, , , , , ,

290. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Yuval Noah Harari

Genre:  Non Fiction, History, Philosophy, Science, Politics

372 pages, published September 4, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari explores some of most pressing issues of the day as we move into the uncharted territory of the future.  How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human?  How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news?  Are nations and religions still relevant?  What should we teach our children?  In twenty-one provocative chapters that are both and profond, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books Sapiens and Homo Deus, discussing political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in.

Quotes 

“Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.”

 

“Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better.”

 

“Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering.”

 

“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”

 

“Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely.”

 

“Indeed, many movies about artificial intelligence are so divorced from scientific reality that one suspects they are just allegories of completely different concerns. Thus the 2015 movie Ex Machina seems to be about an AI expert who falls in love with a female robot only to be duped and manipulated by her. But in reality, this is not a movie about the human fear of intelligent robots. It is a movie about the male fear of intelligent women, and in particular the fear that female liberation might lead to female domination. Whenever you see a movie about an AI in which the AI is female and the scientist is male, it’s probably a movie about feminism rather than cybernetics. For why on earth would an AI have a sexual or a gender identity? Sex is a characteristic of organic multicellular beings. What can it possibly mean for a non-organic cybernetic being?”

 

“Philosophers are very patient people, but engineers are far less patient, and investors are the least patient of all.”

 

“Not only rationality, but individuality too is a myth. Humans rarely think for themselves. Rather, we think in groups. Just as it takes a tribe to raise a child, it also takes a tribe to invent a tool, solve a conflict, or cure a disease. No individual knows everything it takes to build a cathedral, an atom bomb, or an aircraft. What gave Homo sapiens an edge over all other animals and turned us into the masters of the planet was not our individual rationality but our unparalleled ability to think together in large groups.”

 

“Individual humans know embarrassingly little about the world, and as history has progressed, they have come to know less and less. A hunter-gatherer in the Stone Age knew how to make her own clothes, how to start a fire, how to hunt rabbits, and how to escape lions. We think we know far more today, but as individuals, we actually know far less. We rely on the expertise of others for almost all our needs.”

 

“Have you seen those zombies who roam the streets with their faces glued to their smartphones? Do you think they control the technology, or does the technology control them?”

 

“At present, people are happy to give away their most valuable asset—their personal data—in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It’s a bit like African and Native American tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European imperialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets.”

 

“One of the greatest fictions of all is to deny the complexity of the world and think in absolute terms.”

 

“Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction. Human happiness depends less on objective condition and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions, including to the condition of other people. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvement in conditions might leave us as dissatisfied as before.”

 

“The liberal story instructs me to seek freedom to express and realise myself. But both the ‘self’ and freedom are mythological chimeras borrowed from the fairy tales of ancient times. Liberalism has a particularly confused notion of ‘free will’. Humans obviously have a will, they have desires, and they are sometimes free to fulfil their desires. If by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to do what you desire – then yes, humans have free will. But if by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to choose what to desire – then no, humans have no free will.”

 

“Since humans are individuals, it is difficult to connect them to one another and to make sure that they are all up to date. In contrast, computers aren’t individuals, and it is easy to integrate them into a single flexible network.”

 

“Humans have this remarkable ability to know and not to know at the same time. Or more correctly, they can know something when they really think about it, but most of the time they don’t think about it, so they don’t know it. If you really focus, you realise that money is fiction. But usually you don’t focus. If you are asked about it, you know that football is a human invention. But in the heat of the match, nobody asks you about it. If you devote the time and energy, you can discover that nations are elaborate yarns. But in the midst of a war you don’t have the time and energy. If you demand the ultimate truth, you realise that the story of Adam and Eve is a myth. But how often do you demand the ultimate truth?” 

My Take

Having thoroughly enjoyed Harari’s previous books Sapiens (which is a history of humankind) and Homo Deus (which explores our future), I really looked forward to reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century which focuses on our present situation.  As the third book in this trilogy, 21 Lessons lacks the novelty and impact of the first two books.  However, Harari is a skilled storyteller and raises many fascinating ideas in his latest effort.  A compelling read which I unreservedly recommend.

