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Time Wise is a book that guides you to carve time out wisely

Amantha imber pulls together the top tips she’s got from ceos, experts and founders.

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Productivity is inextricably linked to time, so it’s always annoying to read platitudes like “You have the same number of hours in the day as Beyoncé”, who, as we all know, is an award-winning singer-songwriter, mother of three, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and something of a feminist icon. Amantha Imber, author of Time Wise , acknowledges that such overachievers—and she counts herself as one, being a businesswoman, organisational psychologist, mother, and host of the podcast How I Work —can be supremely irritating but says she draws on the habits of others who use time wisely to manage her own.

Also Read: India’s pen hospitals continue to revive fountain pens

The premise of the book is not terribly original—about 90 leading founders, CEOs and behavioural experts share the one time-management tip they swear by—but Imber’s easy style and candid humour, often taking digs at her own high productivity, make this a good read. The book’s structure, too, helps: The strategies are categorised into seven sections and you can choose to read the book depending on what you are aiming for, whether improving efficiency or focus, or learning to network better or set priorities. Reading a book like this cover to cover would, ironically, be a bit of a waste of time. The categorisation, therefore, is practical, with each strategy leading to a different kind of outcome.

Most advice about time management and productivity tells you to make lists, delegate, prioritise and create no-phone hours in your day. And most of this advice is quite meaningless or impossible to follow. Instead, Imber picks strategies that have worked over and over for behavioural experts like Cal Newport, Adam Grant, Emily Oster and Marissa King. These are ideas you could actually try, such as creating a might-do list of boring, non-urgent administrative tasks instead of piling them all into an anxiety-inducing, two-page to-do list. These are jobs that distract you from the work you really need to do and can be batched together to tackle at one shot on a day you are not feeling particularly creative or productive. When you clear that might-do list, as I found, even a day you have written off as being one where you will not get anything done turns around dramatically.

Also Read: Growth of children’s literature is critical for a nation: Kavita Gupta Sabharwal

Imber also lists founders’ advice to avoid small talk, to network at a party when you know nobody, and to write funnier, warmer emails at work. This last bit of advice is much needed for management types who load emails with jargon. Some of these strategies might already be available in other books—after all, everyone and their aunt has written about time-saving techniques—but this serves as a good compendium.

There’s a suggestion to create a “Joy” folder on your desktop or physical box on your desk with photographs, objects, printouts of emails of praise and more to remind yourself, on a bad day, that you are doing a good job and things aren’t so bad after all. I especially liked Cal Newport’s advice to start the day by scheduling your lunch break, which isn’t a tip just to make sure you eat on time but also to carve out 30 minutes of time for yourself right in the middle of the working day. Breaks are no longer an afterthought. He also suggests scheduling five-minute breaks for yourself every hour just to stretch.

It’s the little tips that remind you to have fun that really make this book worth reading.

Shelf Help: A guide to a better you in work, home, and life

• FIRST PUBLISHED 05.04.2023 | 09:15 AM IST
• For more such stories Lifestyle News , Fashion Photos on Mint Lounge.

MOST POPULAR

• Published: 5 December 2023
• ISBN: 9781761343070
• Imprint: Penguin
• Format: Paperback
• RRP: $24.99
• Business & management
• Self-help & personal development

Powerful Habits, More Time, Greater Joy

Amantha Imber

The instant bestseller from the behavioural scientist behind the #1 ranking Australian business podcast How I Work .

'This charming book will save you more time than it takes to read.' Adam Grant

'A must-read. This book will transform how you approach your workday.' Greg McKeown

'Read this book!' Jake Knapp

High achievers most definitely approach their workday differently. This book gives access to the secrets and strategies they've found for making things work. From Wharton Professor Adam Grant's trick to get into flow when he starts work, Google's Executive Productivity Advisor, Laura Mae Martin, and her inbox shape-shifting, to Cal Newport's multiple kaban boards, this isn't your typical productivity book.

