The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert, Revised and Updated

This book is part narrative and part laundry list of actions based on Gottman's relationship research. Successful marriages don't avoid conflict. However, they know how to deal with it. Couples need to identify areas that are negotiable and those that are not. Spend time on the areas where benefit can be achieved. There are also key areas in which men and women often differ. These seem to be present throughout different cultures. Males tend to take a stronger role of authority. Women tend to value cleaning more and are more concerned about feelings. There are many other things that tend to be over-represented in one gender (though that they are applicable to all couples or individuals.)

The seven principles include:

1. Share Love Maps

2. Nurture Your Fondness & Admiration

3. Turn Towards Each Other Instead of Away

4. Let Your Partner Influence You

5. Solve Your Solvable Problems

6. Overcome Gridlock

7. Create Shared Meaning

The book does not advocate a one size fits all "quick fix" to marital problems. The preferred approach may differ from couple to couple. However, using the principles as a guide for building the relationship is highly correlated with a lasting marriage.

Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids

The authors of Love, Money and Parenting analyze various parenting styles across time and geography through an economic lens. The general conclusion is that income inequality and chance of advancement leads to more helicopter-style parenting. In societies that are more egalitarian, children are able to run free and not given such high demands. 

With inequality, there is a strong desire to give children the advantages needed to succeed. This can differ across cultures. In China, everything depends on academic achievement and the focus is there. In America, academics and extra-circulars are needed to gain access to elite colleges. Thus, parents shuffle children off to many different activities.

Agrarian societies saw children as a key part of the family labor. Families were typically larger and expected to help out. There were typically different roles optimized for age and gender, but everyone helped out.  Even at the start of the industrial revolution, children could continue to help the family by working. Roles continued to be based on specific gender (often with those demanding more brawn for men, and more finesse for women.) There were also different systems of marriage and inheritance that would favor one gender over the other. Today, many roles are knowledge based and are fairly easily performed by males or females.  There is thus a greater demand for more equal treatment.

The authors present a large number of different statistical analyses to identify certain factors that would help identify the cause of parenting being a certain way. There is a little bit of combined analysis. However, it would be interesting to see more on "buckets" of traits that are impactful. It is interesting that there are such extreme differences in parenting style today. From a policy perspective, I think we often confuse cause and effect. We see an egalitarian society in Scandinavia, so we attempt to emulate their non-tracked permissive schooling on a local level. Alas, this merely lets a small group of students fall behind. The permissive schooling is the effect, not the cause. And furthermore, it extends in to the culture, both in and outside the school. 

Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

In Growing a Revolution David R. Montgomery advocates farming practices that center upon building healthy soil. Conventional agriculture depletes soil of nutrients and gradually leads to an erosion of topsoil. Fertilizer attempts to restore some of the critical nutrients. However, it does not restore the important micro organisms that help make healthy soil. Also, a good portion of the fertilizer runs off, contaminating water supplies. In addition, the tendency to plant the same crops over and over makes them more subject to pests, requiring more pesticides, leading to resistant pests and more pesticide use.
He advocates for "no till farming" with crop rotations. Rather than plow the ground, the previous crops are used for mulch. New crops (of a different variety) are planted in the ground. The organic matter decays and improves the health of the soil. The rotation and planting of cover crops helps improve the health of the soil and make it more resistant to pests. This healthier soil is also much better at holding water than plowed soil. No till farming can be either organic or conventional. In general, it may more closely resemble organic farming because of less dependence on pesticides and fertilizer. However, the practice can be done with either conventional or organic approaches. (Pest control with conventional would still be an acceptable if needed.) An initial shift to no-till farming may see a drop in productivity. However, as the soil health builds up, productivity tends to be similar to conventional farming. However, the input costs of no-till farming practices are much less. Thus, even when productivity is lower, the no-till farms are still much more profitable.
The main problem with no-till farming is that there is not a business interest behind it. It results in lower demand for big agrichemicals. Perhaps what they need to do is get big farm implement companies behind it. There has to be a good deal of money behind "no-till" tractor equipment. Perhaps seed companies could also get behind selling more seeds. (Though the author does discuss a breeder who is working on perennial grains.)
The author also takes the discussion across the world. In Africa, he meets with a no-till advocate. In Asia, society has been returning human waste to the ground as fertilizer for many years. (Cities even sell their waste to farmers.) Even Tacoma sells processed sewage as fertilizer. Farmers in North Dakota have adopted no-till to significant success.