not the top motivator.
    • To engage employees, base rewards on their performance, not their presence.
    • Obligatory award programs, such as “Employee-of-the-Month,” can turn sour and boring in short order.
    • To enhance employee engagement, ask, “If we could do something about that, what would it look like?”
    • “Label & Link,” a strategy from American Express, connects employees to tasks that specifically interest them and can align their aspirations with the needs of the organization.
    • Knowing ‘why we do our work’ is critical to increasing employee engagement.
    • 92% of employees want to be involved in decision-making.

    QUOTES FROM NELSON

    • “What you’re paid sets your standard of living; your benefits give you security should something happen. But what motivates you at work and to come to work and do your best work is recognition.”
    • “The average worker spends fifteen percent of their time at home complaining about their boss.”
    • “We learn from the Japanese that ‘the slower you go, the faster you get there.’”
    • “The larger or older an organization is, the harder it is to bring that sense of recognition to bear.”
    • “Praise progress towards the end goal you want, and you’ll get there!”

    BUY 1,001 Ways to Engage Employees: Help People Do Better What They Do Best by Dr. Bob Nelson

    RECOMMENDATIONS

    Peruse the 2018 Winners of Fortune 100 Best Companies

    Fortune 100 Best Companies listed by Great Places to Work

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    39 min
  • N4L 088: "Big Ideas" by Craig Case & Jennifer Beckstrand

    SUMMARY

    Trainer Craig Case and author Jennifer Beckstrand collect best practices for generating inspiration in their book, Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments. Drawing deeply on brain science theory, they share thinking models proven to unleash solutions and spawn profound, focused, life-changing ideas. And, as a bonus, the book is peppered with anecdotes of famous and not-so-famous people who’ve come upon fascinating discoveries and big ideas.

    KEY POINTS

    • Inspiration, epiphanies, and aha! moments are synonymous.
    • History shows monumental changes in thinking come from people who’ve felt perplexed.
    • Identifying the right problem is the first critical step.
    • When you’re truly inspired, you don’t have to push yourself. Instead, you’re consistently energized to act.
    • Sleeping enough, eating well, and relaxing makes your mind fertile for inspiration.
    • “Mental downshifting” = allowing the brain to slow down enough to gather information and “consolidate” (learn)
    • Every two hours, you should take about ten minutes to stop the inflow of sensory input.
    • Daydreaming can be very productive!
    • Overworking our brains makes us anxious and depressed.
    • Einstein, Mozart, and Beethoven all took breaks, which gave them all the ability to be innovative and creative.
    • The best way to identify a problem is to handwrite (not type) in a journal.
    • Creativity = new connections
    • Anxiety = the natural response from the brain pushing back from not being treated right
    • At night, the brain cleanses itself and prepares itself for generating big ideas.

     QUOTES FROM CASE

    • “Problems are a foundation of all creativity and all insight.”
    • “Motivation is about push, and inspiration is about pull.”
    • “The brain is an energy hog!”
    • “In North America…we’ve become corporate athletes. We wake up in the morning early; we go all day; we stay up late; we pull all-nighters. And we think we are doing…our employers a favor when the brain says, ‘I don’t work this way!’”
    • “We don’t even know what it’s like to have a brain work at one hundred percent because we’ve habitualized getting six instead of eight hours a night.”
    • “Writing allows wisdom to flow into the consciousness.”


    BUY Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments

    RECOMMENDATION

    BUY Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments

    BUY Aqua Notes Water Proof Note Pad

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    39 min
  • N4L 087: "Seven at Sea" by Erik & Emily Orton

     SUMMARY

    Erik and Emily Orton, parents of five children and authors of the new release, Seven at Sea, explain “why a New York City family cast off convention for a life-changing year on a sailboat.” Together, these parents plan a way to bounce back from a career failure while also creating kids with character who are armed with lasting family memories. Leaving their two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in New York City, this audacious, courageous family of seven buy a boat they name Fezywig. If they waited until "the time was right," the opportunity would be gone. So, the Ortons set sail from New York to and around the Caribbean--more than 2500 miles! As a result, they learn more than how to sail together; they also learn to live together—joyfully and simply.

    KEY POINTS

    • Because the whole family is involved in making plans, the dream moves forward.
    • The Ortons learn to genuinely like the small spaces of New York City, and, in fact, feel lonely and overwhelmed by the work inherent in big houses.
    • Living “vertically” in New York, helps them adapt to living on Fezywig where space is minimal.
    • “Earbud cocooning” – a strategy for creating personal space and privacy
    • Easy ocean access gives the Orton kids a natural playground as well as room to stretch and grow.
    • Beach walks give Erik & Emily a place and space for private conversations.
    • The work of sailing and living on Feziwig creates real confidence and character-building experiences.
    • A three-day supply of water takes the entire family five hours to ferry.
    • The Orton family emerges with three kinds of confidence: competence, credibility, and calm.
    • As parents, their credibility is on the line: would they be doers or just talkers?
    • They share meals and swap stories with other “cruisers,” unexpectedly making lasting friends.
    • One daughter learns to feel “more comfortable with being uncomfortable” and showed her how to dream big and have the tenacity to hold on to a big vision.