/by
, , , , ,

289. Leonardo da Vinci

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Chris Funk

Author:   Walter Isaacson

Genre:  Non Fiction, Biography, History, Art, Science

600 pages, published October 17, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Leonardo da Vinci, noted biographer Walter Isaacson (who also wrote biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin) delves into the incredible life, art, and scientific discoveries of history’s most creative genius, Leonardo da Vinci.  This biography on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s notebooks and new discoveries about the master’s life and work.  Isaacson makes the case that Leonardo’s genius was based on skills Leonardo had in abundance that we can improve in ourselves such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and a playful imagination.  One of history’s most famous artists, Leonardo’s The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa are the two most famous paintings in history.  However, as a noted polymath, Leonardo’s genius also extended to numerous scientific and technological discoveries.   With an obsessive passion, his studies included anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.  Leonardo’s combining of diverse passions fueled his incredible creativity, as did his outsider, avant guard nature.  His life reminds us of the importance of curiosity and questioning the world.

Quotes 

“Vision without execution is hallucination. .. Skill without imagination is barren. Leonardo [da Vinci] knew how to marry observation and imagination, which made him history’s consummate innovator.”

 

“There have been, of course, many other insatiable polymaths, and even the Renaissance produced other Renaissance Men. But none painted the Mona Lisa, much less did so at the same time as producing unsurpassed anatomy drawings based on multiple dissections, coming up with schemes to divert rivers, explaining the reflection of light from the earth to the moon, opening the still-beating heart of a butchered pig to show how ventricles work, designing musical instruments, choreographing pageants, using fossils to dispute the biblical account of the deluge, and then drawing the deluge. Leonardo was a genius, but more: he was the epitome of the universal mind, one who sought to understand all of creation, including how we fit into it.”

 

“men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of the desire for wisdom, which is the sustenance and truly dependable wealth of the mind.”

 

“Leonardo became known in Milan not only for his talents but also for his good looks, muscular build, and gentle personal style. “He was a man of outstanding beauty and infinite grace,” Vasari said of him. “He was striking and handsome, and his great presence brought comfort to the most troubled soul.”

 

“If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.”

 

“His lack of reverence for authority and his willingness to challenge received wisdom would lead him to craft an empirical approach for understanding nature that foreshadowed the scientific method developed more than a century later by Bacon and Galileo. His method was rooted in experiment, curiosity, and the ability to marvel at phenomena that the rest of us rarely pause to ponder after we’ve outgrown our wonder years.”

 

“Leonardo had almost no schooling and could barely read Latin or do long division. His genius was of the type we can understand, even take lessons from. It was based on skills we can aspire to improve in ourselves, such as curiosity and intense observation. He had an imagination so excitable that it flirted with the edges of fantasy, which is also something we can try to preserve in ourselves and indulge in our children.”

 

“But I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.”

 

“The tongue of a woodpecker can extend more than three times the length of its bill. When not in use, it retracts into the skull and its cartilage-like structure continues past the jaw to wrap around the bird’s head and then curve down to its nostril. In addition to digging out grubs from a tree, the long tongue protects the woodpecker’s brain. When the bird smashes its beak repeatedly into tree bark, the force exerted on its head is ten times what would kill a human. But its bizarre tongue and supporting structure act as a cushion, shielding the brain from shock.1 There is no reason you actually need to know any of this. It is information that has no real utility for your life, just as it had none for Leonardo. But I thought maybe, after reading this book, that you, like Leonardo, who one day put “Describe the tongue of the woodpecker” on one of his eclectic and oddly inspiring to-do lists, would want to know. Just out of curiosity. Pure curiosity.”

 

“Kenneth Clark referred to Leonardo’s “inhumanly sharp eye.” It’s a nice phrase, but misleading. Leonardo was human. The acuteness of his observational skill was not some superpower he possessed. Instead, it was a product of his own effort. That’s important, because it means that we can, if we wish, not just marvel at him but try to learn from him by pushing ourselves to look at things more curiously and intensely. In his notebook, he described his method—almost like a trick—for closely observing a scene or object: look carefully and separately at each detail. He compared it to looking at the page of a book, which is meaningless when taken in as a whole and instead needs to be looked at word by word. Deep observation must be done in steps: “If you wish to have a sound knowledge of the forms of objects, begin with the details of them, and do not go on to the second step until you have the first well fixed in memory.” 

My Take

Leonardo da Vinci’s genius, artistry, creativity and insatiable curiosity are thoroughly explored and illuminated in Walter Isaacson’s engrossing book.  Not only did I learn quite a lot about the fascinating Leonardo, but I also learned a lot about the Renaissance, Florence, painting, science and technology as well as Leonardo’s difficult relationship with Michelangelo.  I will be in Florence this summer and look forward to seeing in person many of the things that I read about in Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci.

