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56. The 4 Hour Work Week

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Timothy Ferriss

Genre:  Non Fiction, Self Improvement

308 pages, published April 24, 2007

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

In The 4 Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss focuses on “lifestyle design” and repudiation of the traditional “deferred” life plan in which people work long hours and take few vacations for decades and save money in order to relax after retirement.  He developed the ideas presented in The 4-Hour Workweek while working 14-hour days at his sports nutrition supplement company, BrainQUICKEN.  Issues addressed in the book include:  How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour;  How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs; How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist; How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”; What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income; How to train your boss to value performance over presence; What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks; How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet; How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off; and How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office.

 

Quotes

“By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.”

 

“People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

 

“The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

 

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”

 

“To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.”

 

“The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.”

 

“Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.”

 

“Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.”

 

“Focus on being productive instead of busy.”

 

“Life is too short to be small.”

 

“I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”

 

“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.”

 

“Slow Dance:

Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance too fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You’d better slow down, Don’t dance too fast. Time is short, The music won’t last. Ever told your child we’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.”

 

“But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.”

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53. Boomsday

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   JL Collins

Author:   Christopher Buckley

Genre:  Fiction, Satire

336 pages, published April 2, 2007

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

Outraged over the mounting Social Security debt, Cassandra Devine, a charismatic 29-year-old blogger and member of Generation Whatever, incites massive cultural warfare when she politely suggests that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age 75.  Her modest proposal catches fire with millions of citizens, chief among them an ambitious senator seeking the presidency.  With the help of Washington’s greatest spin doctor, the blogger and the politician try to ride the issue of euthanasia for Boomers (called “transitioning”) all the way to the White House, over the objections of the Religious Right, and of course, the Baby Boomers, who are deeply offended by demonstrations on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.

 

Quotes

“My, my, my, how very different are the workings of government from what we all read about in books as children.  I wonder, do the Founders weep in heaven?”

 

“Had he merely dreamed a beautiful dream, or had a United States senator just gone on television to advocate mass suicide as a means of dealing with the deficit?”

 

“a blue blood in a red meat business”

 

“like the milk ads, only they’re drinking poison”

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50. The Tsar of Love and Techno

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Katy Fassett

Author:   Anthony Marra

Genre:  Fiction, Anthology, Foreign

332 pages, published October 6, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

This fascinating and very well written collection of stories set in the USSR and modern day Russia contains a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking.   A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina.  Several women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners, who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love.  Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. Great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.  With its rich character portraits and a reverberating sense of history, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating book.

 

Quotes

“You remain the hero of your own story even when you become the villain of someone else’s.”

 

“The future is the lie with which we justify the brutality of the present.”

 

“A single whisper can be quite a disturbance when the rest of the audience is silent.”

 

“There are so many paths to contentment if you’re open to self-delusion.”

 

“Endurance, I reminded myself, is the true measure of existence.”

 

“Never forget the first three letters of confidence.”

 

“If there is an operation, and if that operation is successful, she says she will move to Sweden. I fear for her future in a country whose citizenry is forced to assemble its own furniture.”

 

“You remember how Mom had that embroidered pillow?  When she got upset, she’d shout into it and no one would hear her.  That’s Facebook.”

 

“Turning I would to I did is the grammar of growing up.”

 

“The calcium in collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are.”

 

“I guess our lives are all dreams – as real to us as they are meaningless to everyone else.”

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49. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Rolf Potts

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Travel

205 pages, published December 24, 2002

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life, from six weeks to four months to two years, to discover and experience the world on your own terms.   In this handbook, veteran travel writer Rolf Potts explains how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel.   Subjects he covers include:   determining your destination, paying for your travel time, adjusting to life on the road, working and volunteering overseas, handling travel adversities and re-assimilating back into ordinary life.

 

Quotes

“The more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that were too poor to buy your freedom.” 

 

“For all the amazing experiences that await you in distant lands, the meaningful part of travel always starts at home, with the personal investment in the wonders to come.”

 

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there.”  Quoting Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.”

 

“Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. Vagabonding starts now.  Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility.  From here, the reality of vagabonding comes into sharper focus as you adjust your worldview and begin to embrace the exhilarating uncertainty that true travel promises.”

 

“The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.”

 

“For first-time vagabonders, this can be one of the hardest travel lessons to grasp, since it will seem that there are so many amazing sights and experiences to squeeze in. You must keep in mind, however, that the whole point of long-term travel is having the time to move deliberately through the world. Vagabonding is about not merely reallotting a portion of your life for travel but rediscovering the entire concept of time.  At home, you’re conditioned to get to the point and get things done, to favor goals and efficiency over moment-by-moment distinction.  On the road, you learn to improvise your days, take a second look at everything you see, and not obsess over your schedule.”

