1 – THE COMFORT CRISIS: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter (recommended by Brian)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort. Along the way, Easter uncovers a blueprint for leveraging the power of discomfort that will dramatically improve our health and happiness, and perhaps even help us understand what it means to be human.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: My disengaged students are staring at their phones, getting addicted to sports gambling, and avoiding genuine social connections by walking the hallways. For them, it is comfortable to numb their existence. Easter believes we “are living progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged, safety-netted lives.” This book taught me that I am not just teaching English, I have to model the joy that comes from living a full life, one blessed with genuine friendships, interesting hobbies, and deep conversations that offer the opportunity for growth. 

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You want to avoid complacency for yourself and your students.

2 – Devotions – Mary Oliver (recommended by Susan)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver’s work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: Whenever I feel stressed or the word is spinning out of control (so every day lately), poetry is medicine I turn to for my soul. Mary Oliver always hits right.

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: 

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You need reassurance about your place in the world without being preached to. 

3 – ESSENTIALISM: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (recommended by Brian)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: It (Essentialism) is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for where to spend our precious time and energy, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices, instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: The more competent you become at work, more will be asked of you. I was always a “yes” person because I did not want to let people down, but this book taught me that boundaries are necessary. So many facets of work can consume your time and mental capacity if left unchecked, creating an unhealthy imbalance. I learned to retreat from the agenda of others and focus on what mattered most to me.  

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You are overwhelmed by the demands of others and feel pulled in all different directions.

4 – How the Word Is Passed – Clint Smith (recommended by Susan)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: History is complicated. Clint Smith models what all of us as citizens should be doing: talking to people who have different views than us, asking questions, acknowledging the complexity of history, and empowering all voices in past and present society. History can often be rooted in facts, but stories hold power. 

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: 

“I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You are wanting to learn about a part of American history that was most often left out of history class. This shapes us as teachers – as people – because once we learn how to pull back and see a bigger story, our worldview can change. 

5 – How to Know a Person – David Brooks (recommended by Susan)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: Friendship requires work. This work used to feel more intuitive but over the last few years, especially post pandemic, friendship requires more intentionality. Brooks breaks down this work in both theoretical and practical ways which has helped me be more present in relationships.

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “I’ve come to think of questioning as a moral practice. When you are asking a good question, you are adopting a posture of humility. You’re confessing that you don’t know and you want to learn. You’re also honoring a person.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You feel like you know your friends’ online persona but still feel that you’re missing an authentic connection. 

6 –LEAVES OF GRASS: Unabridged Deathbed Edition with 400 Poems by Walt Whitman (recommended by Brian)

TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: The collection represents the celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity and praises nature and the individual human’s role in it. Rather than focusing on religious or spiritual matters, Leaves of Grass focuses primarily on the body and the material world.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: Whitman was the first poetic voice of the American consciousness and that voice has never faded.

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: There are so many, but here are three I’ve committed to memory:

• “Your very flesh shall be a great poem…”

• “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, / I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
• When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, / How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, / In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You want to create a daily practice of reading a poem a day that will open your mind and your soul.

7 – Man’s Search for Meaning – Victor Frankl (recommended by Susan)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: “An enduring work of survival literature,” according to the New York Times, Viktor Frankl’s riveting account of his time in the Nazi concentration camps, and his insightful exploration of the human will to find meaning in spite of the worst adversity, has offered solace and guidance to generations of readers since it was first published in 1946. At the heart of Frankl’s theory of logotherapy (from the Greek word for “meaning”) is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what the individual finds meaningful.

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: I have chewed on Donne’s quote “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” since I was in high school, and this book has unpacked this idea through personal story and theory. Life happens and I have more choice in my response to life’s circumstances than I often acknowledge. 

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You struggle with the idea of suffering – whether it be personal or societal – and how to live with purpose.

8 – START WITH WHY: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek (recommended by Brian)

TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Start with Why shows that the leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way – and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. 

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: This book inspired my mini sermons. It shifted my planning. No longer was I solely focusing on what to teach and how to teach it, I put attention on communicating, in inspiring ways, why the work we were doing was so important.   

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You want to better communicate your passion for what you teach and inspire your students to take greater pride in their work. 

9 – Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again – Johann Hari (recommended by Susan)

TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.  Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus—as individuals, and as a society—if we are determined to fight for it. 

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: Diminishing attention spans directly correlate with Americans reading less (particularly less fiction). As a result, we are becoming less imaginative and empathic as a society. I feel so strongly that this issue that we spend a week reading part of this book and discussing in class.

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “When you read a novel, you are immersing yourself in what it’s like to be inside another person’s head. You are simulating a social situation. You are imagining other people and their experiences in a deep and complex way. So maybe, he said, if you read a lot of novels, you will become better at actually understanding other people off the page. Perhaps fiction is a kind of empathy gym, boosting your ability to empathize with other people—which is one of the most rich and precious forms of focus we have. Together, they decided to begin to study this question scientifically.”

“Democracy requires the ability of a population to pay attention long enough to identify real problems, distinguish them from fantasies, come up with solutions, and hold their leaders accountable if they fail to deliver them.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You are struggling with paying attention or work with the next gen.

10 – THE SCORE TAKES CARE OF ITSELF: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh (recommended by Brian)

TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY FROM AMAZON: Bill Walsh is a towering figure in the history of the NFL. His advanced leadership transformed the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports to a legendary dynasty. He taught that the requirements of successful leadership are the same whether you run an NFL franchise, a fortune 500 company, or a hardware store with 12 employees. 

MY BIG TAKEAWAY: I read this to improve my coaching, but it influenced my teaching just as much. It reinforced the classic axiom: how you do anything is how you do everything. If you have a big goal, like winning, you can’t just want it and hope it manifests its way into your life. There are dozens of small things that you have to continuously improve so that “the score takes care of itself.” It made me rethink how I taught my classes with standardized tests. Saying that my students needed to become better test takers had little result. Breaking it down into much smaller components, and working toward a standard of excellence, drastically improved their outcomes and their scores took care of themselves. 

A MEMORABLE QUOTE: “My Standard of Performance—the values and beliefs within it—guided everything I did in my work at San Francisco and are defined as follows: Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching, which means increasing my own expertise; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter; show self-control, especially where it counts most—under pressure; demonstrate and prize loyalty; use positive language and have a positive attitude; take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort.”

THIS BOOK WILL SPEAK TO YOU IF: You want to develop more efficient systems that improve your classroom functions and you want to raise your standard of excellence for those systems. 

Brian (a high school teacher and basketball coach on Long Island) and Susan (a high school teacher in Atlanta) met on Twitter (#rip) over a decade ago and became fast friends bonding over teaching literature, building classroom culture, and the importance of a good cup of coffee. Their book, 100% Engagement: 33 Lessons to Promote Participation, Beat Boredom, and Deepen Learning in the ELA Classroom, is forthcoming from Corwin in May.