“Magazines are businesses, much like other companies. But there’s one big difference—they almost always get smaller, not bigger.” So starts Ted Gioia’s recent article, The Death of the Magazine. It is an interesting look at the rise and fall of the industry that was once […]

What’s on your fall reading list? I am looking forward to diving into these interesting books: Knife by Salman Rushdie Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson The Elements of Marie Curie by […]

I just learned that one of my favorite novelists, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers, will be publishing a new book later this fall. For those who are unfamiliar with Powers’ work, it would be hard for me to describe what attracts me to his fiction. […]

Take a look inside one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s final designs, a 7,000-square-foot 1955 house along the Noroton River in New Canaan, Connecticut, called Tirana from this video from Architectual Digest:   “Nature is the only body of God we see.” -Frank Lloyd Wright  

Sophia Stewart cites Joan Didion’s famous 1979 line from “The White Album”  in her recent book review for The Atlantic: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” As such we look for the familiar halmarks of storytelling, writes Stewart: clearly defined heroes and villains, […]

I am looking forward to reading The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World by Nobel Prize-winning author William Nordhaus, who has a long career working with climate policy and economics. The book was published last year by Princeton […]

I recently had the opportunity to hear acclaimed author Nathaniel Philbrick speak about his career, the maritime history of colonial America, and his writing process. He also spoke about his recent release, Travels with George, which highlights the various locations our first president visited while […]

I just finished reading a book this week that I would highly recommend. It’s called What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society. Author Minouche Shafik, who was recently named as a board member of the Bill and Melinda Gates […]

At Finance & Commerce, I created Beyond the Skyline, a podcast about economic development, real estate and construction in Minnesota. We are closing in on our 100th episode. In this special episode, I speak with historian, former financial services executive and bestselling author Zachary Karabell about his latest book, Inside […]

I’ve been a big fan of Richard Powers’ work since I came upon Galatae 2.2 in graduate school. His books combine science and technology with keen observations on the human condition. His recent book, The Overstory, was his best yet. It changed how I viewed […]

I’m looking forward to reading Ronald C. White’s  latest book, Lincoln in Private. From the publisher: “From the New York Times bestselling author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses, a revelatory glimpse into the intellectual journey of our sixteenth president through his private notes to himself, explored together here for the first […]