You know the basics and have heard the swallow-the-frog platitudes. Time Wise goes deeper and unveils some of the more counterintuitive but effective methods that boost your productivity. Some of the high achievers featured, along with their personal strategies, include Adam Alter setting systems instead of goals, Rita McGrath who consults her own personal board of directors, Jake Knapp who focuses on the one important thing of the day and Oliver Burkeman's approach to beating the to-do list.

This book will allow you to master the superpower of using your time wisely to achieve success in business, life and beyond.

About the author

Dr Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and founder of behaviour change consultancy Inventium. Amantha is also the host of the number one ranking life improvement podcast How I Work , which has had over 5 million downloads, where she interviews some of the world’s most successful people about their habits, strategies and rituals.

In 2019, Amantha was named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence. In 2021, she won the Thinkers50 Innovation Award (described by the Financial Times as the “Oscars for Management Thinking”), which recognises the thinker who has contributed the most to the understanding of innovation globally over the last two years.

Amantha’s thoughts have appeared in Harvard Business Review , Forbes , Entrepreneur and Fast Company and she is the author of three bestselling books, The Creativity Formula , The Innovation Formula and Time Wise , which unlocks the productivity secrets of the world’s most successful people.

Also by Amantha Imber

Praise for Time Wise

I challenge you to read this book and NOT find practical and useful ways to use yours more wisely. Dan Pink

Bursting with actionable ideas on how to use your time better. If you want to make the time you spend at work more productive, focused and fruitful, Time Wise is a must-read. Nir Eyal

Amantha’s laser-like focus on productivity is such a helpful tool. Mia Freedman

Full of practical and easy-to-apply tips and tricks from industry leaders that can be applied to any individual trying to live a more productive, happier life. Laura Mae Martin

Awards & recognition

Australian Business Book Awards

Finalist  •  2023  •  Personal Development Category

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An easy tip from Time Wise to help maximise your productivity.

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ebook ∣ Productivity Secrets of the World's Most Successful People

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9781728290850

Amantha Imber

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Discover personalised strategies and science-backed solutions for improving your sleep, fitness, and nutrition.

Are you trapped in an endless cycle of unhealthy habits? Do you want to eat better, be more active, and sleep soundly but struggle to make lasting changes?

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Time wise: harness the powerful habits and productivity secrets of the world’s most successful people..

A practical guide from the behavioural scientist behind the #1 ranking Australian business podcast How I Work.

• In this clear and value-packed book, Amantha brings together all the gems she’s learned from her conversations with guests including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Cal Newport, Mia Freedman, Turia Pitt, BJ Fogg, Sandra Sully, Kochie, Gary Mehigan and Gretchen Rubin, to name just a few.
• Learn how to become time wise using the hacks that high achievers rely on to accomplish more than the average person – so you can do your best work and have fun while doing it.
• Covering energy, structure, decision-making, self-talk, digital distractions and more, Amantha’s practical and research-backed guide will allow you to shortcut your way to achieving more in less time, with less stress and greater joy.

Buy The Innovation Formula

The innovation formula: the 14 science-based keys for creating a culture where innovation thrives.

The Innovation Formula is the first book worldwide to actually focus on the science of how to create a culture of innovation. You will learn:

• The latest cutting edge science about what really creates an innovation culture
• How some of of the world’s most innovative companies are driving innovation
• Practical and easy to implement strategies that will instantly improve innovation within your organisation
• Your own Innovation Audit to see how your company currently performs.

