The Big Necessity by Rose George

I picked this up from the library new book display a few weeks back; it was very enlightening. It talks about the many ways people deal with sanitation, and the problems and effectiveness of each.
Written as a popular science work rather than a technical treatise, I sometimes wished the author would have given a bit more technical detail. Even so, the overall picture is very clear: human waste must be disposed of. Safely. Or people die. What works about the systems we use now, what doesn't, and what the options are. She doesn't offer clear-cut solutions - there don't seem to be any. But I would definitely recommend this to every adult - and many teens - as an essential part of knowing how the necessities of life work.

Drive by Daniel Pink

Last year, for the first time in many years, I won a prize at the library's summer reading program - and this was the book. A quick read, very good - it talks about what truly motivates us, what that means for business and education. It didn't surprise me, but only because I'd had an organizational behavior class several years before that talked about the same things. This is the book that pulls that information into popular literature.

Shortly after I read this, my sister sent me a link to a lecture on it here - a beautiful summary, very well done. Highly recommended.

Literacy With an Attitude: Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest by Patrick J. Finn

Written about teaching true literacy - not just being able to understand words, but how to use them to get what's important to you; using much of the method developed by Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed); containing the most concise, irebuttable, and scathing review of Ruby K. Payne's work (A Framework for Understanding Poverty) - primarily, that she had no idea what she was talking about - this is a book for understanding teaching from an entirely different point of view. I loved it because it teaches that you have to understand what people need before you can presume to give them something they'll want; none of this is accomplished without truly recognizing what they lack (usually, at the base of it, power and/or money). And, in the process, what they do not lack - ambition, drive, intelligence. I love the critical - and I mean that in every sense - analysis of the majority of programs designed to 'help' the poor. To help people, you must know them, not just their stereotypes. And you must be willing to do what works, not just what supports your view of them. Really, really, excellent book.