Books and authors

Prof. Jon Gruber speaks with former Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and Security Andrea Cabral and GBH Boston Public Radio host Margery Eagan about the future of health care in the United States. 

 MIT Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein speaks with Boston Globe reporter Christine Mehta about his new book "Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation.” “Epstein is not the first to argue that a secular phenomenon has become a religion (the list grows longer every year), but to him, obsessions like the American workplace, sports, or CrossFit are at best middling cults,” writes Mehta. “Technology, on the other hand, is the religion of today’s world, Epstein says, displacing the influence of everything else on our lives.”

Jeff Karp, an affiliate faculty member with the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, speaks with NBC Boston 10 reporter Renée Onque about the “pendulum lifestyle” – a new outlook on work-life balance detailed in Karp’s book “LIT: Life Ignition Tools.” "We hear these things from others, [like] trust in the process [and] balance is so important, we need more balance, it's the ultimate goal," says Karp. "It ends up being very frustrating and can lead to anxiety, because we're constantly feeling like we're not in balance. There's a state we should be in [and] we're never in that state."

Los Angeles Times reporter Rosanna Xia spotlights Prof. Susan Solomon’s new book, “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again,” as a hopeful remedy to climate anxiety. “An atmospheric chemist at MIT whose research was key to healing the giant gaping hole in our ozone layer, Solomon gives us much-needed inspiration — and some tangible ways forward,” explains Xia. 

Glenn Loury PhD '67 is a guest on the Boston Globe podcast “Say More” with Shirley Leung, discussing his memoir “Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative.” Now a Brown economics professor, Loury had an unusual and difficult life for an academic, saying he wrote the memoir because “I owed it to myself to tell the real story, and to rely on the generosity of the reader to see past the darkest and ugliest to the hopefully decent and honest human being grappling with his life.”

The New Yorker shares “The Books of Losing You,” a short story written by Prof. Junot Diaz in their Flash Fiction category.

In an excerpt from her new book, “The Mind’s Mirror: Risk and Reward in the Age of AI," Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, addresses the fear surrounding new AI technologies, while also exploring AI’s vast potential. “New technologies undoubtedly disrupt existing jobs, but they also create entirely new industries, and the new roles needed to support them,” writes Rus.  

Forbes reporter Rodger Dean Duncan spotlights “The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines,” a new book by Research Affiliate Matt Bean SM '14, PhD '17. Duncan “explains Beane’s take on AI tools, collaboration and remote work, who suggests traditional mentoring is at risk in the workplace. Beane says today’s successful people have ‘discovered new tactics that others can use to get skills without throwing out the benefits of hybrid working arrangements.’”

In an interview with The New York Times, Prof. Susan Solomon speaks about her latest book “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do it Again,” which offers learnings from past environmental fights to affect future change. “People need to have some hope. We imagine that we never solve anything…but it’s really important to go back and look at how much we succeeded in the past and what are the common threads of those successes,” Solomon says.

Prof. Junot Díaz’s book, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” has been named one of the 100 best books of the 21^st century in The New York Times Book Review. The Pulitzer Prize-winning debut appears at number 11. “Díaz’s first novel landed like a meteorite in 2007, dazzling critics and prize juries with its mix of Dominican history, coming-of-age tale, comic-book tropes, Tolkien geekery and Spanglish slang…but the real draw is the author’s voice: brainy yet inviting, mordantly funny, sui generis.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Emeritus Marcia Bartusiak reviews “Accidental Astronomy: How Random Discoveries Shape the Science of Space,” a new book written by Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott. The book touches on the field’s familiar history, notes Bartusiak, but “more fun are the lesser-known stories” of amateur astronomers and unexpected findings. “Mr. Lintott conducts this breezy tour with an engaging voice, a diverting sense of humor and a humble awe for the wonders of the universe,” writes Bartusiak. 

Knight Science Journalism program director Deborah Blum joins guest host Diana Plasker on NPR’s “Science Friday” to share summer science book recommendations. When asked what types of books are popular, Blum says “I think that people just remain fascinated by some of the ways that science makes the world more interesting, more beautiful. People are always drawn to the kind of books that allow you to look at the world in a new way and kind of go, wow.” 

STAT lists “The Exceptions: Sixteen Women, MIT, and the Fight for Equality in Science,” by Kate Zernicke as a “best book on health and science to check out this summer.”  The book focuses on Prof. Nancy Hopkins’ “career, which culminates in not only numerous scientific successes but also a collaborative effort with 15 other women faculty demonstrating evidence of gender discrimination at MIT,” explains STAT. “This work led to studies to address gender equity at nine other universities.” 

Postdoctoral associate Adam Forrest Kay’s book “Escape From Shadow Physics: The Quest to End the Dark Ages of Quantum Theory,” is reviewed by Andrew Crumey for The Wall Street Journal. “Consistently interesting” and “energetically written,” the book, “eloquently explains the history behind hydrodynamic quantum analogs,” writes Crumey.  

Prof. Susan Solomon speaks with Guardian reporter Killian Fox about her new book “Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again,” and her research addressing climate change. “For goodness sake, let’s not give up now, we’re right on the cusp of success,” says Solomon. “That’s the fundamental message of the book.”