Reviews for The Innovation Formula

“ Innovation isn't easy, but then again, neither is table tennis. This hands-on and thoroughly-researched book makes it clear that smart organizations discover that the effort, the planning and the respect they put into creating a culture where innovation is welcome pays big dividends. ” Seth Godin Author of What To Do When It's Your Turn

“ A fascinatingly scientific and clear approach to creating that all-important culture of innovation within a workforce. ” Chris Kreinczes Editor and Creative Director, Springwise.com

“ The science of creating an innovative culture delivered in a practical, real-life way you can use immediately. ” James Thomson Companies and Markets Editor, The Australian Financial Review

“ The Innovation Formula is not just another innovation book. It gives practical and relevant examples of what it truly takes to make innovation part of a company’s culture. ” Michael Vavakis Group Head of Human Resources, Lendlease

Buy The Creativity Formula

The creativity formula: 50 scientifically-proven creativity boosters for work and for life.

The Creativity Formula will take you through the latest scientific findings about how you can use your brain to think more creatively and come up with better ideas more easily and quickly. The book will explain:

• How to instantly ‘switch on’ your creativity
• Why traditional brainstorming is bollocks
• How exposing yourself to certain types of images can significantly boost your creativity
• Why your physical environment may be killing your creativity
• And much much more.

Reviews for The Creativity Formula

“ In plain English, with great verve, Amantha Imber translates hundreds of psychological studies into workable tactics for awakening creativity. If you catch some of your friends squeezing an object with their hand (won't tell you which one!) before an important meeting, you know they've read Amantha Imber's marvellous book. It has 49 further practical, scientifically established strategies for making all of us as creative as we dream of being, all imparted in a real fun way, and easy to apply. ” Professor Roald Hoffmann Nobel-Prize winning chemist and writer

“ This book combines Amantha’s knowledge of science, psychology & creativity in a fun, useful and practical way. If you want to get your creative juices flowing or that of your team then I couldn’t recommend it more highly. ” Peter Williams CEO Deloitte Digital

“ Amantha's book makes the sometimes-esoteric nature of creativity tangible for anyone. Supported by scientific study and easy-to-follow examples, this book can help both individuals and organisations inject the spark of creativity into their world and unearth great ideas. ” Lee Hunter Product Marketing Manager, Google

Dr Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium.

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A Black conservative reflects on his past, shocking behavior and all

In “Late Admissions,” the economist, social critic and podcast host Glenn Loury recounts his eminent career and his ideological journeys.

About a month ago, before the publication of his disarmingly candid new memoir, “ Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative ,” Glenn Loury — the eminent economist and social critic — announced he was undergoing a major surgery. “I have got spinal stenosis with a vengeance,” he told followers of “The Glenn Show,” his popular weekly video podcast. Thankfully, Loury’s ailment is not life-threatening, but at 75 and on the cusp of retirement, he is in the twilight of a distinguished and often contentious career, and “Late Admissions” is certain to impact his legacy.

“I am going to tell you things about myself that no one would want anybody to think was true of them,” Loury warns early in the book. Fans of “The Glenn Show” admire Loury’s probing intelligence and forceful charisma. But he has many detractors, too. He was arrested twice in 1987, first for assaulting his girlfriend, then for drugs. Though the assault charge was dropped, it was a terrible look for someone who was up for a job in the Reagan administration at the time. More recently, Loury has drawn criticism for inveighing strongly, and occasionally profanely, against America’s post-George Floyd “racial reckoning.”

In “Late Admissions,” he intertwines his intellectual journey with unexpectedly juicy personal disclosures. By confessing to some reprehensible behavior, Loury says, he hopes to earn his readers’ trust and, paradoxically, their respect and admiration. If this seems like a risky gambit for such a polarizing thinker, you are onto something.

Loury was born and raised in Park Manor, a Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Socioeconomically, most of its law-abiding residents cruised at medium altitude, but some descended into the underground economy. Loury warmly portrays his vexing and often amusing extended family. His Aunt Eloise became his primary caregiver. Generous, decorous and churchgoing, Eloise enjoyed standing in her community. She had two beguiling brothers, however. Loury’s Uncle Adlert was brilliant but erratic; he became a successful lawyer back when that was uncommon among Black men, only to be disbarred over some unspecified “shady family business.” Meanwhile, Uncle Alfred fathered an astonishing 22 children by four women. “Alfred’s appetites may have outstripped the confines of respectability,” Loury acknowledges. “But he was quite the patriarch. His sense of duty as a father, stretched thin though it may have been, gave his life meaning.”

