Susan Cain’s bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking was recently voted as Goodreads’ Best Nonfiction Book of 2012. Congratulations Susan!

Out of the ten psychology books named by The Guardian as 2012’s best, three of them are by Lavin speakers. We’d like to congratulate Susan Cain (Quiet), Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature) and Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind)!

Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers’ 826 National provides free, one-on-one, teacher-aided writing workshops for public school students across the country. The program even collects the students’ work, and publishes them on their website. To see some of our favorites, click HERE.

Congratulations to Lavin Speakers Paul Tough and Edward O. Wilson, on having their books named to The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2012 list! Tough’s book, How Children Succeed, argues that we need to revolutionize our education system to focus on developing a child’s character as well as their intelligence. Wilson’s book, The Social Conquest of Earth, is fascinating look at how humanity’s interactions with each other—and with the world around them—have led to our species’ domination of the planet.

Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, the instant New York Times bestseller, was recently named the #1 business book of 2012 by Fast Company. Her TED Talk, found HERE, has already garnered over 3.2 million views.

Loving to read is a prerequisite here at Lavin (we even ask people what they’re reading in our interviews, just to make sure!) Here’s what our employees are currently digging their intellectual teeth into:

David Lavin, President & CEO
I’m reading Robert Caro’s latest entry in his Lyndon B. Johnson biography series. It’s incredibly interesting. Caro could use a good editor, but Johnson leaps off the page as a political genius who was as much misunderstood as he was feared.

Charles Yao, Director of Speakers
I’m a big David Byrne fan, so I picked up his accurately-titled new book, How Music Works. Byrne’s great at explaining how the medium, venue, and technology used in music end up shaping it. There are great personal stories (though it’s not a bio per se) and a lot of practical sausage-factory type stuff about creativity. Appropriate times to read the book include: when you find yourself living in a shotgun shack. Inappropriate times: behind the wheel of a large automobile.

Gord Mazur, Executive Vice President
500 Days by Kurt Eichenwald. Always happy to read anything by Kurt—the best investigative journalist on the planet. I love an author who can make non-fiction pure fun! Also: How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. I think this book is about me. I’m usually the least formally educated guy in the room, but I’m in the room. Why?

Tanya Svidler, Agent
I am reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith, for the sheer pleasure of reading a good novel!

Guy Halpern, Business Development Agent
I’m just finishing Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. It is funny and strange, and dovetails well with Of Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet, another weird satirical story about the fathers of the atom bomb. But I read that last year so it doesn’t count. Aside from that I am dipping in and out of a book of essays by Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind, mainly because she’s a really good writer. Also: Jared Diamond’s Collapse.

Joy Kim, Administrative Coordinator
A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron. I love dogs!

Sarah Moore, Marketing Writer
Empty Cradle by Diana Walsh. Call me a shameless promoter for reading a book written by one of my good friend’s mothers, but the story is one that truly haunts me—because it’s true. Diana’s newborn daughter was abducted from a local hospital, by a desperate woman disguised as a nurse. It seems so unfathomable to me that something so horrifying could happen in my small, seemingly safe town—to someone I knew. While it is admittedly more shocking to me, given that I know the people in question, the criminal’s background story (and the way Diana weaves it into her own) is equally as chilling to those removed from the characters.

Tom Gagnon, Vice President
Right now I’m reading Beautiful Souls by Eyal Press. It’s an amazing book that tells the stories of people who, when put in extraordinary circumstances, have gone against authority and convention to do what they believed to be morally just.

Nikki Barrett, Vice President
Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. I’m fascinated by neuroscience and its broad array of applications—personal and professional. Also: Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. I’m reading it to Max (who’s 3 and a half) but it’s more for me than him!

Hayley Citron, Marketing Coordinator
I’m reading Cristina Garcia’s Monkey Hunting, which tells the story of Chinese slavery in Cuba in the 1800s and the deep struggle toward belonging shared by displaced people across the world. I’m also reading John Elder Robison’s Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s because I think it’s extremely important that we try to understand what individuals with Autism go through on a daily basis.

Colin Withers, Senior Marketing Coordinator
I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I’m a big Americana junkie and I loved The Road, so it seemed like a natural fit.

Cian Cruise, Sales and Marketing Assistant:
Culture and Value by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The book is the unofficial accompanying notes to his philosophy—like the raw stuff that he left on the cutting room floor but which his literary executors felt was worth sharing. Could be considered similar to George Christoph Lichtenberg’s Waste Books, which is actually a great lens into W.’s philosophical process. Also: Mysteries, by Knut Hamsun is perhaps the most frictionless prose I have ever encountered. Cited as an inspiration by Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Henry Miller, Hamsun (and his contemporary Henrik Ibsen) were part of the Scandanavian literary circle known for pioneering psychological techniques such as stream of consciousness and interior monologue.

Katie Thomson, Events Coordinator
I recently read The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.  I didn’t know what to expect when I picked it up, and while reading it, I was totally amazed at the risks the women took to support their families while simultaneously helping one another to better educate themselves—all so that they and their family members could have a better life. Women are willing to take much bigger risks than men: they are strong, all the while keeping that maternal flame alive with in the family.

Robert Abrams, Agent
 I am reading Drive by Dan Pink—I’d never read any of his stuff before. It’s a good read so far!  I’m also reading Kurt Eichenwald’s new book, 500 Days, a tome on how the decisions made 500 days after 9/11 permanently changed the US. This book sucks you in; I like that it’s told observationally, from a distance, allowing us to make our own conclusions.

Sally Itterly, Vice President
Reading The Finest Hours—true story of the Chatham US Coast Guard’s 1952 amazing rescue of the USS Pendleton during one of the most brutal nor-easters of the time. The USS Pendleton was a ship made with “dirty steel” during the war effort. The dirty steel gave way and the USS Pendleton was torn in half by the seas of the nor’easter.  Why am I reading it?  It’s the true story of character and bravery against the power of nature. It doesn’t get any better.  

