I’m working on my “updating my chart” post for 2020, but I don’t feel like I have anything new to say. Stock market up apparently. I’m living below my means. Investments cover expenses. Green line above red line. Blah blah blah.
Anything in particular you’re interested in?
How to break up with your phone: The 30 day plan to take back your life
by Catherine Price
You’re addicted to your phone, probably. Everyone is. The author goes through why this is bad. We can’t focus. Our attention is our most prized commodity and smart phones are stealing all of it. The author lays out exercises to do every day for thirty days to make you more aware of how and when you’re using your phone so you can be more mindful. I did all the exercises each day and really felt an improvement in my mood and phone usage. I recommend.
You really start to notice “phone snubbing.” That’s when people use their phone instead of interacting with you.
One day is a 24 hours screens fast. No television, no laptop, no phone. I spent that day moving all my furniture and sweeping and mopping and cleaning my bathroom and painting and reading 750 pages. Long day! The phone steals so much of our time. We have less time than we think, but more time than we realize. I think that’s a quote from the book, but I didn’t put it in quotes when I initially wrote this, so I don’t remember.
World Without End: A Novel (Kingsbridge)
by Ken Follett
This is a historical fiction story. It’s the sequel to Pillars of the Earth. The first book was one thousand pages and the second is even longer. The author is brilliant, but I think I may be done with this series. The sex scenes kind of weirded me out. I have the third book checked out from the library that the author wrote and there’s also a prequel, but that’s more than two thousand more pages.
There is discussion of the black plague and how people refused to wear masks because Muslim physicians were the ones that recommended the practice and it was blasphemy to follow them. But really the main religious dude just wanted to discredit the main nun. A lot of people died.
The book is good, but just so long.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires
by Grady Hendrix
I hated this book and just wanted it to be over. It was gross and the characters frustrated me. All the men were condescending pricks. It felt like it had too much filler.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles: The First Hercule Poirot Mystery
by Agatha Christie
Another Agatha Christie mystery and my last for a while. She’s not as good as I remember. Did I have bad taste as a little kid? She used the same technique as the last Agatha book I read. “Eliminate” the most obvious suspect in the beginning of the novel, and through some twist at the end learn that the most obvious guy was the one all along. I know I just gave away the ending, but you’re not going to read this book, are you?
The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
by Russ Harris
Good book. The author is an advocate for ACT, which stands for Accept your thoughts and feelings, Connect with your values, Take effective action.
“Bad” thoughts and “bad” feelings are always going to occur to everyone because that’s what it is to be human. You have to accept that. Allow them to be as much as they need to be. Who’s to say what’s good or bad? There’s really no such thing as a bad thought or a bad feeling.
We have a thinking self that chatters and tells us stories. We also have an observing self that observes everything. Try to connect with your observing itself more. There were some exercises in the book that were particularly helpful for me.
When you’re having a thought or emotion that you deem “bad”, take some space from it by noticing that you’re thinking something. “I’m thinking about climate change. I’m noticing myself thinking about climate change.”
I don’t think I’m explaining it very well.
It reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness and the benefits of meditation and even some of the pillars of joy.
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by John M. Barry
Sometimes fascinating, sometimes dull book on the flu epidemic of 1919. Reading about the scientists was dull. Reading about how terrible the influenza disease was to a certain segment of the population was horrifying, but fascinating.
This particular flu was so bad because it killed not only babies and old people, but it killed people in their prime. Nearly two million more people would have to die from corona virus within the next year in the United States for the death toll to be comparable to the 1918/19 flu. Worldwide, the death toll would have to be 73 million to 350 million.
The book mentions my hometown, Rockford, Illinois because it was home to Camp Grant, an army training base for World War I that lost many soldiers to the flu in a devastatingly short amount of time.
People could be dead within twelve hours after the first symptoms.
Also, epidemic means local or national outbreak, pandemic means global outbreak. So every time I said global pandemic, I was being redundant. Learn something new every day.
A Deadly Education: A Novel (The Scholomance)
by Naomi Novik
Adorable story of a magic school that has no teachers, but has a lot of monsters roaming around. Our protagonist is a rude and powerful chick. I loved the ending, did not see it coming in the least, and can’t wait to read the sequel.
A Column of Fire: A Novel (Kingsbridge)
by Ken Follett
This is the third book in the Pillar of the Earth series. I know I said I wasn’t sure I was going to read this one, but I ran out of unread books in my apartment and I was in “library jail” because I kept How to Break Up With Your Phone too long.
This book was okay. Not as dense or long as the first two, but still pretty dense and long. 900 pages versus 1100 pages. We’re in the 1500’s now. Still in England.
This was a hard book to read. It’s set in a time period when Catholics and Protestants hated and tortured and killed each other. I didn’t realize there was that much of a difference between the faiths. Spoiler: there’s not. People just want to find ways to kill each other. I will never understand religion.
There was so much unfairness in the story, too, that just frustrated me to no end. I don’t know if I’d recommend it.
Ohh, I didn’t realize Naomi Novik had a new book out. Her last 2 non-series books have been some of the most memorable I’ve read in a while. They both felt like modern fairy tales.