Loury finished high school “both a valedictorian and a virgin,” though he had two kids by the time he was 19. It was the beginning of a lifetime of assiduously wooing women. While attending junior college, Loury worked as a clerk in a printing plant. It was a solid entry-level job for a young man, and he seemed destined to work a 9 to 5, until an instructor recognized his potential.

Loury transferred on a scholarship to Northwestern University, where he was swiftly discovered to be a math prodigy. In 1972, at 23, he started working on his PhD in economics at MIT. “I am coming in hot,” Loury reminiscences about his arrival on campus. “I’m about to begin a steep professional and intellectual ascent. I know this, and I’m excited by the thought.” As a young man, he published blockbuster works in technical economic theory, and in 1982 he became the first Black economist to earn tenure at Harvard. That is where his path to academic stardom stalled.

Loury faced a conundrum. Was he building a career as an economist, or as a Black economist? It did not help that liberal intellectuals tended not to appreciate his social critiques. Loury surmised that, given American history, it was probably unwise for disadvantaged African Americans to rely upon Whites to help them. Instead, he thought that Black people should follow his Uncle Moonie’s common-sense formula for poverty relief: “Get up and get busy.” Loury recalls a senior colleague warning him to be “very, very careful” about saying this publicly, for fear he could be labeled “conservative” and therefore on the “wrong side” of the early-1980s inequality debate.

Meanwhile, Loury’s ideas in his primary field started drying up. “I began to doubt I had what it takes to be a Player in the big league economics game,” he writes. Many academics suffer from “impostor syndrome,” but Loury actually became one: In the evenings, he would drive his late-model Saab into Boston’s Black neighborhoods, turn his baseball cap sideways (it was the ’80s, remember) and engage in tawdry high jinks. When he trawled nightclubs, hired prostitutes and smoked crack — to which he became powerfully addicted — nobody in those circles knew that he was an Ivy League professor by day. Likewise, his Harvard colleagues had no idea that Loury was paying the rent on a “love nest” for his barely-out-of-college mistress, after having been delinquent on payments for student loans and child support.

Even after his double life was discovered and made national news, Loury could not stop smoking crack. Several of his book’s passages recounting his self-sabotaging escapades induced queasiness in this reader.

Loury’s addiction eventually landed him at the Appleton clinic, an inpatient program at the storied McLean Psychiatric Hospital. After spending several weeks there, he moved into a halfway house and attended daily AA meetings, which may be where he grew comfortable sharing the types of unflattering self-disclosures that appear throughout his memoir. In 1989, Loury and his wife became born-again Christians and found solace and community in a Black church, though only temporarily. Regarding the divinity of Christ, Loury says, “I now have my doubts.”

Upon resuming his career in the early 1990s, Loury continued to surprise, criticizing some erstwhile intellectual allies: He mocked Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve,” for dodging his critics and for his perceived lack of technical facility. He found Dinesh D’Souza’s “The End of Racism” pathetic, dishonest and contemptuous of Black people. Loury had been friends with Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, vocal opponents of affirmative action, but in 1996, at a backyard barbecue, an argument he had with the couple about the urban crisis grew very heated. The following year, Loury eviscerated their tremendously hyped co-written opus, “America in Black and White,” at length in the Atlantic.

Some were correct to wonder: Was Loury becoming progressive? His next research topic was mass incarceration, and back then “there was no blacker project than criticizing America’s prisons,” Loury writes. He found a role that suited his talents, delivering fiery sermons on the United States’ “moral decrepitude.” Though he enjoyed the rush that came from speaking before validating crowds, he eventually concluded that the New Jim Crow narrative — the idea that prisons could be likened to a racial caste system — was “wildly overstated.” He likewise could not get behind the Black Lives Matter movement, which started garnering headlines in 2014. “I had to acknowledge that my social critique and my disposition were better suited to the right,” he writes. “I was a conservative, and in truth I suspected that’s what I always had been.”

