April is here and I am on track with my reading goals. I think the COVID-19 virus is playing a part. Without a daily commute, I have turned the extra time into reading time. This month is going to be a hodgepodge of books. I have a couple related to education, a couple of history books, a mystery, and one about dealing with Black Swan events. I wonder if the Coronavirus counts. I hope you are healthy and have time to read. Come and check out my reading list for April and read along with me.
Here is what is on my reading list for April 2020:
Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers by Malcolm Knowles
I am a fan of Malcolm Knowles and andragogy principles. Yesterday, I was talking with a professor about helping students become more self-directed in their learning. Coincidently, I had this book on my list of books to read for April. I think I have already read this one because it has been sitting on my shelf for a long time. I shall find out shortly.
Via Amazon:
It’s the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure-garbage removal, clean water, sewers-necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action-and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time.
In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of disease, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.
High-Impact Practices in Online Education: Research and Best Practices by Kathryn E. Linder (Editor), Chrysanthemum Mattison Hayes (Editor), and Kelvin Thompson (Foreword)
Instructional technologists from several other higher education institutions were talking about high-impact practices and referenced this book. Since I am always looking to improve my craft, I felt that this was a good time to read it. There stands a high probability that I will turn this into a book review for a journal.
Via Amazon:
This volume offers the first comprehensive guide to how high-impact practices (HIPs) are being implemented in online environments and how they can be adjusted to meet the needs of online learners. This multi-disciplinary approach will assist faculty and administrators to effectively implement HIPs in distance education courses and online programs.
With a chapter devoted to each of the eleven HIPs, this collection offers guidance that takes into account the differences between e-learners and traditional on-campus students.
A primary goal of High-Impact Practices Online is to share the ways in which HIPs may need to be amended to meet the needs of online learners. Through specific examples and practical suggestions in each chapter, readers are introduced to concrete strategies for transitioning HIPs to the online environment that can be utilized across a range of disciplines and institution types. Each chapter of High-Impact Practices Online also references the most recent and relevant literature on each HIP so that readers are brought up to date on what makes online HIPs successful.
The book provides guidance on how best to implement HIPs to increase retention and completion for online learners.
Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac
My wife, Bernadette, had picked up this book. Anytime the Nazis are outwitted, it piques my interest. I am looking to learn more.
Via Amazon:
Lucie Aubrac (1912-2007), of Catholic and peasant background, was teaching history in a Lyon girls’ school and newly married to Raymond, a Jewish engineer, when World War II broke out and divided France. The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie’s harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades—including her husband, under Nazi death sentence—from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999.
The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines by Cate Lineberry
This book was a book my wife, Bernadette, picked up. The title grabbed my attention so I am going to see what it is about.
Via Amazon:
When 26 Army nurses and medics-part of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron-boarded a cargo plane for transport in November 1943, they never anticipated the crash landing in Nazi-occupied Albania that would lead to their months-long struggle for survival. A drama that captured the attention of the American public, the group and its flight crew dodged bullets and battled blinding winter storms as they climbed mountains and fought to survive, aided by courageous villagers who risked death at Nazi hands to help them.
A mesmerizing tale of the courage and heroism of ordinary people, The Secret Rescue tells not only a new story of struggle and endurance, but also one of the daring rescue attempts by clandestine American and British organizations amid the tumultuous landscape of the war.
The Murder Book (A Cold Case Investigation (2)) by Lissa Marie Redmond
I had read Redmond’s first book, A Cold Day in Hell. I instantly became a fan of her writing. Our local book story had to temporarily shutter because of the Coronavirus. I picked up a couple of books to support the store.
Via Amazon:
Cold case detective Lauren Riley wakes up in the hospital certain of two things: she was stabbed and left for dead…and the person who did it was a cop.
After being brutally stabbed at her desk late one night, Lauren Riley works her way backwards through the haze to piece together who attacked her and why. A mysterious phone message forces her to enlist the help of a retired lieutenant to track down a witness who is desperate not to be found. As she digs into the Buffalo Police Department’s hidden past she uncovers a terrible secret, one a fellow officer would kill to protect.
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I head about this book on one of the many podcasts I listen to. It sounded like something I should read.
Via Amazon:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.
In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.
Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear.
Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.
Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.
That’s it for this month — I want to hear what good books YOU’VE read lately! Please share in the comments below.
If you missed previous months in 2020, you can still check them out:
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
My Reviews for This Reading List
- Book Review: Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers
- Book Review: The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines
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