The Looming Tower:
Wow, I guess the only thing I really read this month was The Looming Tower- which, by the way, was excellent. A rich and extremely thorough history of Al Qaeda going back past the Cole and embassy bombings, before the mujahideen movement, into the Saudi anti-royalist movements of the 70s, the Egyptian movements of the 60's all the way to Qutb (Quttub, however you want to spell it), and the Muslim Brotherhood wayyy back. And still, an amazing read that I simply could not stop reading. I can't recommend this enough, I think its my favorite of the many books on or around this subject I've read over the past few years.
Mindfulness: Ellen Langer
Okay, not exactly what I'd expected. This book was not about mindfulness the meditation, but uses the term in terms of social and cognitive psychology, thoguh in very interesting ways. Langer is a social psychologist who seems to study a lot about the ways that people act and interact based on heuristic patterns of thought that can be "mindless" and counterproductive, and discusses thinking strategies that are mind-ful and open up new avenues into creativity and performance. She does a ton of research into the elderly which is a bit dry, but the studies and writings she has done on people and institutions are really quite fascinating. Also, this is a really quick read. Its kind of like a proto Goleman / Gilbert book, as its from the early 80's. Still, interesting enough.