A poignant moment arrives toward the end of “Late Admissions.” Glenn’s second wife, Linda, had just died from cancer, at 59. Going through her possessions, he found a self-help book. “It was about learning how to forgive those who have wronged you,” he writes. Many of its passages were underlined, and Loury did not have to wonder why.

So, does Loury’s delicate gambit — his attempt to garner sympathy while revealing some of his worst behavior — work? For this reader, the answer is unequivocally yes. “Late Admissions” is a zestfully written book, packed with humor, pathos and hard-earned wisdom. Even its distasteful revelations are, for the most part, in keeping with Loury’s rigorous ethic of self-scrutiny. He has long insisted that when social science professors play to the crowds or are too timid to speak the truth as they see it, they dishonor their vocation. Now he’s applied that spirt to his autobiography. Loury’s body may be showing the signs of age, but his famously independent thinking is as strong as ever.

John McMillian is an associate professor of history at Georgia State University, in Atlanta. He is writing a book about crime and policing in New York City since the 1960s .

Late Admissions

Confessions of a Black Conservative

By Glenn C. Loury

W.W. Norton. 428 pp. $32.50

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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Book Reviews

A 19th-century bookbinder struggles with race and identity in 'the library thief'.

Keishel Williams

The examination of race and identity can be seen throughout literature, and increasingly today.

In her debut novel, The Library Thief , Kuchenga Shenjé explores these concepts — and the associated expectations that arise when society demands that every group be neatly categorized. Shenjé delves into the past in this work of historical fiction, posing inquiries about Black people's lives in the Victorian era.

In this 19th-century English story, Florence, an ambitious bookbinder, is expelled from her family home by her harsh and unforgiving father for being with a young man. Florence, a clever and savvy woman, persuades Lord Francis Belfield to let her stay at Rose Hall manor by promising to restore the priceless books in his library in time for an impending sale, assuring him that she is just as skilled as her father. Among Lord Belfield's minimal staff, Florence stands out as an educated, liberal woman.

But Florence is not as polished as she wants her new acquaintances to believe. Being raised by a single father and not knowing her mother, whom she was told is dead, has fostered an emptiness in Florence she thought she could fill with books. She's adrift and feels unloved. This fragile foundation is fertile ground for the harrowing experiences Florence faces during her stay at the manor.

Florence arrives at Rose Hall to find that Lord Banfeild's wife has died, and the new widower is beside himself with grief. Immediately, Florence finds herself in the middle of a tightly woven plot of family secrets and lies that conveniently shroud the lives of the upper class. She becomes fixated on Lady Persephone's death and starts investigating suspicious activities around it. During her investigation, she uncovers some dark Banfield family secrets, which include violence, abuse, and "passing" family members. This journey of discovery forces Florence to confront her own identity and the mysteries surrounding her life.

Some characters in this novel intentionally or unintentionally pass as white because they find it easier than living as a Black person in Victorian England. While the topic of "passing" is frequently explored in literature set in the 1920s and 30s, Shenjé delves into what it means to be a Black person passing in the 19th century. She explores this theme in multiple ways: One character completely abandons their family to live as a white man, another maintains contact with her family but uses her husband's wealth and influence to hide in plain sight, and the third, and perhaps most intriguing, character lives as a white person without knowing they were actually Black.

Florence is uncertain about her own race, and she passionately advocates for the rights of Black people. She often becomes offended by the viewpoints of her friends, neighbors, and even their pastor towards Black people. Florence grew up in a white community and had limited interactions with Black people, other than through books until she met Lady Persephone's lady's maid — a beautiful, charming, and highly educated Black woman. "How could a whole sector of humanity once viewed as animals now be writing books and teaching universities and the like? We had been lied to," she says after a particularly awful sermon propagating the inferiority of African people.