/by
, , ,

283. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Scott Adams

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Self Improvement

248 pages, published October 22, 2013

Reading Format:  e-Book on Overdrive

Summary

In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams relates all of the mistakes he has made in his life and how making them was an essential factor in his ultimate success.  Adams also shares his strategies for life success which include:

  • Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners.
  • “Passion” is bull. What you need is personal energy.
  • A combination of mediocre skills (i.e. a “talent stack”) can make you surprisingly valuable.
  • You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others

Quotes 

“A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal. If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure. All I’m suggesting is that thinking of goals and systems as very different concepts has power. Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.”

 

“If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power.”

 

“Happiness has more to do with where you are heading than where you are.”

 

“The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends.”

 

“Priorities are the things you need to get right so the things you love can thrive.”

 

“Avoid career traps such as pursuing jobs that require you to sell your limited supply of time while preparing you for nothing better.”

 

“Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational.”

 

“Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, tells us that people become unhappy if they have too many options in life. The problem with options is that choosing any path can leave you plagued with self-doubt.”

 

“If you can imagine the future being brighter, it lifts your energy and gooses the chemistry in your body that produces a sensation of happiness. If you can’t even imagine an improved future, you won’t be happy no matter how well your life is going right now.”

 

“Recapping my skill set: I have poor art skills, mediocre business skills, good but not great writing talent, and an early knowledge of the Internet. And I have a good but not great sense of humor. I’m like one big mediocre soup. None of my skills are world-class, but when my mediocre skills are combined, they become a powerful market force.”

 

“Positivity is far more than a mental preference. It changes your brain, literally, and it changes the people around you. It’s the nearest thing we have to magic.”

 

“The surest way to identify those who won’t succeed at weight loss is that they tend to say things like “My goal is to lose ten pounds.” Weight targets often work in the short run. But if you need willpower to keep the weight off, you’re doomed in the long run. The only way to succeed in the long run is by using a system that bypasses your need for willpower.”

 

“For our purposes, let’s say a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.”

 

“Most important, understand that goals are for losers and systems are for winners.”

 

“One of the most important tricks for maximizing your productivity involves matching your mental state to the task.”

 

“Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value.”

 

“If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. It might even make you live longer. Coffee can also make you more likely to exercise, and it contains beneficial antioxidants and other substances associated with decreased risk of stroke (especially in women), Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Coffee is also associated with decreased risk of abnormal heart rhythms, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.  Any one of those benefits of coffee would be persuasive, but cumulatively they’re a no-brainer. An hour ago I considered doing some writing for this book, but I didn’t have the necessary energy or focus to sit down and start working. I did, however, have enough energy to fix myself a cup of coffee. A few sips into it, I was happier to be working than I would have been doing whatever lazy thing was my alternative. Coffee literally makes me enjoy work. No willpower needed. Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non–coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks. The biggest downside of coffee is that once you get addicted to caffeine, you can get a “coffee headache” if you go too long without a cup. Luckily, coffee is one of the most abundant beverages on earth, so you rarely have to worry about being without it. Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit.”

 

“When politicians tell lies, they know the press will call them out. They also know it doesn’t matter. Politicians understand that reason will never have much of a role in voting decisions. A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments. That’s even true when the voter knows the lie is a lie.”

 

“Unhappiness that is caused by too much success is a high-class problem. That’s the sort of unhappiness people work all of their lives to get. If you find yourself there, and I hope you do, you’ll find your attention naturally turning outward. You’ll seek happiness through service to others. I promise it will feel wonderful.”

 

“Passion feels very democratic. It is the people’s talent, available to all. It’s also mostly bullshit.”

 

“I made a list of skills in which I think every adult should gain a working knowledge. I wouldn’t expect you to become a master of any, but mastery isn’t necessary. Luck has a good chance of finding you if you become merely good in most of these areas. I’ll make a case for each one, but here’s the preview list.

