Reading books.
The Year of the Flood
by Margaret Atwood
Part two of the dystopian world Margaret Atwood began in Oryx and Crake. We’re in the same universe around the same time, but from different perspectives. Eventually, we even meet up with some of the characters from Oryx and Crake. Snowman! The Crakers! Hard to put down.
We’re using up the Earth. It’s almost gone. You can’t live with such fears and keep on whistling.
MaddAddam
by Margaret Atwood
The final installment of the Oryx and Crake series. It’s really good. We learn the fates of the people we meet in the first and second book. She has so many different threads going in this world.
The End of Everything (Astrophysicially speaking)
by Katie Mack
This book is dense, so I read it slowly. It takes some of your brain cells. In a good way. She talks about possible ways the universe will end and how it began. I love this stuff. Is it too late to go back to school to be a cosmologist?
Cosmology can help..in the sense that your life remains the same but absolutely everything else about existence is forever changed.
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
Carl Sagan says that one. I like “we are the universe observing itself” too.
Mind blown.
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
by David Burns
Someone recommended this book to me in the comments. Wow. You know there are just some books that change your life and I think this read falls into that category. The author gives very logical answers to the thoughts in my brain.
I read this book slowly over the course of weeks, stopping to do the written exercises.
The quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your life. It’s one thing to know that, but it’s another to actively change your thoughts.
The author points out ten cognitive distortions. We’re all just telling stories to ourselves to make sense of the world. All the stories are wrong, but some stories are more wrong than others. Or at least, some stories are actively unhelpful.
The book has a lot of writing exercises, but I found that pointing out the cognitive distortion in my thoughts was the most helpful. I put “Write down two CD” on my resolutions chart and every day, I would write them down.
Anyway, maybe this should be a separate post. I have so many notes on this book. I think year 38 might be the year of recognizing and correcting cognitive distortions. Sexy name, huh?
Your accomplishments can bring satisfaction, but not joy.
The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1)
by Jonathan Stroud
This is a murder mystery with angry spirits who want vengeance. Adults can’t see the ghosts as well as young people, so our detectives are three teenagers. It’s a cute, easy read. I guessed the murderer almost as soon as the murderer was introduced. Not to brag.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Simon Winchester
Boring, dry, historic read. We learn about how the Oxford English Dictionary was written. There’s focus on this guy in an insane asylum who helps. Meh.
…the strangest puzzle surrounding William Chester Minor’s career was this: Just why did he not attend the great dictionary dinner…?
Yeah, riveting.
In Five Years: A Novel
by Rebecca Serle
Our protagonist is a young corporate lawyer interviewing for her dream job at Wachtell. Oh, that’s a real law firm. That night, her boyfriend proposes and she has a dream, a flashback, a glimpse, a premonition five years into the future. She’s with another guy in another apartment. Four and a half years later, she meets the guy from her dream in real life. Interesting premise.
Easy, fast read. The description of her life as a corporate lawyer was spot-on. I didn’t like the ending though. Like I hated the last third of the book.
Call Me By Your Name
by Andre Aciman
Teenage boy in France falls in love with one of his family’s boarders.
The book boasts long paragraphs about feelings and has no chapters. Not my favorite read. I kind of hated this book, but maybe it’s because I’m bitter. There was some good prose though, I’ll admit.
I would have been satisfied and asked for nothing else than if he’d bent down and picked up the dignity I could so effortlessly have thrown at his feet.
I suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more.
Feeling Good Together: The Secret to Making Troubled Relationships Work
by David Burns
I picked this book up because I liked the first Feeling Good book I read and just told you about. I didn’t stop to do the exercises here because I don’t have anybody in my life I’m in conflict with. That’s certainly something to be happy about.
He mixes in a lot of real life examples, so it feels like a gossipy read.
Add “Hillbilly Elegy”–you will reflect on growing up, and may have more appreciation for your future.
I read it in October 2017.
One man’s story of his life growing up in Appalachia. It’s a tale of poverty, violence, disappointment and strife. But he’s a hard worker and eventually gets into Yale Law School.
I’m not sure how much we can extrapolate from his book about others that live in this very poor region of the United States. He talks about jobs going unfilled because people are just lazy. He also explains something about those who voted overwhelmingly against Barack Obama. Obama’s existence threw in their face that they were failures. This country is a meritocracy. If this black man who talks so well and attends ivy leagues could rise to the top, why haven’t they? It’s easier to blame others and to concoct conspiracy theories that he’s a secret Muslim than to make the herculean effort to change their own lives. For a party that likes to preach about personal responsibility, it’s pure hypocrisy.
What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.
This book just made me angry. He writes well, but I still don’t understand that world at all. We get the government we deserve. The current government we have is certainly the government these people he portrays deserve.
Obama’s biological father was a high status , within his native society, African. His step-dad was a high-status Indonesian. His mother completed a pHD in Anthropology. I think it is fair to say Obama had a far better start in life, self-confidence and future expectation wise, than your average red-neck hillbilly.
Yay, I think the Feeling Good rec might have been from me, I’m glad you found it as insightful as I did. I’m due a re-read, it has been a while. Thanks for all your book recs!
Thank you! I just checked out Feeling Great from the library. It’s Dr. Burns’ latest book.
The Cosmic book sounds great – I like that mind-expanding (or ego shrinking) stuff too.
Came across David Burns around 20 years ago and the Feeling Good Handbook was a huge help at the time when I needed it. I think I can credit that book with keeping me away from pharma drugs. I worked the exercises for a few weeks at that time , felt better and then sort of parked the book ever since.
I’m 100% certain I have CDs many times per day in particular in relation to my career. Maybe it’s time to dig it out again it buy it again if it’s gone missing. I remember sorta hiding it from my family as I didn’t want them to know I was struggling at the time. Dr Burbs has done a service to mankind .
Agreed. I’m definitely going to reread it.
Have you seen the movie version of Call Me By Your Name? I saw that first and thought it was so beautiful, so I read the book, but didn’t love it. Have re-watched the movie several times though. It’s one of those that really transported me.
The movie is better than the book? You don’t hear that often. Thanks for the recommendation!
I love all of your reading suggestions! All thought provoking! Nothing superficial here! Alas, I am STILL decluttering and organizing! Since March! So I have no idea when I will actually ever get to start reading any of your suggestions! Lol 🌞
How big is your house? Since March!
I only have a one bedroom apartment! It’s been a looooong process! 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the reviews. Have added the Cosmology one to my Christmas list. Anything by Carl Sagan is worth a read by the way.
Oh, totally agree. Sagan is the best.
Operation: Do a pull-up — Complete
Congrats!