American Prisons Can Predict How Many Beds They’ll Need by Looking at Children’s Reading Scores

Plus, happier news!

The Reading Life

Maryanne Wolf is one of my favorite neuroscientists (you know you’re a nerd when you have a favorite neuroscientist), and her work centers around how reading abilities develop in the brain…and why they sometimes don’t.

Two of her books, Proust and the Squid and Reader, Come Home, both made a tremendous impact on me, and I’d like to share a short summary, plus my best notes and takeaways from the latter one today.

But after reading more than 1,200+ books, I have so much more that I want to share with you. So many fantastic books that can make positive, meaningful changes in your one, astounding, valuable life.

Thus…

Today we’ve got:

• An introduction to today’s “Five Books”
• The book quote of the week
• My personal news, and the best of what I’m reading and sharing right now
• A new book alert: featuring a hugely popular book to help you think clearly and take decisive action
• The latest book breakdown from the Stairway to Wisdom
• “Learned hopefulness,” which is the polar opposite of the more well-known “learned…