★★★★★ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I enjoyed this book so much more than I expected. Perhaps it’s the grief I have been feeling that has opened up new emotional channels. I found myself tearing up at multiple points in reading this book. I really cared for the characters: Lily, August, May, Rosaleen, these beautiful, wise women.
…★★★★☆ | Travel and Nature | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A wonderful introduction to the wildlife and history of Southern Arizona from the state’s most famous poet. This book helped me pass through some awful periods of grief as I healed on our patio underneath the very same desert sun that Shelton loved so much.
…★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A ghost story with two sets of twins and a few surprising twists that I didn’t see coming (but should have). Niffenegger lost points with her depiction of Valentina’s parents (including Elspeth!) with their lack of grieving and too-easily-accepted death of their daughter. Obviously she’s never dealt personally with the loss of a child.
Julia had never thought of death as something that would happen to her, or to people she knew. All those people in the cemetery were just stones, names, dates. Loving Mother. Devoted Husband. Elspeth was a parlour trick; she had never been really real to Julia. Valentina is in that box. It couldn’t be true.
★★★☆☆ | Psychology | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Susan worked with Prince as sound engineer — how cool is that? Probably the most insightful thing I learned from the book wasn’t about music, but art. She described how and why the surreal art movement came to exist: as photography was invented, artists were suddenly disrupted. A photograph would always be more realistic than a painting. Surreal art allows the perceiver to fill in the meaning of the art from their own subconscious, a whole different part of the brain.
Reading the book made me want to dive back into listening to albums again.
★★★★★ | Essays | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Fantastic collection of essays spanning two hundred years of American letters.
★★★★☆ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I read William Manchester’s massive biography of Winston Churchill in the evenings over many months. I think of this an a pleasure read because the writing is so lyrical and evocative of another time and place. So many leadership and life lessons to be gleaned from studying Churchill.
I am patiently waiting to reach the end of the Story of Civilization before resuming this amazing biography of Churchill with the second volume.
★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
★★★★☆ | Reading and Books | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A delightful, hilarious memoir of running a used bookstore in a small town in Scotland.
★★★★★ | Literature | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A beautiful, wise book touching so many themes: true love, societal pressures, women’s rights, nobility excesses, religious zealotry, jealousy, the fruitless search for the meaning of life, angst over landowner privilege, thinking vs. feeling/living, capitalism vs. communism. Reading Tolstoy is the study of life.
…★★★☆☆ | Philosophy | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
An interesting collection of stories and anecdotes about how ego can be a destructive force in a person’s life.
…★★★★☆ | Philosophy | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Friendship is one of life’s greatest blessings, but are seldom accounted for as such.
True friendship is selfless and must be predicated on virtue with no expectation of gain.
Riches and success tend to change a person. If he forsakes his friends for possessions, he’ll one day wonder who he bought all this stuff for, and will have no one to enjoy them with him.
In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self. So that where his friend is he is; if his friend be rich, he is not poor; though he be weak, his friend’s strength is his; and in his friend’s life he enjoys a second life after his own is finished. This last is perhaps the most difficult to conceive. But such is the effect of the respect, the loving remembrance, and the regret of friends which follow us to the grave. While they take the sting out of death, they add a glory to the life of the survivors.
★★★★☆ | Philosophy | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A quirky book full of dense wisdom. Thinking in such extremes is interesting. The ending was anti-climactic (and weird).
Highlights
We overestimate what we can do in one year. We underestimate what we can do in ten years.
One of the best feelings in life is to meet someone who grew up in an opposite culture but has your same humor, thoughts, or taste.
…★★★★☆ | History | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I read this before undertaking the epic 11-volume Story of Civilization that Durant wrote over the course of forty years. He boils down the critical themes of history that he learned over the course of his lifetime of study. If you don’t have the time or inclination to read his opus, this is a good primer.
Highlights
Biology and History
Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, … only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.
…★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
My third book by Amor Towles who is an inspiration to me. He published his first novel, The Rules of Civility, at 47 after spending a career in investment banking in New York. Imagine that!
This one has some dear characters: Emmett, Duchess, Billy, Wooley, Sally, and a few other incidentals thrown in. Duchess is a borderline psychopath that I came to adore by looking at his situation through his own perspective.
…★★★★☆ | Philosophy | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Favorite Highlights
“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”
Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness—these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings.
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★★★★☆ | Writing | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Reading Notes
A quick, lively read. Take aways:
★★★★★ | Psychology | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Reading Notes
Six Stages of Grief
The Three Steps of Taking in the Good
★★★☆☆ | Writing | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Guardian Book Review
What a strange little book about essay writing coupled with the author’s lifelong suffering of loss and depression. There were some insights about essay structure and composition that I highlighted (see below), and, reeling from Connor’s death, I was somehow comforted by the author’s repeated declarations of woe. He used writing as a method to stave off his depression, which apparently worked until it didn’t.
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★★★☆☆ | Fantasy | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A formulaic Hero’s Journey as only Stephen King could write. Connor passed away in the middle of my reading this. I had to put it down while his death was still so fresh. I couldn’t fathom reading about a young man putting his life on the line in a fantasy story – or any story. I picked it back up a few weeks later as a distraction, but never really got into it. The characters weren’t fully developed and I never really connected with the protagonist. Might be the time.
Highlights
Whiskey doesn’t smell the same as gin… yet it does. All alcohol smells the same to me, of sadness and loss.
good people shine brighter in dark times.
tempus est umbra in mente is a better one. Roughly translated, it means time is a shadow in the mind.
There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your peril. That water is poison.
★★★★★ | Nautical Fiction | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The week after Connor passed, I could not distract myself with reading. But, I desperately needed the distraction, so I turned to the healing salve of Aubrey and Maturin. I picked up where I left off with Treason’s Harbour, which is either my third or fourth time through these books. Transporting myself to another known world outside my suffering and despair seemed to help.
As with most of these books, the story line seemed only vaguely familiar, despite multiple readings. Why is that? I believe I read O’Brian in such a comfortable state, letting the words roll over me, that I don’t pay too close attention to the plot.
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