    QUOTES FROM THE ORTONS

    • “When the people you love need you, you show up for them.” - Emily
    • “We realized we liked being in close quarters. And, yes, it does lend itself to a certain kind of friction and tension, but it also lends itself to a certain kind of coziness and connection.” – Erik
    • “Once we got out there, we realized we were the biggest family on the smallest boat.” – Erik
    • “What is the ratio of things we say we’re going to do versus things we actually do?” – Erik
    • “I know that all of life is a risk…but, at the end of every day that we were illness- or injury-free, I felt grateful. I tried to take it just one day at a time.” - Emily
    • “The main difference [to making friends on the water] is time…you’re all open and vulnerable. You need each other!” – Erik
    • “I was really interested in trying to expand time…by having unique memories [of the same experiences].” – Emily
    • “We knew we only had our children for a certain amount of time…and we realized this window was small and getting smaller. And we could wait for a convenient time; we could wait to have more money on hand. It would just be easier if our kids were older…but they would be gone!” - Erik
    • “We knew if we made this investment now, it would compound over time, and it would only go up in value.” – Erik
    • “[Home] is the feeling of connection we have with each other.” – Emily
    • “What my family and husband all wanted from me was to know I was hearing them, and seeing them, and encouraging them. They just wanted me to be an emotional touchstone, and that’s very mobile.” – Emily
    • “The memories that last are the ones we carry with us, and we’re very grateful to have a lot of those.” – Erik

    BUY Seven at Sea: Why a New York City Family Cast Off Convention for a Life-changing Year on a Sailboat

    RECOMMENDATION

    Strengthen your family in your own way:

    • Look in each other’s eyes.
    • Eat dinner together.
    • Sit around the kitchen table together and talk about what’s important to you.
    • Go on a walk with your spouse.
    • Create questions that will bring you closer.
    • Strengthen faraway children by complimenting them or by just listening.

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    44 min
  • N4L 086: "Fly Girls" by Keith O'Brien

    SUMMARY

    In his book Fly Girls, author and journalist Keith O’Brien brings to life the almost-forgotten, inspiring true stories of female aviators. Danger and discrimination were only two of the many obstacles they faced as they fought for their right to compete in air races popular during the 1920s and ‘30s. By following a small thread in The Astronaut Wives Club, O’Brien now weaves together Fly Girls, the unique history of “Five Brave Women Who Defied the Odds and Made Aviation History.”

    KEY POINTS

    • In 1928, just eight years after the women's suffrage amendment passed, 30 million women were registered to vote. That same year, less than a dozen American women held pilot licenses.
    • Women learning to fly had to put up with catcalls, odd looks, and snide remarks repeatedly.
    • Most flight instructors were men who complained or wrote openly about how much they disliked teaching women how to fly.
    • Air races (not air shows) were a real sport with winners and losers, lots of money for the victors, and enormous crowds—like the Super Bowl of our time.
    • Sexism revealed in the nicknames given to female pilots: “ladybirds,” “sweethearts of the air,” “petticoat pilots,” and “powder puff girls.”
    • Department of Commerce (predating the FAA) created a regulation that women could not fly a plane within three days of menstruating.
    • Sabotage of women’s planes, though unproven, presented yet another obstacle to those wanting to participate in the air races.
    • Women exerting freedoms, such as wearing pants and cutting hair short, went against the norms for the times.
    • Aviation was potentially a very lucrative hobby or career.
    • Radio communication was spotty and weather reports unreliable in the 1920s and ‘30s, and people were making planes “in their backyards.”

    QUOTES FROM O'BRIEN

    • “Before they even got in a plane, they had to weather discrimination on the ground.”
    • “To be a woman walking across an airfield in 1928…would have put you into one of the rarest of categories.”
    • “These women were true radicals, true renegades who were pushing the envelope of what society expected of a woman.”
    • “These women had to be better pilots than the men…When the women crashed, they were questioned at every turn.”
    • “They came from different backgrounds…but there was a commonality in how they were raised…At a time when parents—in particular, a father—could tell a teenage girl whom she would or would not date or marry…these parents either turned the other way and allowed their daughter to pursue this unusual interest in aviation, or they actively encourage it.”
    • “Many died in the air races—sometimes right in front of the crowd—and still the races would go on! They had an appetite for death and disaster that we simply would not tolerate today.”

    BUY Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

    BUY Fly Girls Young Readers’ Edition: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

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    BUY The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story

     

    Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade's trailer advertising Fly Girls (with live footage)

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Nonfiction authors share compelling true stories & books with great ideas for living well. In addition to discussing captivating biographies & memoirs, these writers promote business &…