We got a bit of snow today despite the higher temps, and while the kids were skiing and I hang back at the lodge I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great talk by Jason Jackson on how Indian and foreign business leaders and policymakers navigated decades of changing foreign investment policies at The Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtNR1KT25TE

Next was an amazing conversation with John Kallas reviewing US labor actions in 2025 on the Power At Work podcast. This is an extremely detailed look at different aspects of worker activism, with thought-provoking contrasts with the last two years. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNg__jqbfww

Next was a great talk by Halvard Fredriksen on past, present, and future of the "Norway Model" of EU market integration at the Cambridge Faculty of Law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TTqVmQp2Z8

Next was a fantastic conversation between Michael Levin and Ann Lipton on the latest Twitter securities fraud case against Musk (surprise surprise) and the ongoing developments in the soap-opera level drama that is the Warner Brothers Discovery M&A saga on the Shareholder Primacy podcast. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8c7b3Gv9BQ

Next was "Hard at Work" by Francis Green. This is a good review of recent international surveys of job quality, examining both global and country-level phenomena. What comes out is how many elements of job quality are weakly correlated (at least in self reports), and why it's important to go beyond financial metrics for gauging societal wellbeing. I wish there was more in the book about the calibration of these surveys across countries/languages, and the lack of quantitative context for these findings made it harder to interpret. If you're looking to pull out survey metrics on work, this book should be your first stop https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hard-at-work-9780197692516

Next was "The Spike" by Mark Humphries. Humphries does an incredible job walking the line between accessible, enjoyable prose and academically rigorous content, here providing a deep dive into the nature of neuronal activity. Even if you're familiar with neuroscience at a broader level, you'll likely learn a lot here about the classes of activity patterns and how they connect to broader neural phenomena and organism activities, and I'm always a sucker for a book that hammers home the limitations of fMRI. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691195889/the-spike

Last was "Ding Dong! Avon Calling!" by Katina Manko. This is a masterful look at the history of Avon, which took the peddler model common in the US in the late 1800s and pioneered a whole new business and employment model centered on direct sales through "independent contractors." Manko traces the company from those beginnings to the modern day, examining how Avon further broke the mold with its mostly female workforce, eventually also bringing women into middle management roles. It's shocking how much this model was both of its time and also deeply modern, with influencers selling on TikTok in many ways the evolution of the approach that Avon honed over the decades. Manko also doesn't shy away from Avon's many strategic and ethical missteps, delivering a book that is a must read for people interested in management, history, or gender studies. Highly recommend https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ding-dong-avon-calling-9780190499822