The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery and Anne Bikle

A geologist and a biologist buy a house with fixer-upper dirt and learn how to make it fertile. They added tons of coffee grounds, wood chips, leaves, and home-brewed compost tea and it worked over a period of several years. "....by nurturing the microbial life below ground, we can reverse much of the damage caused by the ancient practice of plowing and the modern overuse of pesticides and fertilizers. Microbes maintain our health too.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

The subtitle is What They Fell, How They Communicate, Discoveries from a Secret World. Trees lives longer and do things at a slower pace. The send slow electrical signals and release chemicals that other trees can detect. The are social and care for each other by means of soil fungi. Isolated trees live shorter lives than those living connected together in forests.

Now: The Physics of Time by Richard A. Muller

As the Big Bang creates new space, it also creates new time ... and that new time is the key to now.
At least some random element originated in quantum physics so physics is incomplete implying free will is possible.

He explores the limitations of physics. "What does the color blue look like?", for example. "the evidence leads to the conclusion that physics is incomplete, that it will never be capable of describing all of reality."

Beyond Culture by Edward T. Hall

It's fascinating how much we are influenced by out culture. Chapter 6, Context and Meaning, defines a high-context communication in which most of the information is in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the explicit coded part of the message. In a low-context communication the mass of information is vested in the explicit code. Cultures tend to emphasize one or the other which makes communication difficult between them, if different.

Chapter 10 covers action chains. An action chain is a set sequence of events in which usually two or more individuals participate. He gives an example of college students courting behavior as shown in the library.

A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen

The insight here is that humans should feel part of the world and respect the plants, animals and stuff in our shared endeavor. Even science he says assumes we are trying to conquer nature and make it work for us. Smithsonian magazine had an article about trees communicating in a forest so we have barely scratched the surface of reality.