Prairie Fox Reads

   Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein explore the consequences of inconsistent judgment. Two professionals can review the same information and reach very different conclusions, even when both are experienced and well intentioned. When those decisions affect someone’s health, livelihood, or treatment under the law, that variability deserves attention. From a public health and environmental health perspective, the examples involving food inspections are especially relevant. Consistency matters for public protection, fairness to businesses, and trust in the people enforcing standards. The book invites readers to consider whether differences in professional judgment reflect meaningful circumstances or inconsistencies that should be addressed. One of its strongest ideas is that expertise does not automatically guarantee reliability. That has implications for leadership, too. Training people and trusting their experience are essential, but leaders also need to exa...

  Taking Back the Controls: A Review of Hijacked by Paula Houlihan Paula Houlihan | Leadership, Neuroscience, Productivity, and Personal Development | 304 pages | Published June 23, 2026 Rating: ★★★★½ In Hijacked: The Surprising Neuroscience Behind the Choices You Think You’re Making and How to Take Back the Controls , executive coach Paula Houlihan challenges one of the most common assumptions about burnout: that exhaustion is primarily a problem of workload, scheduling, or insufficient rest. Her central argument is more provocative. Burnout, she suggests, often emerges because stress, habit, and unconscious beliefs have taken control of the choices shaping our lives. The result is a book aimed squarely at high performers who appear successful from the outside but feel depleted, disconnected, or trapped on the inside. These readers may still be meeting deadlines, advancing professionally, and fulfilling responsibilities. Yet much of that activity is happening on autopilot. Their ...

  Faith, Power, and the Horror of Disobedience: A Review of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy Paulette Kennedy | Historical Fiction, Gothic Horror, and Paranormal Mystery | 347 pages | First published March 5, 2024 Rating: ★★★★☆ In The Devil and Mrs. Davenport , Paulette Kennedy turns 1950s domestic respectability into a source of Gothic terror. Set in Missouri in 1955, the novel follows Loretta Davenport, an isolated young mother married to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. Their household appears tranquil and properly devout—until Loretta develops a fever and begins hearing voices. When a local girl is murdered, the messages Loretta receives from the dead become more urgent. Pete dismisses them as the fantasies of an overheated and unstable female mind, but Loretta believes they are real. Her search for answers leads her to Dr. Curtis Hansen, a parapsychologist who regards her abilities not as illness or wickedness but as a rare gift. His ...

  The Performance of Perfection: A Review of The Mad Wife by Meagan Church Meagan Church | Historical Fiction and Psychological Suspense | 352 pages | First published September 30, 2025 Rating: ★★★★☆ A spotless home, a satisfied husband, well-behaved children, and a gelatin salad admired by the neighbors: in The Mad Wife , Meagan Church transforms the polished symbols of 1950s domestic success into the architecture of a psychological prison. The novel follows Lulu Mayfield, a woman who has spent five years trying to become the perfect housewife while suppressing painful memories and carrying the exhausting weight of social expectation. After the birth of her second child, however, the identity she has so carefully constructed begins to fracture. Church’s novel combines domestic drama with psychological suspense, but its most compelling mystery is not simply whether Lulu’s suspicions about her new neighbor are correct. The deeper question is whether a woman can accurately understan...

  Donna Everhart | Historical Fiction | 362 pages | Published January 27, 2026 Rating: ★★★★☆ There are historical novels that transport us to another era, and there are those that expose how comfortably the injustices of the past can disguise themselves in the language of the public good. Donna Everhart’s Women of a Promiscuous Nature belongs firmly in the second category. Set in 1940s North Carolina, the novel draws upon the long-obscured history of the American Plan, a government program through which women suspected of sexual “immorality” or venereal disease could be detained, examined, treated, and confined—often without meaningful evidence or due process. Everhart transforms this history into a disturbing story about institutional power, bodily autonomy, moral judgment, and women’s resistance. The result is not merely a novel about an abusive system. It is an examination of the conditions that allow such a system to present itself as reasonable, scientific, and even benevolen...