Exercise your Brain!

Who knew curling up with a book was a form of exercise! Not only does it improve brain connectivity and comprehension, but it also increases your ability to empathize with other people.

As the cool weather approaches, consider creating a reading list that ventures into unexplored subjects and literary styles. Just one book can reignite your imagination and sharpen your vocabulary and language skills!

Here are some books on the Olive + Soy reading list to help you get started:

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
  On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.

• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups – Daniel Coyle (What do Pixar, Google and the San Antonio Spurs basketball team have in common? The answer is that they all owe their extraordinary success to their team-building skills. In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the most effective organisations in the world and reveals their secrets.

• Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine
  At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent young fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally." When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella's life and well-being seem to be in grave peril.

• The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection –Anne H. Berry, Kareem Collie, Penina Acayo Laker, Lesley-Ann Noel, Jennifer Rittner, Kelly Walters
  Excluded from traditional design history and educational canons that heavily favor European modernist influences, the work and experiences of Black designers have been systematically overlooked in the profession for decades. However, given the national focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, educators, practitioners, and students now have the opportunity—as well as the social and political momentum—to make long-term, systemic changes in design education, research, and practice, reclaiming the contributions of Black designers in the process.

• Elsewhere – Alexis Schaitkin
  Vera grows up in a small town, removed and isolated, pressed up against the mountains, cloud-covered and damp year-round. This town, fiercely protective, brutal and unforgiving in its adherence to tradition, faces a singular affliction: some mothers vanish, disappearing into the clouds. It is the exquisite pain and intrinsic beauty of their lives; it sets them apart from people elsewhere and gives them meaning.

• Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way – Lars Mytting
  The latest Scandinavian publishing phenomenon is not a Stieg Larsson thriller, and it’s not the comfort of Danish Hygge. It’s Lars Mytting’s Norwegian Wood , a full-color practical book about the art and craft of handling wood for heating that has become an international bestseller, selling over 200,000 copies in Norway and Sweden.