An American Marriage: A Novel
by Tayari Jones
I picked this book up because I’m going on a cruise in March and there is a book club on the cruise and this was the club’s selection, so of course I ordered it from the library and read it before going.
It’s an Oprah book club selection about a black couple’s relationship. I tell you the detail of their skin color because it matters in the book.
“He didn’t do anything but be a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
After a year of marriage, the husband is falsely accused and wrongly convicted of rape. We see their relationship through the letters they send and we see the demise of that same relationship. The wife starts dating her childhood friend and he even gets to be narrator for a while.
Quality, quick read. Not quintessential, but I can’t think of another q word to describe the book, unfortunately.
“Maybe that’s what innocence is, having no way to predict the pain of the future.”
Real Artists Don’t Starve
by Jeff Goins
A book on how to thrive as an artist and make some money. Do your art every day, show it to people, network.
“What does it mean to be a “real artist”? It means you are spending your time doing the things that matter most to you. It means you don’t need someone else’s permission to create. It means you aren’t doing your work in secret, hoping someone may discover it someday. The world is taking you seriously.”
But how do you know when the world is taking you seriously?
“You are when you say you are,” he told me.
Before I expected others to take me seriously, I had to start taking myself seriously.
I take myself seriously, but I’m still not crossing “Be a writer” off my life bucket list. This feels like a lifetime quest.
Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need
by Grant Sabatier
This is a good primer for early retirement if you’re not familiar with the subject. I know you’re all familiar with the subject. Thorough and informative, he talks about savings, but also touches the earnings side of early retirement. Make more money through side hustles. Yup. Oh, the “Anita” he references throughout the book is me.
I read this book almost a year ago, so it doesn’t belong in March 2019, but it wasn’t out then. Some of his numbers about my situation were wrong in the draft I read, so I hope he fixed it before the final version came out. I’m too lazy to check.
The Alienist: A Novel (Dr. Lazlo Kreizler Book 1)
by Caleb Carr
Novel about a couple of guys in the early 1900s that try to solve a series of gruesome child murders. Future president Theodore Roosevelt is the Chief Commissioner of the New York City Police Department at the time and assembled his friends to solve the crime. One guy is an alienist, a doctor for alien symptoms. Basically a therapist/psychiatrist before there were standards. They’re building up a profile of a serial killer before the term was invented.
I found the book rather boring to be honest. It’s in the “thriller” category, but the prose was too winded, too slow. Very few books need more than 500 pages.
The descriptions of New York in the early 1900s is a good reminder of how far we’ve come in terms of quality of life, though.
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
by Brené Brown
This is a self-help book on vulnerability. She’s pro-vulnerability. Be vulnerable. It makes you human.
“We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us.”
Vulnerability is the point of life. A lot of things are the points of life.
“Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives you purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”
I need to stop reading self help books. They’re all saying the same thing in different ways. The author even mentions at least three other books I’ve already read (The Happiness Project and others by Gretchen Rubin, Incognito by David Eagleman, and Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff).
Takeaways:
- Joy comes to us in moments–ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.
- Be grateful for what you have.
- Don’t squander joy.
Educated: A Memoir
by Tara Westover
“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money — the ability to think of things besides money.”
Have you read Hillbilly Elegy? This is that book, but better. The author grew up in Idaho with survivalist, end of days, religious parents who don’t trust the government or the Illuminati, so as a kid she never went to school or the doctor, despite many horrific injuries in the family.
She taught herself to read using the Mormon bibles and other writings from that religion.
She decides she wants to go to college and gets into Brigham Young University. She then wins scholarships to Cambridge and eventually gets her PhD at Harvard.
The book is wild and there’s so much more story that I’m not telling. And she tells it so subtly. I really liked this book.
With regard to writing as a life-time quest, always remember that you are a writer. You’ve written a book and you’re writing this blog! 🙂 And doing a great job, I might add.
Ernest Hemingway put it best. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” 🙂
Ahh Brene Brown is the best! I read Hillbilly Eligy a couple years ago and am interested in Educated now. Thanks for the recommendations! 🙂
It’s much better than Hillbilly Elegy and I really liked Hillbilly Elegy. 🙂
I love that quote! Thanks for this. I checked my subscriber count recently and it went down, so I started questioning my life choices. The moral of the story, I think, is to not check my subscriber count. 🙂
I just read Farenheit 451. Not new but great and i had never read it. I am reading The Investor’s Paradox by Brian Portnoy. So far I think it is a great primer on modern investment history and maybe on other things, I can’t decide yet. Like everyone else, I am reading There, There.
I think they made Farenheit 451 into a movie, but I did like the book. That world is my idea of hell. I haven’t heard of there, there, but I’m putting it on the list if everyone else is reading it. 🙂
“Vulnerability is the point of life. A lot of things are the points of life.” Lines as wickedly funny as this are why I come back.
I wasn’t even intending for that to be witty! Ha!
I love your book reviews, they’re my favorite on the internet. Your writing makes me feel like I’m hearing about them from a brilliant friend over coffee.
I second this.
You’re really good at writing, Anita. Never stop doing it!
I appreciate you saying that! I do frequently wonder if it’s time to give up.
What a lovely thing to say! Without constant reassurance, I die, so I do appreciate it. 🙂
I just finished reading The Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith H. Beer. Also a biography and a captivating read. Really well written, imo. Have you read it?
I haven’t, but it’s now on the list, so I hope to see. Book recommendations are pretty much my reason for being. Thanks.
Perhaps you have already read it, Gene: An Intimate History [Siddhartha Mukherjee]. I highly recommend it to all.
I haven’t read it, but I’ve put it on my list. Thank you.
Educated sounds very interesting . It reminds me a little of The Glass Castle, which made me really appreciate my upbringing .
Oh, I’ve heard of that book. And I agree with you about appreciating how you were raised. It matters so much that your parents aren’t nut jobs.
Check out The Radium Girls by Kate Moore if you haven’t read it. It was recommended to me and is well worth the read, as disturbing as the (true) story is.
Thanks, it’s on the list. I’m ready to be disturbed.
Thanks i grabbed Educated. Im reading the Masternind by Evan Ratliff. Its pretty good, it details this genius computer programmer Paul Le Roux, who sets up an elaborate self maintaining online presription drug business that ran across 6 continents, then i think he got into other drugs and weapons trades but i havent read that far. For self help books I finished The New Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, it was alright.
Thanks for the recommendation!