Meghan Pritchard, Agent
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain and A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. I tend to gravitate to anything based in a historical setting. And at the moment, I am a little obsessed with anything to do with Paris in the 1920s.

Meghan Elenbaas, Agent
I’m reading Beautiful Ruinsby Jess Walter. A good portion of it takes place on an island off the Italian coastline in 1962 and weaves together fiction with the true account of filming Cleopatra. But it also tackles complicated relationships and Hollywood today. I was just in Rome, so I thought it would remind me of my vacation.

Paul Terefenko, Marketing Producer
Reading the new Jian Ghomeshi book, 1982. Why? Because I’d heard a lot about it from a friend at Penguin who was working on it, and when presented with the opportunity to grab a copy from the ex-Fruvous-er himself, I had to act. Still pretty early into it, but the fusion of music and suburban immigrant experience is right up my alley (being from an immigrant family and also growing up in the suburbs).

Joan Hogan, Receptionist
I am currently reading The Scoop by Fern Michaels. A bit of fluff, but good nonetheless. The previous book I read was The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Lemmon—such an inspirational book. Hearing about people overcoming adversity and the risks they have to take to succeed is empowering.

Jessica Dolman, Events Coordinator
I’m reading Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes. It was recommended to me by a friend whose book choices I trust. I’m also reading Small Island by Andrea Levy. It caught my eye on a shelf when I was back in the UK.  

Octavia Ridout, Events Coordinator
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Because my husband bought it for me a few years ago so I figured I should finally get to reading it—especially now, since one of his other books is a movie. I’d like to read Cloud Atlas before I see the flick, but that’s much too lofty a goal methinks! Also: Sei-Ki:  Life in Resonance: The Secret Art of Shiatsu by Akinobu Kishi and Alice Whieldon. Because I’m also a shiatsu therapist, so I like to keep on top of what’s happening in my “other” field.

Julia Martyn, Events Coordinator
Chris Abani’s Song for Night. I work with Chris a lot and I think he’s wonderful.

Mackenzie Gruer, Events Coordinator
I am reading Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre (winner of Canada Reads 2012) as research for a feature-length doc I am currently directing. The film is about Chilean women who defied a bloody dictatorship with hand-sewn tapestries, and how they are teaching a new generation of women in Canada how to make similar revolutionary political art.

Stevie Asselstine, Events Coordinator
I’m reading I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time—it was recommended repeatedly by friends!

Faye Nwafor, Agent
I’m reading The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets by Kathleen Alcott. It’s an emotionally honest and enchanting exploration of the love, pain, and wonder of unconventional family dynamics. It’s also a love story by a wickedly cerebral author with a knack for nostalgia. Picked it up after hearing her speak in person.

Lauren Bergstrom, Agent
I’m reading Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I’ve never actually read the series before, and it makes for good cozy fall reading.

Holly Caracappa, Agent
Having something akin to literary commitment issues, I prefer to read 8-10 books at once. Not a show off—just like to fancy my books as suitors vying for my attention: may the most fetching one win my (momentary) affections. Reading: And it Came to Pass—Not to Stay, by Buckminster Fuller: because Mr. Fuller is a cosmic rider, who like my (aspiring) self, is about the whole, the global, and the transcendental. Who better to speak of love than him? Also reading: 6 Non-Lectures by ee cummings. Because cummings is my poetic father and his word poetic gospel.

Karin Roest, Agent
I’m swamped with reading for grad school, but picked up Dr. Samantha Nutt’s Damned Nations because she stopped by our office last week. It’s one I’ve wanted to read for a long time anyways. I’m partially in tears and in awe at her candidness and bravery which changed to laughter when she stopped by because she’s so naturally funny!

Samuel Arbesman’s latest book, The Half-Life of Facts, is a fascinating look at the way facts, or what we deem to be empirically true, shift and evolve over time. Even our most basic understandings are always subject to change as scientific and technological developments continue on an exponentially increasing scale. “Facts change in regular and mathematically understandable ways,” Arbesman says. “Even though knowledge changes…facts have a half-life and obey mathematical rules. And only by knowing the pattern of our knowledge’s evolution can we be better prepared for its change.”

Rob Walker’s Significant Objects, a collection of 100 creative tales attached to unremarkable second-hand finds in the interest of exploring the value of narratives, is launching at New York’s Strand Bookstore this weekend. 

From the publisher:

Can a great story transform a worthless trinket into a significant object? The Significant Objects project set out to answer that question once and for all, by recruiting a highly impressive crew of creative writers to invent stories about an unimpressive menagerie of items rescued from thrift stores and yard sales.

That secondhand flotsam definitely becomes more valuable: sold on eBay, objects originally picked up for a buck or so sold for thousands of dollars in total — making the project a sensation in the literary blogosphere along the way.

But something else happened, too: The stories created were astonishing, a cavalcade of surprising responses to the challenge of manufacturing significance. Who would have believed that random junk could inspire so much imagination?

Lavin speaker James Fallows has just released his second book on China, China Airborne, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Here’s one:

“On the surface it is a book about aviation in China, but it is also one of the best books on China (ever), one of the best books on industrial organization in years, and an excellent treatment of economic growth.  It is also readable and fun.”

Bruce Philp’s Consumer Republic is a finalist for the 2012 National Business Book Award. Here’s the official award description:

This year’s book submissions reflect the increasingly global nature of Canada’s economy and the issues that are inevitably part of this transition. The themes of the books demonstrate how Canadians continue to seek their place in the new world order, including how to become more responsible global citizens and, at the same time, more competitive players in the international markets.