 Public speaking

Psychology

Business Writing

Accounting

Design (the basics)

Conversation

Overcoming Shyness

Second language

Golf

Proper grammar

Persuasion

Technology ( hobby level)

Proper voice technique”

My Take

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big was a fun, informative and inspiring read.  Scott Adams, the very funny creator of Dilbert, has led an extremely interesting and varied life.  He has no fear of trying new things, often does and usually fails.  However, he always gleans a lesson from every failure which has led to his tremendous success as a cartoonist, writer and public speaker.   The book additionally offers many pearls of wisdom for maximizing your chances of leading a successful and fulfilling life.  Every year for my birthday, I have my son Nick read a book and then we discuss it over a lunch out.  This year’s book will be How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.  I got a lot out of it and I think Nick will too.

/by
, , , , , ,

282. Something in the Water

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Jackie Funk

Author:   Catherine Steadman

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime

342 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

When documentary filmmaker and Londoner Erin meets and then marries the handsome and successful investment banker Mark, she believes she has achieved the perfect life.   However, when Mark loses his job, the soon to be newlyweds start to worry about money.  While a surprising turn of events during their South Pacific honeymoon has the potential to allay their financial worries, it also stirs up all sorts of trouble leaving Erin wondering how well she really knows her husband.

Quotes 

“… She told me not to let it make me angry, not to let it break my heart, but to remember that we all lose the things we love the most and how we have to remember that we were lucky to have them at all in the first place.”

 

“always read outside your comfort zone. That’s where stories come from. That’s where ideas come from.”

 

“Sometimes you’re the lamp post, and sometimes you’re the dog.”

 

“It’s impossible to know if we were a good thing that broke somehow or a bad thing that eventually became exposed. But either way, if I could just go back now to the way we were, I would. I would, without a moment’s hesitation. If I could just lie in his arms one last time, I could live with an illusion the rest of my life. If I could, I would.”

 

“But you don’t sign up for certain things without knowing the rules, Erin. And if you’ve signed up for the game, then you can’t complain when you lose. You got to lose with dignity is all; a good sportsman always lets people lose with dignity.”

 

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” 

My Take

Something in the Water is a taut, page turning thriller in the same vein as The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.  Steadman knows how to bait the hook and reel in her reader.  Even though I had an inkling of the big plot twist, this book was still compelling reading until the end.  A great fun read!

/by
, ,

268. Before You Know Kindness

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Lisa Stock

Author:   Chris Bohjalian

Genre:  Fiction

429 pages, published August, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Before You Know Kindness is a multi-generational saga focused on the McCullough and Seton families.  Every summer Matriarch Nan Seton, an avid sportswoman, hosts her two granddaughters at the family compound in New Hampshire.  Twelve year old Charlotte is an only child striving to fit with the teenagers in her midst and whose father, Spencer McCullough, is a true believer spokesman for FERAL, an animal rights organization.  Her mother Catherine, daughter of Nan, is a lifelong flirt who is tiring of her marriage to Spencer of not eating meat (not necessarily in that order).   John and Sara Seton (a public defender and therapist) are parents to 10 year old Willow Seton and a Patrick, a young toddler.  While family dynamics are at play and everyone is distracted, a violent event occurs that turns the relationships of everyone upside down and strains the fabric of every family.

 

Quotes 

“As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn’t accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.”

 

“Sara knew that behind its locked front door no home was routine. Not the house of her childhood, not the apartment of her husband’s. not the world they were building together with Willow and Patrick. All households had their mysteries, their particular forms of dysfunction.”

 

My Take

Even though some readers have characterized Before You Know Kindness as slow, I found it to be a page turner.  I was particularly interested the character of Spencer McCullogh is fiercely dogmatic in his support of animal rights, sometimes to the exclusion of human beings, especially his wife and daughter.  When tragedy befalls Spencer, he is forced to reconsider his life and his relationships.  I believe the title of the book comes from the following poem Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, which really sums up the central theme of this well-written, engrossing book.

 

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

 

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

 

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

 

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and

purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

/by
, ,

267. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Gabrielle Zevin

Genre:  Fiction

260 pages, published April 1, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

At the beginning of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, we meet A.J. Fikry, a 39 year old bookstore owner on Alice Island whose wife has just died and whose one very valuable asset, a first edition of the Edgar Allan Poe book of poems, Tamerlane, has been stolen after A.J. went on a bender and left his shop unlocked.  At this low point, A.J.’s life is about to take a major turn.  A young woman at the end of her rope leaves her two year old baby, Maya, in A.J.’s store with a note asking him to care for her.  What follows this event makes up the storied life of A.J. Fikry.

