Books and authors

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with Fast Company reporter Alex Pasternack about her memoir, “The Empathy Diaries” and the role of technology in society.

Writing for Time, Prof. Sherry Turkle explores whether the sense of displacement caused by the pandemic will allow people and the U.S. the opportunity to see “our country anew.” Turkle writes, “I came to a new state of mind because I could see my country anew. And although our country was at war with itself, I felt a deeper connection with other people who were also seeing anew. On the Zoom screens of the pandemic, I found the exhilaration of new connections.”

Prof. Alan Lightman’s new book, “Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings” tackles “big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness, always in an entertaining and easily digestible way,” writes Andrew Crumey for The Wall Street Journal.

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with Dave Davies of Fresh Air about her new book and how her childhood experiences helped shape her work.

MIT Press is making its academic titles free to view as part of a new open access model called Direct to Open, reports Jack Grove for Times Higher Ed. “From 2022, all new scholarly monographs and edited collections published by MIT Press will be openly available on its e-book platform rather than sold directly to libraries or readers as single titles,” writes Grove.

Forbes contributor Mary Juetten spotlights how a group of MIT alumni recently published a book, “Points of You,” which chronicles some of the struggles youths often face as they enter adulthood. “In this book we aimed to share real and unfiltered accounts of what we wish we’d known while growing up,” says Minha Fahmi ’19. “By presenting the perspectives of four very different people, we hope that teenagers and young adults can find understanding and new points of view.”

Graduate student John Urschel speaks with Education Week reporter Kevin Bushweller about his work aimed at encouraging more students of color to pursue studies in the STEM fields, particularly math. “What really matters is resources, what really matters is how much a child is nurtured and fed things,” says Urschel. “This is just my opinion, but I would say that, by and large, if I had to choose between giving a child a little bit more innate math talent or a little bit more resources, I think, really, resources is what is a very good and bigger predictor [of future success].”

Prof. Sherry Turkle’s new book, “The Empathy Diaries,” is a “beautiful book,” writes Dwight Garner for The New York Times. “It has gravity and grace; it’s as inexorable as a fable; it drills down into the things that make a life; it works to make sense of existence on both its coded and transparent levels; it feels like an instant classic of the genre.”

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with Wired reporter Arielle Pardes about her new memoir, “The Empathy Diaries,” her views on screen time during the pandemic and finding connections during a time of physical distancing. “When people have great intent, and great desire, and full attention to turn this medium into something extraordinary, they can,” says Turkle of the internet. “The trouble is, we’re more likely to use it to make some money, to scrape some data, to turn it into something other than its highest form.”

In her new memoir, “The Empathy Diaries,” Prof. Sherry Turkle takes readers on her journey from “a working-class Brooklyn childhood to tenured professor at M.I.T.,” writes Casey Schwartz for The New York Times. “The title of her new book reflects one of Turkle’s preoccupations,” notes Schwartz. “As we disappear into our lives onscreen, spending less time in reflective solitude, and less time in real-life conversation with others, empathy, as Turkle sees it, is one of the casualties.” 

Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim spotlights Prof Justin Reich’s new book, “Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.” Kim writes, “‘Failure to Disrupt’ is an argument for educational tinkering over radical disruption. Reich sees potential in scaled online learning to benefit some learners in some circumstances.”

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about his book, “Why Nations Fail,” whether the attack on the U.S. Capitol signals difficulties for U.S. institutions, and how politicians can create more shared prosperity through a “good jobs” agenda. "We are still at a point where we can reverse things," Acemoglu says. "But I think if we paper over these issues, we will most likely see a huge deterioration in institutions. And it can happen very rapidly."

Forbes contributor Sharon Goldman spotlights Prof. Yossi Sheffi’s new book, “The New (Ab)Normal,” which examines how companies shifted their operations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Goldman writes that in the book, Sheffi “details how businesses grappled with the chaos of the pandemic, and explores what enterprises are likely to do to survive and thrive in 2021 and beyond, after the pandemic starts to subside.”

Vice President for Open Leaning Sanjay Sarma speaks with Jeffrey Young of EdSurge about how the brain works when understanding new concepts. "I question a lot of the structures and dogmas in education that are very closely held, but not necessarily based on science,” says Sarma. “And if we have the courage to reexamine these assumptions and reconstitute education, there's an incredible opportunity to change the game.”

New York Times reporter David Leonhardt spotlights Prof. Jonathan Gruber and Prof. Simon Johnson’s book, “Jump-Starting America,” which explores how collaboration between the federal government and private companies has led to some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs.