Interview with Jessica Nordell, author of The End of Bias: A Beginning : The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
Jessica Nordell, author of The End of Bias: A Beginning : The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias recommends a fantastic group of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Jessica's book:
Review from Book Depository:
The End of Bias is a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The End of Bias: A Beginning : The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behavior that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, the workplace, education, policing, and beyond. But when it comes to uprooting our prejudices, we still have far to go.
With nuance, compassion, and ten years' immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell weaves gripping stories with scientific research to reveal how minds, hearts, and behaviors change. She scrutinizes diversity training, deployed across the land as a corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping; the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force.
Captivating, direct, and transformative, The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news. Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here show how we can begin to remake ourselves and our world.
Includes illustrated charts.
Buy On:
Easons €28.00
Book Depository €25.30
Waterstones £17.99
Wordery $21.35
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
The Gift by Lewis Hyde is a longtime favorite-- the original subtitle was "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property." He explores the role of art and artists in a market economy. True art cannot be a commodity, he says-- it is a gift that makes its own magic and meaning outside any monetary value the world assigns it.
Review from Book Depository:
The Gift brilliantly argues for the importance of creativity in our increasingly money-driven society. Reaching deep into literature, anthropology and psychology Lewis Hyde's modern masterpiece has at its heart the simple and important idea that a 'gift' can inspire and change our lives.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World
Buy On:
Easons €18.19
Book Depository €11.61
Waterstones £12.99
Wordery $13.29
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Suzy Hansen's book Notes on a Foreign Country. It's a rich and thoughtful meditation on what it means (and what it takes) to let go of one's own country's stories and myths, and really start to see the world from others' perspectives.
Review From Book Depository:
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen was enjoying success as a journalist for a New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World
Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a city perched between East and West, and a naive sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures. But the most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country - and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline.
Blending memoir, journalism, and history, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America's place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation - a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of national and global turmoil.
Buy On:
Book Depository €9.32
Waterstones £8.99
Wordery $9.99
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
I loved The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. She was my favorite author as a kid-- her characters were always wild and adventurous, just as I imagined myself to be!
Review from Book Depository:
The first time Melanie Ross meets April Hall, she's not sure they have anything in common. But she soon discovers that they both love anything to do with ancient Egypt. When they stumble upon a deserted storage yard, Melanie and April decide it's the perfect spot for the Egypt Game.
(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Egypt Game
Before long there are six Egyptians, and they all meet to wear costumes, hold ceremonies, and work on their secret code. Everyone thinks it's just a game until strange things start happening. Has the Egypt Game gone too far?
Buy On:
Book Depository €7.32
Waterstones £10.95
Wordery $8.99
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
Paper! I mark up pages with tons of notes, underlines, and stars.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
Birchbark Books in my hometown of Minneapolis (owned by Louise Erdrich), and the MIT Press bookstore in Cambridge, are teeming with life.
Many thanks to Jessica for recommending fantastic group of books! Please don't forget to check out Jessica's book The End of Bias: A Beginning : The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Granta Books (End Of Bias), Canongate Books Ltd (The Gift), Little, Brown Book Group (Notes On A Foreign Country), Simon & Schuster (The Egypt Game)
< Home