 

Quotes 

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”

                 

The words you can’t find, you borrow.

We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.

My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.

We are not quite novels.

The analogy he is looking for is almost there.

We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.

In the end, we are collected works.”

 

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”

 

“It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”

 

“Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you’re the only person in the room.”

 

“They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?”

 

“I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.”                 

 

“No Man Is An Island; Every Book Is A World.”

 

“Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That’s basically the highest compliment I can give.”

 

“Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”

 

“The words you can’t find, you borrow.  We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.”

 

“A question I’ve thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.”

 

“You tell a kid he doesn’t like to read, and he’ll believe you.”

 

“I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time.”

 

“What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?”

 

“I worry for you. If you love everyone, you’ll end up having hurt feelings most of the time. I suppose, relative to the length of your life, you feel as if you’ve known me a rather long time. Your perspective of time is really very warped, Maya. But I am old and soon, you’ll forget you even knew me.”

 

“Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of ‘quality.’ But it’s forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.”

 

My Take

As with Young Jane Young, the other book that I read this year by Gabrielle Zevin,  The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is primarily a character study.  But it is the kind of character study that really works.  You enjoy getting to know these characters, like living in their world and are moved by their choices and stories.  For me there was also an added bonus that this book is a love letter to books and to reading, things that are (obviously) dear to my heart.  Highly recommended.

 

/by
, ,

257. Olive Kitteridge

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Molly Kirk

Author:   Elizabeth Strout

Genre:  Fiction

270 pages, published March 25, 2008

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Olive Kitteridge is a fascinating book that gives the reader keen insights into the human condition.   While Olive Kitteridge, a strong willed, difficult, overbearing retired schoolteacher is the main character, author Elizabeth Strout also explores the lives of several people around Olive.  The brutally honest portrait of ordinary people, with all the happiness, sorrow, pain and conflict that they experience, painted by Strout is remarkable.

 

Quotes 

“You couldn’t make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did. You had to just wait. Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn’t go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.”

 

“Traits don’t change, states of mind do.”

 

“Olive’s private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as “big bursts” and “little bursts.” Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee’s, let’s say, or the waitress at Dunkin’ Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”

 

“There were days – she could remember this – when Henry would hold her hand as they walked home, middle-aged people, in their prime. Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it. But she had that memory now, of something healthy and pure.”

 

“Sometimes, like now, Olive had a sense of just how desperately hard every person in the world was working to get what they needed. For most, it was a sense of safety, in the sea of terror that life increasingly became.”

 

“What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly . . . No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t chose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not know what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered. . . . But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union–what pieces life took out of you.”

 

“But after a certain point in a marriage, you stopped having a certain kind of fight, Olive thought, because when the years behind you were more than the years in front of you, things were different.”

 

“She didn’t like to be alone. Even more, she didn’t like being with people. ”

 

“And then as the little plane climbed higher and Olive saw spread out below them fields of bright and tender green in this morning sun, farther out the coastline, the ocean shiny and almost flat, tiny white wakes behind a few lobster boats–then Olive felt something she had not expected to feel again: a sudden surging greediness for life. She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water–seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed.”

 

“Each of his son’s had been his favorite child.”

 

“And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been a time when she’d felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist’s gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes.”

 

“He put the blinker on, pulled out onto the avenue. “Well, that was nice,” she said, sitting back. They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicated meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.”

 

My Take

When I finished Olive Kitteridge, I was not surprised that it had won the Pulitzer Prize.  Strout writes with such a perceptive understanding of what makes humans tick and the consequential sufferings they endure, that I was deeply affected while reading this book.  Highly recommended.

/by
, , , ,

256. Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Karen Reader

Author:   Bob Goff

Genre:  Non Fiction, Theology, Christian, Self Improvement

224 pages, published May 12, 2012

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Love Does is a memoir by the somewhat eccentric, but very Jesus oriented, Bob Goff.  Bob is  a true original.  While in college, Bob spent 16 days in the Pacific Ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat.  He pursued his wife for three years before she agreed to date him.  His grades weren’t good enough to get into law school, so he sat on a bench outside the Dean’s office for seven days until they finally let him enroll.  Bob challenged his children to write to all of the world’s heads of state and then visited the ones who responded.  Bob was even named consul for the country of Uganda based on some friendships he had made.  The theme running through all of Bob Goff’s various activities and adventures is love.  However, not content to feel love, Bob’s default position is to take action because he believes Love Does.

