Contributors to the August 2021 issue of TD magazine offer their book recommendations.

Kathryn Zukof

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

This book provides inspiration and practical advice on how to develop the courage and discipline to incorporate more creativity into your life. Gilbert provides an incredibly accurate description, at least for me, of the gripping fear that can prevent us from putting our work out there and perspective on how to blow past that fear.

Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters by Deborah Stone

Stone provides insight into how categorizing and enumerating influences limits the ways we define personal, workplace, and societal problems. This book, which is wonderfully readable, is for anyone who’s interested in wrestling with measurement.

Arun Pradhan

How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman

Milkman has been the inspiration for several models on ModelThinkers. This new book continues her exploration of nudges, habits, and the practical side of behavioral science to embed change.

Clark Quinn

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett

This book does two important things. First, it makes an accessible introduction to the new model of cognition as a prediction engine. Second, it uses that architecture to make a new claim about emotions: They're not the basic building blocks that we envision but instead are cultural concepts that we can create and, more importantly, change.

The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul

This book brings together a suite of related research in cognition—including distributed, situated, and embodied cognition—that enriches (and corrects) our thinking about thinking. Not only is this research interesting and important, but there are significant implications for what we as talent development professionals do.