 

“In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We’d love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.”

 

“Money, of course, is still needed to survive, but time is what you need to live. So, save what little money you possess to meet basic survival requirements, but spend your time lavishly in order to create the life values that make the fire worth the candle.”

 

“The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you’ll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact—a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can’t quite explain.”

 

“Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions.”

 

“Vagabonding is an attitude—a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life—a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time—our only real commodity—and how we choose to use it.”

 

“having an adventure is sometimes just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing new environment—not so much a physical challenge as a psychic one.”

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23. Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  

Author:  Henri Nouwen

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Christian, Theology

Info:  63 pages, published October 15, 2004

Format:  Book

 

Summary 

Out of Solitude is a reflection on the tension between the desire for solitude and the demands of everyday life.   It was in solitude that Jesus found the courage to follow God’s will and Out of Solitude demonstrates that meaningful love and service must spring from a living relationship with God.

 

Quotes

“When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”

“Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.”

“Is God present or is he absent? Maybe we can say now that in the center of our sadness for his absence we can find the first signs of his presence. And that in the middle of our longings we discover the footprints of the one who has created them. It is in the faithful waiting for the loved one that we know how much he has filled our lives already. Just as the love of a mother for her son can grow while she is waiting for his return, and just as lovers can rediscover each other during long periods of absence, so also our intimate relationship with God can become deeper and more mature while we wait patiently in expectation for his return.”

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

“This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, ‘Where can we find a doctor?’ When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.”

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22. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by: 

Author:  Gary Keller

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Business

Info:  240 pages, published April 1, 2013

Format:  Book

Summary 

The goal of The ONE Thing is to help you focus your time and energy on one thing at a time.   Keller argues that to keep yourself from getting distracted and stressed out by the daily onslaught of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings, you need to learn how to focus on one thing.

The book promises that if you can do this, you will cut through the clutter, achieve better results in less time, build momentum toward your goal, control your stress,  revive your energy, stay on track, and achieve extraordinary results in every area of your life–work, personal, family, and spiritual.

 

Quotes

“Multitasking is a lie.”

“Success is actually a short race – A sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”

“Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.”

“You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.”

“The pursuit of mastery bears gifts.”

“A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.”

“Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

“Long hours spent checking off a to-do list and ending the day with a full trash can and a clean desk are not virtuous and have nothing to do with success. Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.  To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.”

“Success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.  The one thing

The more we use our mind, the less minding power we have.  Willpower is like a fast twitch muscle that gets tired and needs rest.  It is incredibly powerful, but it has no endurance.”

“Do your most important work – you’re one thing – early, before your willpower is drawn down.”

“To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands.”

“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls.  The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity.  And you’re keeping all of them in the air.  But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball.  If you drop it, it will bounce back.  The other four balls – family, health, friends, integrity – are made of glass.  If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

“Don’t fear big.  Fear mediocrity.  Fear waste.  Fear the lack of living to your fullest.”

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20. Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping

Rating:  ☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:  Judith Levine

Genre:  Non-Fiction

Info: 280 pages, published September 24, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Author Judith Levine writes about the year-long experiment that she conducted with her partner Paul where they decided to stop all buying anything but the most necessary purchases.It is harder than she anticipates, but Levine gains new insight into our consumerist culture and economy.

 

My Take

This was really a book fail.  I picked it up from the Library based on its subject matter as I had made a 2016 New Year’s resolution to have a “no-buy” year.  I really did not want any more stuff coming into my already full house.  Unfortunately, Not Buying It was more of a political screed and offered little in the way of helpful advice.  Best to “not buy it” and avoid this book.

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18. 365 Days of Thank You’s

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  N/A

Author:  John Kralick

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Self-Improvement, Happiness

Info:  240 pages, published December 28, 2010

Format:  Book

Summary 

At the age of 53, John Kralik’s life was at a miserably low point.  He was 40 pounds overweight, his girlfriend had just broken up with him, he was living in a tiny apartment with inadequate heating and cooling, his law firm was failing, he was going through a painful second divorce, he had become estranged from his two older children and was afraid he might lose contact with his young daughter and all of his dreams–including becoming a judge, seemed hopelessly out of reach.  