Have you watched the Pillars of the Earth miniseries? I gave it a watch after the first book and it was pretty close to a complete adaptation. It was great, but I don’t know if I could sit through another rollercoaster in that series.
No more Pillars of the Earth for me for a while! LOL. I have not seen the adaptation and can’t stomach the idea of doing so anytime soon. 🙂
> I’m working on my “updating my chart” post for 2020, but I don’t feel like I have anything new to say. Anything in particular you’re interested in?
LOL, charts are cool, but I kinda want to hear more about your *life*. You’re prolly my favorite Denver-based former-lawyer book-writing furniture-making FI blogger.
How do you stay not-bored these days? What’s dating life like now? Are you going to resume your globetrotting once it’s safe to? Why did ya settle down in once place, and is it everything you expected it to be? Do you like big cities? (What about New York?) If you could do it again, would you rather have worked a few more years before you retired instead of going back to work now? Are you still mostly nonalcoholic and vegetarian? Do you get dressed if you don’t have Zoom meetings?
If you do buy a home, blog posts about that would be nice. (I found some blogs about specific steps like juggling money around to qualify for a mortgage, but not a lot of people write about the whole process end-to-end.) And if you do get a job so you can get a mortgage, I think most banks want 2 years of employment history — do you think you’ll want to work for that long?
Whee …
Okay! I’ll do my best. Thanks for the questions!
Love your book reviews!
Always, always, always glad to see a blog post from you. Stay well. Stay strong.
Thanks, Peggy!
Thanks! Any suggestions for something new to read?
Sweet, I really needed a digital detox book.
I want to read more of them.
Interesting, didn’t realize that either about pandemic vs epidemic. Words are cool.
How’s the lockdown going? We’re back to a level where no social visits again, so you can do anything (like working), as long as it’s not fun.
At least I can walk my dogs though which helps.
On your updated chart, the recording isn’t that exciting because nothing new is happening. However, much like your resolutions, it’s in the discipline that things happen over a long time and keep you fit, healthy, wealthy etc. Maybe you should put in a line that shows a target for you wanting to buy a place?? Dunno, it’s tricky during lockdown to have the excitement lol.
How to break up with your phone sounds great, I’m regretting that my phone has become my GPS, e-book, camera and internet access. I want to go backwards from Minority Report/Matrix/Ready Player One worlds where tech is so ingrained in us, and rather go back to where I used a phone as a phone!
Restaurants are open here. So I’m told.
I cannot recommend How to Break Up With Your Phone enough. I’m still learning how to minimize my phone usage, but the thirty day boot camp really helped me.
Yes, Im interested in plant medicine, are you?
I have a book on my to read list called the Plant Paradox. I think that’s about plant medicine.
Does having a book on your read list mean you’re interested in plant medicine?
As interested as I am in anything.
I think you recommended a book, “Deep Work”, it has kind of similar message about electronic distractions. That is my summary based on reading about 3/4 of it. It is possible there is a surprise ending where he says go back to checking your email constantly.
There are some nice short stories on audible if you want to subscribe: “Alexa, why can’t you love me?”, “Snow Day”, and “The Dogs of Venice”. The last one has a man on man sex scene in it that I skipped, but otherwise is a nice read. Actually the first one is really the best.
I can’t listen to audible. I’ve tried. :-/
Most people want more & more.
Bigger house, luxurious vehicles, large bank accounts.
What made you opt of that life style ?
Let me have a think about it.
Looks good! Will keep the books you recommend in mind. Always good to get a new post from you! 🌞
😀 One more to come soon and then maybe silence for a while.
I’m interested in whether your expenses are still at only $23.5k approx, and how you spend your time, whether you miss the social aspect of work, blah blah blah
~$22k were my expenses from last year. More answers to come.
Looking forward to your updated chart!
I posted it! It’s as expected. 🙂
Hi there, always funny to read your book reviews.
Forget Agatha Christie-it is for teenagers in my opinion. Try PD James, much, much better!
Thanks, it’s on the list! Although I just got out two more Agatha Christie novels that I remember loving, so hopefully her best is still good?
I’m reading a book now that I first read in college, “The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. It was recommended to us by the head of the electrical engineering department and several of my classmates and I read it and all loved it. It chronicled a year at Data General, a mini-computer manufacturer, while they were designing a new computer. I remember thinking it was one of the greatest books I had read. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I read two more of his books, “House” and “Among Schoolchildren”, both of which were also excellent.
However, like you with Agatha Christie, I’m not finding this reading as enjoyable as the first. But what’s really strange is that I don’t remember anything about the book at all. It’s like I’m reading it for the first time. There’s not one thing where I say “Oh, yeah. I remember that part.” From “House” I remember one of the builders saying something along the lines of “One man digging a ditch is a grueling chore, but two men digging a ditch is an enjoyable conversation.” And how excited the builders were that they were building from the ground up instead of an addition or remodel. But from “The Soul of a New Machine” — nothing.
I’m now planning to re-read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the first of the five-book trilogy which I also read while in college. I want to see what, if anything, I remember from it. Although I run the risk of ruining the fond memories I have of this book as well.
-Bob
I loved The Hitchhiker’s Guide! I believe that one will stand the test of time.