Recommended Reads, 34th in a Quarterly Series

Stuff I read recently that I'd recommend:

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything (Christian).  I'm a big fan of "grand theory" books, and this one had me stroking my chin with deep contemplation.

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer (Ehrenreich).  Turning our usual sense of how health care works on its head.  

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Hinton).  In light of the national discussion we're having on criminal justice, this was an absolute eye-opener.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Alexander).  Deeply provoking in drawing parallels between slavery, Jim Crow, and modern America.

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Pink).  It turns out that the way forward is less about "what" and more about "when."

The Knockoff (Sykes/Piazza).  Deliciously snappy fictional account whose real-life parallels to Gen X and Gen Y in the workforce were spot-on.