The Social Animal

The Social Animal by David Brooks
Fiction (sort of)

I know I haven’t posted a lot in a while because things have been so busy with school, so I decided to just make some of the reviews short so I can get through more books.  I always want to make sure that I have time to read, even if I might not have a lot of time to write long reviews. Right now I am reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, which argues that humans are prone to making systematic irrational errors, so I will probably have more to add to this review when I am done with it.

 In The Social Animal, David Brooks follows the lives of two fictional characters, Harold and Erica, while examining human behavior through psychology, sociology, and biology. Brooks argues that human behavior can largely be understood by looking at the brain on a subconscious level. Brooks uses the lives of Harold and Erica as tools in order to demonstrate these patterns of behavior in action. Brooks's book provides interesting insight into the society that we live in and our own actions.

Lean In and Wonder Women

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and

Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection by Debora L. Spar

Nonfiction

Sheryl Sandberg combines personal experiences with data and figures to explain why so few women are in leadership positions. The stories and anecdotes are possibly the best part of the book because they connect the reader to an influential COO and depict a softer image of Sandberg. Instead of being a self-help guru, Sandberg acknowledges her own flaws and her own struggles by being open and authentic. She admits that she doesn’t have all the answers, which makes her success seem more achievable and not as distant. Sandberg debunks the myth of doing it all and challenges the double standard to which women are held.

Debora L. Spar also presents a feminist view of the working woman’s condition in her book, Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. Spar summarizes how past efforts to empower women ironically have led to women trying to conform to many different roles.  Instead of escaping the role of a domestic goddess, women are now expected to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company as well as the CEO of a home. Being free to pursue careers that were originally shut off from them didn’t liberate women in the way they intended. Instead, it added additional burdens.

Although these books came out a few years ago, they are especially relevant now given the current political climate.