Birth-Rate Crisis: Reclaiming Family and Purpose in a Dopamine-Driven World by Jim Penman and Andrea Pearson
Housing costs. Career pressures. Finding the right partner. The obstacles to parenthood are familiar—but do they fully explain why people across the world are having fewer children than they hoped for?
Jim Penman and Andrea Pearson explore another possibility: modern overstimulation may be changing our brains’ sensitivity to dopamine, making the everyday pleasures of family life less rewarding. Drawing on history, demographic research and their own experiences as parents, the authors examine ancient societies, the postwar baby boom and close-knit communities where larger families still thrive. Their discussion of parenting styles and shared responsibilities offers practical ideas for making raising children more manageable and enjoyable today.
They also call for research into possible biological treatments, an effort Penman is already supporting through research funding. Written for general readers, Birth-Rate Crisis explores what helps us find satisfaction in family, work and community — and what might be getting in the way.
Purchase at https://books2read.com/u/mveYGe.
Crossing Division Street by Rebecca Chamian Ribaudo
When a little girl jumps into attorney Sidone Russo’s car in Cabrini-Green, crying, “Go lady! They gonna kill me!” Sidone must reckon with a past she put behind her long ago.
Rebecca Chamian Ribaudo’s Crossing Division Street is a dual-timeline saga of loyalty, betrayal, and survival that spans a century of American history, from a late-1800s sugarcane plantation to the tenements of Little Sicily and the towers of Cabrini-Green. Across four generations, the novel traces the forces of family, events, and circumstance that shape identity—from parts inherited and embraced to those that are rejected and left behind.
The conflicts of generations converge in an adoption trial in which Sidone is forced to choose between her heritage and the principles guiding her life. At stake are her career, her family’s deepest secret, a little girl, and the only man she has ever loved.
At the heart of the novel is one question: How much of our identity is owed to what we inherit, and how much should be ours to choose?
Learn more at https://www.crossingdivisionstreet.com/ or purchase at https://tinyurl.com/crossing-division-street.
In Defense of Earth by Marlen Suyapa Bodden
Seventeen-year-old Elaine Johnson-Coleman is a competitive swimmer, but nothing can prepare her for the devastation Hurricane Zeta brings to New York in 2046. As floodwater rises through her grandparents’ Harlem brownstone, keeping her family alive becomes a desperate struggle.
Years later, Elaine’s geothermal engineering expertise draws her into a secret NASA project. An extraterrestrial android called Axy promises limitless clean energy and a solution to climate catastrophe. Its hidden mission, however, could destroy the planet it claims to want to save.
Meanwhile, New York’s post-hurricane government monitors residents, criminalizes protests and enforces a one-child law. When Elaine discovers she is carrying twins, protecting her children means defying the authorities.
Marlen Suyapa Bodden’s Afrofuturist novel moves from intimate family struggles to threats facing all humanity, imagining a future where governments use the promise of safety to justify surveillance, political repression and forced family separation. It’s a future that feels unsettlingly close — a world one climate catastrophe away from our own.
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/in-defense-of-earth.
Maya Lin & The Ancient Order of Seshat: the arQitect by J. Adrian Betancourt
After her father’s sudden death, Maya Lin receives an ancient gold medallion from her grandmother — and someone ransacks her home looking for it. When even the police become a threat, the architectural historian flees across Biscayne Bay and into a family history she never knew.
Her grandparents belonged to the Ancient Order of Seshat, protectors of knowledge that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands. Now a stolen scroll has reached QiNIUS, whose popular meditation device could become a way to control other people’s minds.
Joined by her former Kung Fu teacher, an artifact retriever and a technology whiz with an AI robot dragon, Maya follows clues through San Francisco landmarks while enemies close in.
Ancient mysteries, Taoist philosophy and technological ambition fuel this playful adventure, where a 90-year-old grandmother can be as resourceful as any warrior — and preserving wisdom means knowing whom to trust with it. Take The Da Vinci Code, add some Indiana Jones and a touch of The Matrix, and you get a series opener that will leave you wanting more Maya Lin!
Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/the-arqitect.
