December 2020 – What you should read next – “Do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while all the time knowing that it doesn’t matter at all.”

It is an embarrassment of riches in terms of reading material in my apartment right now.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

by Pema Chodron

The author writes beautifully and simply about meditation. She brings up the concept of maitri which is a Sanskrit word meaning friend. When you’re meditating and you realize you’ve started thinking again and you direct your attention back to your breath, do it in a friendly way. “You’re thinking, old buddy.”

Be nice to yourself, essentially. Use meditation as a time to relax.

When we’re not in meditation, we could begin to notice our opinions just as we notice that we’re thinking when we’re meditating. This is an extremely helpful practice, because we have a lot of opinions, and we tend to take them as truth. But actually they aren’t truth. They are just our opinions.

Profound.

One piece of advice that Don Juan gave to Carlos Casteneda was to do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while all the time knowing that it doesn’t matter at all.

Proof: The Science of Booze

by Adam Rogers

Book on alcohol that I found kind of boring. The author talks about yeast and fermenting and aging and I don’t really care about alcohol. I gave up after 99 pages.

The Murder at the Vicarage

by Agatha Christie

I read every Agatha book when I was a kid. I could never tell who the murderer was. Now that I’m older and wizened, I still couldn’t tell who the murderer was. There’s a reason she’s famous, but it doesn’t hold up as well as I remember. The language is old fashioned.

The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion―Surprising Observations of a Hidden World (The Mysteries of Nature, 2)

by Peter Wohlleben

This book is by the author of the tree book (The Hidden Life of Trees) that I loved. This one does not disappoint. He goes through various emotions and characteristics that we think of as human and shows how it applies to animals. So good. It was sometimes hard to read because you start to identify with the animals so much. Maybe I’m just speaking for me.

The Secret Wisdom of Nature: Trees, Animals, and the Extraordinary Balance of All Living Things -― Stories from Science and Observation (The Mysteries of Nature, 3)

by Peter Wohlleben

This is the third book by this author and the final in the series. This book is more about how things work together in nature and how human beings are screwing everything up. This one was not as good as the first two. It repeated some of the stuff from the first book and was kind of a downer. The tragedy of the commons.

Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

by David Burns

This is Dr. David Burns’ latest book on cognitive behavioral therapy. This is another book I read slowly, doing all the exercises. It’s excellent, in my opinion (and what else are you going to get here except my opinion?). I’ve been working on a post about cognitive behavioral therapy for months now because there’s so much interesting information in here and his other books that I found helpful. Hopefully I’ll finish writing it one day.

Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha, 1)

by Tomi Adeyemi

Magic and children and war and devastation. I didn’t love it. It was too long. They had a random spontaneous festival when they’re supposed to be in a hurry. Meh. I said M – E – H.

Even the Stiffest People Can Do the Splits: A 4-Week Stretching Plan to Achieve Amazing Health

by Eiko

According to this book, achieving the splits will flatten your stomach, improve digestion, and make you a better manager and person. Seriously.

This book would have been better as a PDF.

The author’s definition of the splits and my definition of the splits are different. The author says you can do the splits if you sit on your butt, spread your legs as far as possible, and get your elbows on the ground. I think you have to sink into the splits from standing and not start sitting down. I could do the author’s definition before I started the program.

After four weeks, I was definitely more flexible, but I still can’t do my definition of the splits. I even bought some yoga blocks and practiced with those and I’m still really far away.

I’m going to keep trying.

Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

Okay, I know I say this a lot (except for Agatha Christie), but I really did guess who the killer was right when we first meet the killer. It was a good, short novel though, an easy read in one day.

My mother would not be distracted from her grief. To this day it remains a hobby.

The Radium Girls (The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women)

by Kate Moore

Devastating true stories of the girls who used to work in factories, painting dials on watches with a luminescent glow that came from radium. They put the brushes in their mouths, so the radium got into their bones and rotted out their jaws. It sounds like an absolutely miserable way to die.

This is the story of how the girls sued the company and, eventually, won. There’s a lot of corporate greed and awful descriptions of the radium diseases that make this book hard to read. It’s good though.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2015: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

by Richard N. Bolles

This is a book on how to find a new career. I didn’t do the exercises, so I probably didn’t get anything out of this book. I don’t know, man. I think I’m meant to write.

The Mood Cure: The 4-Step Program to Take Charge of Your Emotions–Today

by Julia Ross

The author advises a diet full of vegetables and protein and some supplements called 5 HTP and Tryptophan and other things. There’s a quiz in there you can take to see what supplement you need. I don’t know. I believe the first part, but I’m not sure about the second part. I’ll ask my psychiatrist the next time I see her.