I’ve been juggling a few good books lately. Here are three that I’ve really loved during the last month or so:

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia and this book is about his evolution as a businessman. I saw him speak at Lewis and Clark College a couple of years ago, when he was touring for the book. I hadn’t read it before seeing him speak, but always had the book on my list since then. I saw it at Powells a few weeks ago and snagged it. It gave me lots of food for thought about what it means to be a responsible businessperson (and regular-person) in this world. Patagonia exists in large part to funnel money toward causes that change the world. Chouinard relates a story early in the book about meeting a business guru and figuring out why he (Chouinard) wasn’t going to sell the company any time soon–he cared about his workers and he cared about the difference Patagonia was making in the world, as a socially conscious business. He also tells a story about watching his dad pull out his own teeth with electrician’s pliers….!

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
I’m not sure where I was tipped off to this fantastic book, but I’m glad I read it. I don’t quite know how to describe the style of writing. It’s a 3rd person narrative about real people, so it’s definitely non-fiction. But it often reads like a novel. Preston is a talented writer, that’s for sure. The storyline follows scientists (often before they were actually scientists) into the tree canopy of the California redwoods. If you’ve been to the redwoods, it’ll make you want to go back. If you haven’t been, you’ll want to go. Here are some pictures about the people in the book.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
This book has been on my to-read list for a long while. I’m still reading it and I wish I’d gotten to it earlier! This is just a fantastic overview of scientific history, with tons of fascinating factoids to keep your interest (as if Bryson’s entertaining writing style weren’t enough). For instance…every model or illustration that you’ve ever seen of our solar system is wildly inaccurate. Not even close to scale. If you were to view a diagram or model that was created to scale, and the Earth were the size of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away, and Pluto would be a mile and a half away (and the size of a bacterium). Space is unimaginably large. If that stuff captures your imagination, you’ll love this book. Bryson takes you on an educational journey that you won’t forget. I’m learning stuff about Newton, Curie, Einstein and all the other big names (and tons of lesser names) that I never had any idea about. For instance, Marie Curie’s papers (even her cookbooks) are still so radioactive that they’re stored in lead-lined boxes. If you want to check ’em out you have to put on a protective suit!

Bonus book: handwritten book by J.K. Rowling that sold for $4 million at auction. Haven’t read that one, though.