In Defense of Food By Michael Pollan

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food," the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling "The Omnivore's Dilemma," Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." Writing "In Defense of Food," and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrientapproach. "In Defense of Food" reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us. In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped

The potential of the human mind is absolutely phenomenal, and Tony Buzan is one of the world's leading experts on how people can maximize their brainpower. Now, in his most comprehensive book yet on the topic, Buzan reveals exciting new ways to improve one's memory, concentration, creativity, ability to learn, and more.

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism

The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity.
Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government--simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life--such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes--and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them.
Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits--the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today.

Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work

They make up nearly one-third of all Americans living today. Born after1980, they're now pouring into the work world with values, aspirations, and approaches that differ markedly from their parents-- and coworkers. They're Generation Y.In Plugged In, Tamara Erickson shows Gen Y's how to use their own unique strengths to understand and influence their professional relationships, to figure out how they define "success," and to help them find their way in the changing workplace.Filled with Erickson's extensive research into demographic trends and thoughtful insights, Plugged In gives Gen Y's the information they crave to connect with the working world and to craft the lives they want.The author reveals:
A framework Y's can use to develop their own criteria for making career choices
The unique assets and strengths Y's bring to the workplace
How X'ers and Boomers view Generation Y and how the different generations can collaborate more effectively at work
10 rules that can help Generation Y's succeed in the corporate worldWith her trademark warmth and liveliness, Erickson provides a thoughtful, valuable guidebook for the latest newcomers on the corporate scene.

LIFE, WORKS & WRITINGS

Laurie Baker has worked in India for over forty years and is renowned for being one of the very few architects in the world to have designed and built buildings as diverse as fisherman's huts, computer institutes, private homes, hostels, hospitals, churches, technical institutes, auditoriums, film studios and tourist centers. His distinctive brand of architecture, usually molded around local building traditions (especially those of Kerala, his adopted home state in South India), is instantly identifiable and has, unsurprisingly, revolutionized traditional concept of architecture in India. Baker's architecture is responsive, uses local materials and lays stress on low-cost design. This biography of Laurie Baker, like his work, is direct, simple and comprehensive; further embellished with sketches, plans, photographs and some of Baker's own writings, the book offers the professional architect as well as the layman a fascinating view of the life, methods and thoughts of an unorthodox genius.

Go Kiss the World

Go, kiss the world’ were Subroto Bagchi’s blind mother’s last words to him. These words became the guiding principle of his life. Subroto Bagchi grew up amidst what he calls the ‘material simplicity’ of rural and small-town Orissa, imbibing from his family a sense of contentment, constant wonder, connectedness to a larger whole and learning from unusual sources. From humble beginnings, he went on to achieve extraordinary professional success, eventually co-founding MindTree, one of India’s most admired software services companies. Through personal anecdotes and simple words of wisdom, Subroto Bagchi brings to the young professional lessons in working and living, energizing ordinary people to lead extraordinary lives. Go Kiss the World will be an inspiration to ‘young India’, and to those who come from small-town India, urging them to recognize and develop their inner strengths, thereby helping them realize their own, unique potential.

THE ART OF WAR

Preserved in China for more than 2,000 years before it was brought to the West by the French, this compact little book is widely regarded as the oldest military treatise in the world. Rumored to have been used by Napoleon in his campaigns to conquer Europe, it today retains much of its original merit. American officers read it closely during World War II. The Japanese army studied the work for decades, and many twentieth-century Chinese officers are said to have known the book by heart. More recently, it has also been viewed as a valuable guide to competing successfully in business.<br> Stressing the importance of attacking your enemy when he is unprepared and scheming to discover his plans, the author advises avoiding the strong and striking at the weak, and using spies for every kind of business. Principles of strategy, tactics, maneuvering, and communications, the treatment of soldiers, the importance of strong troops and well-trained officers, and the administration of rewards and punishments all have a modern ring to them. <br>A valuable guide to the conduct of war, this classic of military strategy is indispensable to military personnel, history enthusiasts, and anyone intrigued by competition and rivalry.