 

Quotes 

“That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.”

 

“he said we’d know the extent of out love for God by how well we loved people.”

 

“I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.”

 

“Things that go wrong can shape us or scar us.”

 

“I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them.”

 

“Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.”      

 

“The cool thing about taking Jesus up on His offer is that whatever controls you doesn’t anymore. People who used to be obsessed about becoming famous no longer care whether anybody knows their name. People who used to want power are willing to serve. People who used to chase money freely give it away. People who used to beg others for acceptance are now strong enough to give love. When we get our security from Christ, we no longer have to look for it in the world, and that’s a pretty good trade.”

 

“Whimsy…needs to be fully experienced to be fully known. Whimsy doesn’t care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.”

 

“I used to think God wouldn’t talk to me, but now I know I’m just selective with what I choose to hear.”

 

“We all want to have a place where we can dream and escape anything that wraps steel bands around our imagination and creativity.”

 

“I learned that faith isn’t about knowing all of the right stuff or obeying a list of rules. It’s something more, something more costly because it being present and making a sacrifice. Perhaps that’s why Jesus is sometimes called Immanuel – “God with us.” I think that’s what God had in mind, for Jesus to be present, to just be with us. It’s also what He has in mind for us when it comes to other people.”

 

“Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It’s about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That’s what I want my life to be all about – full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.”

 

“I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.”

 

“I don’t think Bible verses were meant to be thrown like grenades at each other. They were meant for us to use to point each other toward love and grace and invite us into something much bigger.”

 

“Actually, the real game of Bigger and Better that Jesus is playing with us usually isn’t about money or possessions or even our hopes. It’s about our pride. He asks if we’ll give up that thing we’re so proud of, that thing we believe causes us to matter in the eyes of the world, and give it up to follow Him. He’s asking us, “Will you take what you think defines you, leave it behind, and let Me define who you are instead?”

 

“Failure is just part of the process, and it’s not just okay; it’s better than okay. God doesn’t want failure to shut us down. God didn’t make it a three-strikes-and-you’re-out sort of thing. It’s more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.”

 

“Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those “we’ll go there next time” deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no “next time” because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.”

 

“It has always seemed to me that broken things, just like broken people, get used more; it’s probably because God has more pieces to work with.”

 

“I don’t think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, the scripts we know offer a brand of security, of predictability, of safety for us. But the problem is, they only take us where we’ve already been. They loop us back to places where everyone can easily go, not necessarily where we were made to go. Living a different kind of life takes some guts and grit and a new way of seeing things.”

 

“Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-fakes into thinking we haven’t really been invited. But you see, we have been invited – every day, all over again.”

 

My Take

Not only is Love Does a really inspirational book, but it is also a lot of fun to read.  Bob Goff is a character who is living life on his own (and God’s) terms.  In his recounting of many hilarious and impossible stories of his life, his love for people and God shines through.  Through his example, you see that most of your limitations come from your own mind.  Goff shows us that we all have a potentially amazing life to live if we trust God and step forward and live it.

/by
, , , , , ,

255. Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Gretchen Rubin

Author:   Gary Taubes

Genre:  Non Fiction, Health, Nutrition, Science, Self Improvement, Food

272 pages, published December 28, 2010

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The title tells it all.  This a non-fiction book in which science writer Gary Taubes investigates and reports why we get fat.  Taubes argues, and empirically supports, that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates (mostly sugars and starches), not fats and not excess calories, has led directly to our country’s obesity epidemic.  Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the “calories-in, calories-out” model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulin’s regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid?

 

Quotes 

“We don’t get fat because we overeat; we overeat because we’re getting fat.”

 

“The simple answer as to why we get fat is that carbohydrates make us so; protein and fat do not.”

 

“In other words, the science itself makes clear that hormones, enzymes, and growth factors regulate our fat tissue, just as they do everything else in the human body, and that we do not get fat because we overeat; we get fat because the carbohydrates in our diet make us fat. The science tells us that obesity is ultimately the result of a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one—specifically, the stimulation of insulin secretion caused by eating easily digestible, carbohydrate-rich foods: refined carbohydrates, including flour and cereal grains, starchy vegetables such as potatoes, and sugars, like sucrose (table sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup. These carbohydrates literally make us fat, and by driving us to accumulate fat, they make us hungrier and they make us sedentary.  This is the fundamental reality of why we fatten, and if we’re to get lean and stay lean we’ll have to understand and accept it, and, perhaps more important, our doctors are going to have to understand and acknowledge it, too.”

