ANNE: I just finished Richard Davidson and Dan Goleman’s latest book on the effects of meditation on the brain. I already knew Richie’s work — he’s one of the best known neurology researchers in the world, famous for his fMRI studies of Tibetan monks and other master meditators. He works closely with the Dalai Lama. Plus his lab is just a few blocks from our office. The new book is his most personal and readable yet and full of new insights, which we covered in a wide-ranging conversation on stage.
STEVE: Marilynne Robinson fascinates me. She strikes me as a 19th century figure who’s been magically transported to our own time, writing about contemporary issues while being not quite of this era. She first made her name with her remarkable novel “Housekeeping” in 1980 and then seemed to disappear until the arrival of her second novel, “Gilead,” which won a Pulitzer Prize 25 years later. Since then she’s gone on a writing tear with two more novels and several essay collections. I’m reading her new book of essays, “What Are We Doing Here?” It’s not her best collection of essays but still delves into favorite subjects like the American Puritans and modern science (as seen through her quasi-religious sensibility), as well as her unexpected friendship with Barack Obama.
HALEEMA: I recently returned from a two week trip to Pakistan. My mother and I traveled together to see my grandmother and it was the first time in years that three generations of women in my family lived under the same roof. It was a special and at times complicated experience that inspired countless thoughts on how mothers and daughters love, criticize, fight, forgive, and inspire each other. So I’m re-reading Warsan Shire’s book of poetry “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth.” It was released seven years ago, but remains one of the most powerful depictions of the relationship between mothers, daughters, and generations of immigrant women.
SHANNON: I’m reading books about Barcelona, or at least optimistically downloading them to my Kindle for upcoming airplane trips. On my list are Irish writer Colm Toibin’s first novel, “The South,” which is set in Barcelona in the 1950s, George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia,” which gives a first-hand historical account of the Spanish Civil War and the post-war gothic mystery “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.