Reading at Christmas

VitaEurope’s reading list this winter might help you choose what to read at Christmas. There’s no rest for the wicked!

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer 

Part memoir, part research project, this book from the author of Everything is Illuminated weaves facts about the food we eat (and how it’s raised) within Foer’s own food journey. A mix of philosophy, science, and hilarious explorations of youth, the book draws from many disciplines in describing the author’s quest for a balanced life. He slips into factory farms at night while looking deep into his conscience to figure out what is right and wrong, and how animals should be treated. Foer’s research even turns up the history behind why we find some animals delicious to eat and others taboo.

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

Stuff is becoming a global problem. American film maker Annie Leonard started from an alarming fact: the USA has just 5 per cent of the world’s population but consumes 30 per cent of the world’s resources and creates 30 per cent of its waste. She created an internet film sensation called The Story of Stuff, which has been viewed over 10 million times by people around the world. In her sweeping, groundbreaking book of the same name, Leonard tracks the life of the Stuff we use every day—where our cotton T-shirts, laptop computers, and aluminium cans come from, how they are produced, distributed, and consumed, and where they go when we throw them out. Like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff is a landmark book that will change the way people think—and the way they live.

Blue Economy by Gunter Pauli

This Belgian economist and entrepreneur has a plan to develop 100 manufacturing innovations with viable business models that could generate 100 million jobs in 10 years. All with zero emissions and no waste. He calls it “The Blue Economy” with innovations covering the full gamut of industrial activity, from energy to mining, from medicine to banking, all of it inspired by science and biometrics. Pauli has published 19 books and 36 fables bringing science and emotions to children. He is fluent in seven languages and has lived in four continents.

Too big to fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America’s financial history by an acclaimed New York Times Reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world’s economy.

The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook by Rupert Scofield

No one knows the business of social entrepreneurship better than Rupert Scofield. Cofounder and president of FINCA International, a nonprofit micro-financing institution with 7,000 employees serving 750,000 customers in 21 countries, Scofield has been a social entrepreneur for 40 years. In The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook, Scofield leads you through the entire process of starting up and running a nonprofit, sharing personal success stories and advice on what not to do, valuable lessons he learned the hard way. The process, while risky, isn’t as difficult as you might think. Practically speaking, you need only two things: an idea and a plan. The former comes from you and you alone. This book supplies the latter.