At times, Shenjé's use of language attempting at inclusivity fails to achieve what appears to be the intended effect. The discussion of gender roles in a highly complex way seems forced and unrealistic. This is especially so when such language and philosophizing are attributed to certain characters in particular.

While The Library Thief doesn't exactly break new ground when it comes to exploring issues of race and identity, it does have some entertaining elements. Wesley is a standout character who should have received more attention. If a movie adaptation of the character were ever to happen, Patrick Walshe McBride would be an excellent choice to play the part. Shenjé also did an fantastic job planting hints throughout the story that lead to the main character's true identity. The best part of the book is the unexpected twist at the end that ties up the murder mystery. Kudos to Shenjé for that surprise ending.

Keishel Williams is a Trinidadian American book reviewer, arts & culture writer, and editor.

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The Struggle for Taiwan by Sulmaan Wasif Khan review – dire straits

How superpower rivalry and diplomatic failures have turned the island into a the world’s riskiest flashpoint

A s flashpoints go, few come flashier than Taiwan . To pick one incident from a string of recent close calls: the visit of Nancy Pelosi to Taipei in the summer of 2022. Pelosi, then speaker of the House and third in line to the presidency, was travelling to Taiwan to make an “unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan”. The visit produced predictable fury in Beijing: it was “manic, irresponsible and highly irrational”, according to officials; Pelosi was “playing with fire”. Troops were placed on high alert; military exercises were ordered; missiles were launched into the Taiwan Strait. The editor of one mainland tabloid even called for Pelosi’s plane to be shot down. But the more Beijing threatened, the more determined the speaker became, and so, for a few days that August, the world’s two largest economies stood one small military accident away from catastrophic conflict.

How, the observer wonders, did we come to this? There are a dozen reasons, which Sulmaan Wasif Khan, a historian at Tufts University, lays out in his deeply researched and fascinating history of the island. But the nutshell answer is that a mixture of poisonous nationalism and fudged diplomacy over many years, combined with the premierships of Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, has turned the Sino-American relationship into a tinderbox. Taiwan could be the spark that ignites it.

One of the ironies that emerges here is that the island that nationalists in Beijing covet wasn’t historically Chinese, but ended up that way thanks to American interference. Until the 17th century, the people of Taiwan were mostly ethnic Austronesians. The island was then conquered by the Qing dynasty, who hailed from Manchuria, and who maintained a clear China-Taiwan distinction. After the Qing came the Japanese, who held it until 1945. It was President Roosevelt who promised it to a Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek, in 1943. When Chiang was defeated in the Chinese civil war by Mao’s communists in 1949, he retreated to the island, which he intended to use as a base to reconquer the mainland. Only now did leaders on both sides of the strait maintain that Taiwan was an integral part of China – Chiang because he continued to claim the whole country was his Republic of China (this is still the island’s official name); Mao because he saw it as a rogue territory within his People’s Republic of China (PRC).

What followed for Taiwan was a difficult balancing act. The US proved an ambivalent Taiwanese protector: successive presidents attempted to wriggle out of security guarantees made to Taipei in order to develop relations with the mainland, but time after time they were stymied by anti-communist populists in US Congress. The Carter administration at last managed to free the country of its commitment to Taiwan in 1978, recognising the PRC instead of the ROC, and for a few decades it seemed possible that Taiwan might willingly integrate with the mainland. But then came Xi and Trump.

Before his elevation to power, Xi showed every sign of following the paths of his pragmatic predecessors, who ran the “one country, two systems” policy that steered China towards a market economy and allowed a degree of political freedom in some territories. But Xi’s premiership was to be marked by thin-skinned authoritarianism, which trashed his predecessors’ careful “normalisation” and clamped down on political dissent, including in Hong Kong. Any hope that a democratic Taiwan might one day submit willingly to Beijing evaporated.

