What I'm Reading

I'm still in process with a few things that I pick up and put down.  On the side of more serious reading on race, history, and ethnicity I'm also reading some kinds of pop psych books on the brain or the emotions.  I'm having a hard time reading some books in public, in the age of Trump, because I feel like anyone seeing me will think I'm reading things like "The Rise and Fall of the White Republic" or "Whiteness of a Different Color" because I'm a proponent of white supremacism.  On the other hand the pop psych books I've been buying have caused Amazon (the only artificial intelligence that actually knows what I'm buying and reading) to think that I'm an abused child who needs a divorce.  Right now I'm reading In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People which is surprisingly thought provoking, Lundy's Why Does He Do That which is a really famous book about abusive relationships, and He Wins/She Wins which is a thin, shallow, book about negotiations within marriage.  These are all issues which come up in the baby group or when you are talking to new parents or even when you are talking to your teenagers and thinking about how to help them understand other people's motivations.  Oh, I'm also reading a book "Difficult Conversations" by the Harvard Negotiating Project, the people who brought us "Getting To Yes."  I don't have much to say about that right now except that I think the very premise that discussions between business or contract partners can be understood in the same terms as discussions between family members is absurd.  They just don't belong in the same book because the moral terms that apply between the parties are so very different.