The Bulletin: Tips to Boost Your Mental Health, Equity and the Opportunism of the Far Right, and a Round Up of the Year’s Best Books

Today marks a new edition of The Bulletin, our round up of the week’s top stories surrounding the work of our world-changing speakers. Take these highlights and intrigue your colleagues, entertain your dinner guests, or broaden your own horizons!

THE WEEK IN NEW IDEAS

• White power and militant right groups are using Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal as an opportunity to build approval for militant vigilantism. "[I]t allows them to not only mount similar shootings...it also lets them mobilize in a sector of the rightwing mainstream that is sympathetic to the Rittenhouse story,” says historian Kathleen Belew , co-editor of the Field Guide to White Supremacy . She explores this “bonanza for the far-right” in a new Guardian interview.
• Do you know what brings you joy? You're not alone if you struggle to identify what joy feels like. Lori Gottlieb , psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone , believes that it’s not only hard to make space for enjoyment everyday, it’s even a struggle to understand how to experience joy at all. Listen in as she lends us a hand and demystifies one of the most vital components of a happy life.
• Air pollution kills ten times as many people as the flu every year. So why do we overlook its deadly toll? We must come to understand that "everything we burn, we breathe,” says David Wallace-Wells —author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Uninhabitable Earth . If the pandemic so terrified us, he asks , what can justify our indifference towards the ten million lives lost annually, as we continue to burn fossil fuels??
• If we decide that we can't get better at things, or that our personality traits are unchanging, we miss out on much that life has to offer. Listen in as David Yeager —a leading expert in the psychology of persistence—explains why these ideas can hold us captive, and how we can instead easily adopt a growth mindset that allows us to flourish.
• How do richer nations and poorer nations differ in their vulnerabilities, and what compounding effect did COVID-19 have on this inequality? One of America's leading public intellectuals, Kwame Anthony Appiah , examines the need for a fairer international system by considering “a tale of two pandemics”—as the affluent north focuses on booster jabs while the global south faces a new round of the pandemic’s devastating effects.

THE WEEK IN QUOTES

"What do we do now, we asked. His posture answered for him as he stood wordlessly on the street, telling us that you grieve, you endure, you agitate, then you do more of the same.”

—Historian and Peabody Award-winning journalist Jelani Cobb , in an excerpt from his powerful introduction to John Lewis: The Last Interview—about the icon who devoted his life to civil rights.

"No matter how one feels about the '1619 Project,' we should all be very concerned and opposed to efforts by the state to restrict the teaching of ideas simply because politicians don't like them."

—Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones on the nation’s reactions to this groundbreaking work of journalism.

THE WEEK IN RECOGNITION

Congratulations are due to a host of Lavin speakers who have triumphed in the year end lists of 2021’s best books. Join us in celebrating their achievements, and get inspired by the new ideas that deserve a spot on your bookshelf:

• Andrea Elliott ’s Invisible Child : Highlighted as Amazon’s #1 Best Non-Fiction Book of the year, selected as one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books, and featured as one of NPR’s Books We Love.
• Literary legend Isabel Allende ’s The Soul of a Woman : Highlighted as one of Amazon’s Best Non-Fiction Books.
• Acclaimed author James Ellroy ’s Widespread Panic : Featured on NPR’s Books We Love list.
• Bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed ’s On Juneteenth : Selected as one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books, chosen as one of best books of the year by Oprah Daily, selected as a Notable Book by The Washington Post, and featured on NPR’s Books We Love list.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Nikole Hannah-Jones ’ 1619 Project: A New Origin Story : Selected as one of Amazon’s Best History Books, and named one of the best books of the year by Marie Claire. Her bestselling young readers’ accompaniment, Born on the Water , is featured on NPR’s Books We Love list.
• Award-winning psychologist Ethan Kross ’ Chatter : Recognized by Amazon of the year’s Best Non-Fiction Books, and featured as the Winter 2021 Winning Selection of the Next Big Idea Club (lead by Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel H. Pink).
• Renowned expert on the American economy and bestselling author Heather McGhee ’s The Sum of Us : Selected as one of the year’s must-read books by Penguin Random House, and featured as one of the year’s best books by The Washington Post.
• National Book Award-winning author George Packer ’s Last Best Hope : Highlighted as one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books, and featured on NPR’s Books We Love list.
• Acclaimed cognitive scientist and bestselling author Steven Pinker ’s Rationality : Selected by Amazon as one of the year’s Best Science Books.
• Journalist Eyal Press ’ Dirty Work : Highlighted as one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books and one of Publishers Weekly’s top 10 books of 2021.
• Award-winning chef and food justice activist Bryant Terry ’s Black Food : Featured on NPR’s Books We Love list, selected as one of Amazon’s Best Cookbooks, and named one of the best books of the year by Vice, Publishers Weekly, and Time Out.?
• Bestselling authors Nic Stone and Angie Thomas ’ Blackout is named one of the best books of the year by School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. Angie’s Concrete Rose is also highlighted by Amazon as one of the year’s Best Young Adult books.

And in awards,?

• Rotman School Professor and author of The 360° Corporation Sarah Kaplan is recognized by The Governance Professionals of Canada for her work in transforming the way that companies are governed with the Governance Achievement Award .?
• World-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky is awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award for his work documenting the upheaval caused by industrialization and the climate crisis—in the World Photography Association’s 2022 Sony World Photography Awards.?