Here are 5 books that really stood out to me.

"These Truths" by Jill Lepore.

A lot of people, once you leave school, you really never go through the broad scope of American history again.

She brings this lens of looking backwards.

How do we compare to other countries?

What was controversial?

What hung in the balance?

Particularly slavery, and gender, and the immigrants.

I think the book is very worth reading.

"Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker.

I'm a night person, but I've been paying more attention to sleep.

This guy is super persuasive about: if you want to lose weight, get good sleep.

If you want to really learn things, get good sleep.

He literally tells you, if you're reading this when you should be sleeping, please close the book.

"An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones.

This is about a black couple in the south and an injustice that totally reshapes the lives of the husband and the wife and eventually dooms their marriage.

The husband and wife are put into a difficult position.

You wouldn't call it a happy ending because they've been through so much.

"Prepared" by Diane Tavenner.

She asked the right questions about middle school and high school systems.

What she's done is really amazing.

Not many people are brave enough to create a new school system.

You have self-confidence, the ability to learn, the ability to manage your time, a sense of what you want to go and do.

Sometimes, kids will get discouraged.

You just hope your kid gets curious about something.

"Growth" by Vaclav Smil.

Modern civilization has performed all these miracles, and yet, you do hit limits.

We've been on various plateaus.

When did we figure out how to build big buildings?

What was holding us back in terms of doing that?

Why don't we build them to the sky now?

If you said to me, "Oh, when you're young, you can travel over the speed of sound, but then when you get older, you won't be able to travel over the speed of sound,"

I would have been like, "That's crazy!"

I found these books to be really clever and engaging.

I hope you find them as intriguing as I did.