 

“Of all the dangerous ideas that health officials could have embraced while trying to understand why we get fat, they would have been hard-pressed to find one ultimately more damaging than calories-in/calories-out. That it reinforces what appears to be so obvious – obesity as the penalty for gluttony and sloth – is what makes it so alluring. But it’s misleading and misconceived on so many levels that it’s hard to imagine how it survived unscathed and virtually unchallenged for the last fifty years. It has done incalculable harm. Not only is this thinking at least partly responsible for the ever-growing numbers of obese and overweight in the world – while directing attention away from the real reasons we get fat – but it has served to reinforce the perception that those who get fat have no one to blame but themselves. That eating less invariably fails as a cure for obesity is rarely perceived as the single most important reason to make us question our assumptions, as Hilde Bruch suggested half a century ago. Rather, it is taken as still more evidence that the overweight and obese are incapable of following a diet and eating in moderation. And it put the blame for their physical condition squarely on their behavior, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”

 

“It may be easier to believe that we remain lean because we’re virtuous and we get fat because we’re not, but the evidence simply says otherwise. Virtue has little more to with our weight than our height. When we grow taller, it’s hormones and enzymes that are promoting growth, and we consume more calories than we expend as a result. Growth is the cause – increased appetite and decreased energy expenditure (gluttony and sloth) are the effects. When we grow fatter, the same is true as well.”

 

“Researchers have reported that the brain and central nervous system actually run more efficiently on ketones than they do on glucose.”

 

“Any diet can be made healthy or at least healthier—from vegan to meat-heavy—if the high-glycemic-index carbohydrates and sugars are removed, or reduced significantly.”

 

“The obvious question is, what are the “conditions to which presumably we are genetically adapted”? As it turns out, what Donaldson assumed in 1919 is still the conventional wisdom today: our genes were effectively shaped by the two and a half million years during which our ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers prior to the introduction of agriculture twelve thousand years ago. This is a period of time known as the Paleolithic era or, less technically, as the Stone Age, because it begins with the development of the first stone tools. It constitutes more than 99.5 percent of human history—more than a hundred thousand generations of humanity living as hunter-gatherers, compared with the six hundred succeeding generations of farmers or the ten generations that have lived in the industrial age.

It’s not controversial to say that the agricultural period—the last .5 percent of the history of our species—has had little significant effect on our genetic makeup. What is significant is what we ate during the two and a half million years that preceded agriculture—the Paleolithic era. The question can never be answered definitively, because this era, after all, preceded human record-keeping. The best we can do is what nutritional anthropologists began doing in the mid-1980s—use modern-day hunter-gatherer societies as surrogates for our Stone Age ancestors.”

 

My Take

When Gretchen Rubin (author of The Happiness Project and my personal guru) mentioned that after reading this book she was hit with a lightning bolt moment and changed her eating habits dramatically to extremely low carb, I was very interested to see what Taubes had to say.  Following his recommendations, I have been on a ketogenic (high fat and protein, very low carb) diet for several weeks.  After a few months, I’ll report back if it works.

 

/by
, , , ,

247. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1)

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Philip Pullman

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

464 pages, published October 19, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

When Malcolm Polstead, a young teenage boy who works in his father’s inn on the banks of the river Thames, finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust, his world changes in dramatic ways.  A suspicious cast of characters are all interested in a baby girl named Lyra in the care of the nuns at the nearby Abbey.  When a flood of biblical proportions is unleashed, it is up to Malcolm and his friend Alice to save Lyra and perhaps a lot more.

 

Quotes 

“This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you; we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic. Every secret service knows this paradox.”

 

“Once we use the word spiritual, we don’t have to explain anymore, because it belongs to the Church then, and no one can question it.”

 

“the pleasure of knowing secrets was doubled by telling them”

 

“War asks many people to do unreasonable things.”

 

My Take

This is the first book that I have read by Philip Pullman (author of The Golden Compass), but it won’t be the last.  He knows how spin a compelling and captivating yarn and I was happy to be along for the ride with Malcom, Alice and Baby Lyra as they journeyed through flooded landscapes, obstacles and hazards  in Malcom’s trusty canoe named La Belle Sauvage.  An entertaining tale for readers of all ages.

 

/by