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The holidays are a great time to catch up
on reading.

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Here are five books that really stood out
to me.

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These Truths by Jill Lepore

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A lot of people once you leave school,

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you never really go through the broad scope
of American history again.

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She brings this lens of looking backwards.

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How do we compare to other countries?

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What was controversial?

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What hung in the balance?

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Particularly slavery and gender and immigrants.

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I think the book is very worth reading.

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Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

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I’m a night person, but I’ve been paying
more attention to sleep.

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This guy is super persuasive about

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if you want to lose weight, get good sleep.

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If you want to really learn things, get good
sleep.

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He literally tells you,

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if you’re reading this when you should be
sleeping,

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please close the book.

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An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

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This is about a black couple in the south

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and an injustice that totally reshapes the
lives of the husband and the wife

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and eventually dooms their marriage.

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The husband and wife are put into a difficult
position.

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You wouldn't call it a happy ending, because
they've been through so much.

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Prepared by Diane Tavenner

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She asks the right questions about middle
school and high school systems.

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What she’s done is really amazing.

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Not many people are brave enough to create
a new school system.

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You have self-confidence, the ability to learn,

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the ability to manage your time,

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a sense of what you want to go and do.

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Sometimes, kids will get discouraged.

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You just hope your kid gets curious about
something.

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Growth by Vaclav Smil

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Modern civilization has performed all these
miracles,

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and yet, you do hit limits.

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We've been on various plateaus.

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When did we figure out how to build certain
big buildings?

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What was holding us back in terms of doing
that?

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Why don't we build them to the sky now?

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If you said to me "Oh, when you're young,
you can travel over the speed of sound,

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but then when you get older, you won't be
able to travel over the speed of sound,"

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I would have been like, ‘That's crazy.’

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I found these books to be really clever and
engaging.

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I hope you find them as intriguing as I did.