A decade later, on the other side of the Pacific, Trump would elevate the sport of China-bashing to a level not seen since the “yellow peril” days. It was a theme that no doubt played well with some blue-collar voters, and it has since entered the political mainstream. Worse still for Xi was Covid – Trump’s “China virus” – which presented the US leader with an open goal. If Trump’s US had a difficult pandemic, Xi’s was devastating: his government was secretive, controlling, ineffective, and the economy tanked too. All of which created new political impetus for sabre-rattling over Taiwan.

China-US relations now stand “at the edge of chaos”, according to Khan. Beijing’s aggression in the strait has hit new heights, and Biden appears to have recommitted the US to defend Taiwan militarily. A cataclysm beckons.

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Book Club: Discuss ‘James,’ by Percival Everett, With Us

For The Book Review Podcast’s May book club, we’ll talk about “James,” Percival Everett’s radical reimagining of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

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By MJ Franklin

MJ Franklin is an editor at the Book Review.

Welcome to The Book Review Book Club. Every month, we select a book to discuss on our podcast and with our readers. Please leave your thoughts on this month’s book in this article’s comments. And be sure to check out some of our past conversations, including ones about “Good Material,” by Dolly Alderton, and “Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver.

You know him as Jim, the sidekick in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” He’s an enslaved Black man who finds himself fleeing down the Mississippi River with Huck, as both attempt to reach very different types of freedom. Along the way, Jim is teased, duped, subjugated and otherwise maligned, in part because of Huck’s penchant for trickery and in part because of the mechanisms of slavery and racism in the American South in the 1800s.

Though Jim’s plight is harrowing, he’s not the star of this Mark Twain classic; he’s relegated to a variety of supporting roles, including comic relief, deus ex machina and agent for Huck’s moral awakening.

Now allow the novelist Percival Everett to reintroduce him. In Everett’s latest book, “James,” Jim becomes, you guessed it, James. The broad strokes of Twain’s character are still there — James is still an enslaved man who runs away after he hears that his master is going to sell him. But in Everett’s hands, James is no longer a helpless companion. Now, he’s a remarkably smart linguist, reader, writer and philosopher who is forced to play dumb for survival but is actually fighting for his family, freedom, dignity, self-determination and the right to tell his own story.

For this month’s Book Review Podcast book club, we’re chatting about “James,” by Percival Everett . The discussion will air on May 31 , and we’d love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the novel in the comment section of this article by May 22, and we may mention your observations in the episode .

Here’s some related reading to get the conversation started:

Our critic Dwight Garner’s review of the novel: “ What sets ‘James’ above Everett’s previous novels, as casually and caustically funny as many are, is that here the humanity is turned up — way up. This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful.” [ Read the full review here. ]

Our critic A.O. Scott’s notebook about “James,” “Demon Copperhead” and reimagined classics: “For Everett’s James, his own humanity is not in doubt, but under perpetual assault. His relationship with Huck takes on a new complexity. How far can he trust this outcast white boy? How much should he risk in caring for him? To answer those questions would be to spoil some of Everett’s boldest and most brilliant twists on Twain’s tale.” [ Read the full critic’s notebook here. ]

Norman Mailer’s 1984 essay for The New York Times, about rereading “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” for the novel’s 100th anniversary: “Classics suffer by their distance from our day-to-day gossip. The mark of how good ‘Huckleberry Finn’ has to be is that one can compare it to a number of our best modern American novels and it stands up page for page.” [ Read the full essay here. ]

Revisit our March book club discussion of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” which was recently adapted into an Oscar-nominated film : “ I love watching his mind on the page. He’s funny, he’s irreverent, he’s sarcastic. There’s nobody that writes like him. And I have to tell you that ‘Erasure’ totally blew me away, just because of the sheer number of textures in this book.” —Joumana Khatib, Book Review editor. [ Listen to discussion here. ]

We can’t wait to discuss the book with you. In the meantime, Happy May and happy reading!

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