Instead of lamenting his plight, John decided to find some way to be grateful for what he had rather than focus on what he didn’t.  Inspired by a beautiful, simple note his ex-girlfriend had sent to thank him for his Christmas gift, John thought he might find a way to feel grateful by writing thank-you notes. He set a goal of writing 365 thank-you notes in the coming year.  Every day, he began to hand write thank you notes, to his clients who paid their bills on time, to friends and relatives for gifts or kindnesses he’d received, to anyone else to whom he was appreciative.  Soon after sending his first notes, John noticed that good things started happening, from financial gain to friendship, from weight loss to inner peace.  Before long, his whole life turned around.  

Quotes

“One of the most comforting aspects of writing a thank-you note was that it produced a tangible product.  Although I was giving it away and not keeping a copy, I felt I had introduced something into the world that made a small positive difference.  A piece of paper that would most certainly have been thrown out had been turned into a concrete expression of gratitude to someone else — and would have a positive effect by reminding a person that they had touched me in a positive way.”

“Scott, Thank you for taking the time each morning to greet me in a friendly way.  It is also so wonderful to me that you took the time and trouble to remember my name.  In this day and age, few people make this effort, and fewer still do it in a way that feels sincere.  You do both.  It really makes a difference to me every day.”

“Life is very short.  You need to do what you think will make you happy.”

“Then I heard a voice: “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have,” it said, “you will not receive the things you want.”

“If the voice I’d heard in the mountains had implied that I would get all that I wanted, it seemed, at least at this juncture, that it was a promise unfulfilled. Yet, by being thankful for what I had, I realized that I had everything I needed.”

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17. The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  

Author:  Chris Guillebeau

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Happiness

Info:  304 pages, published September 9, 2014

Format:  Book

Summary 

The Happiness of Pursuit is all about quests and the people who set them.  Chris Guillebeau, the author, became interested in quests when he set out to visit all of the countries in the world by age thirty-five.  The people and quests he profiles are fascinating and diverse:  exploration, athletics, artistic pursuits to name a few.  The “questers” profiled included a suburban mom pursuing a wildly ambitious culinary project, a DJ producing the world’s largest symphony, a young widower completing the tasks his wife would never accomplish, and a teenager crossing an entire ocean alone – as well as a do-it-yourselfer tackling M.I.T.’s computer-science course, a nerd turning himself into real-life James Bond, and scores of others writing themselves into the record books.  The Happiness of Pursuit also explores the connection between questing and long-term happiness, i.e. how going after something in a methodical way enhances our lives.

 

Quotes

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.”

“Not everyone needs to believe in your dream, but you do.”

“a quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life,”

“Your comfort zone may be more like a cage you can’t escape from than a safe place you can retreat to.”

“Don’t just do something “fun.” Find a way to create structure around a project and build in a timeline.”

“What’s the difference between a hobby and a quest? You can stop thinking about a hobby, but a quest becomes a total fascination.”

“If you want to make every day an adventure, all you have to do is prioritize adventure. It has to become more important than routine.”

“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” So, too, for a quest. The most important thing is continuing to make progress.”

“A good plan allows for plenty of spontaneity and room for change – but without a plan at all, it’s difficult to work toward something significant over time.”

“Discontent is the first necessity of progress. —THOMAS A. EDISON”

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”

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16.  Redeeming Love

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Adrienne Bulinski

Author:  Francine Rivers

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Christian, Romance

Info:  465 pages, published May 9, 2005

Format:  Book

Summary 

Redeeming Love a historical romance novel set in the 1850s Gold Rush in California.  The story is inspired by the Book of Hosea from the Bible.  Its central theme is the redeeming love of God towards sinners. Angel, the main character, is abandoned by her father and sold to a house of prostitution after her mother dies.  Angel hardens herself to survive and expects nothing from men but betrayal.  When she meets Michael Hosea, Angel’s life begins to change.   Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.  

 

Quotes

“Love is the way back into Eden. It is the way back to life.”

“If you love me as you claim to, then you love her as well. She’s part of me. Do you understand? She’s part of my flesh and my life. When you say things against her, you say them against me. When you cut her, you cut me. Do you understand?”

“All the way back, she had imagined him gloating and taunting, rubbing her face in her own broken pride. Instead, he knelt before her and washed her dirty, blistered feet. Throat burning, she looked down at his dark head and struggled with the feelings rising in her. She waited for them to die away, but they wouldn’t.”

“He was never angry when she made mistakes. He complimented and encouraged her. He shared his own mishaps with a sense of humor that made her less annoyed with her own incompetence. He gave her hope that she could learn, and pride when she did.”

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