These Days

I completed my 2016 reading goal (at leat 20 books!) with a few weeks left in the year. I have not blogged about the books since May, so this will be a roundup of everything since then. 10. Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington . We are living in a sleep-deprived culture because we think sleep is the easiest to sacrifice in order to get more done at work, at home or for ourselves. Being sleep deprived impacts a person's well-being and Huffington reviews the numerous research on the topic. People have died from chronic sleep-deprivation and fatigue at worst, and then there are the other effects such as weight gain, and cognitive delays.My takeaway: I have to do better at prioritizing sleep (for me and the family) and to change my mindset that sleep is not unproductive time. 11. Eat, Pray, Love Made Me Do It . This is a compilation of essays from people who made changes in their lives after reading Eat, Pray, Love. Some are simple realizations but others were inspired to take...

Between the January list and In A Different Key , I actually read a few books that I forgot to do a post on. Here they are. #6   The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer . This follows the lives of six people who met while they were teenagers at an art camp. From Goodreads:  The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken. The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life. #7   Why Not Me by Mindy Kaling . This is a follow up to  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  Mindy is funny and shares her experiences in an honest and unapologetic voice. From Goodreads: Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of ess...

In a Different Key (The Story of Autism) by John Donvan and Caren Zucker is an investigative work about autism, from when it started to be observed/diagnosed to the present day. It took me two months to read the book but that's not to say that it's not good (I was just preoccupied with other things). In fact, it's very well written and compelling. The authors were careful about treating the subject with respect and it's evident in the tone throughout the book. You can see the amount of meticulous research that went into this project. Aside from the medical and scientific aspects, the authors also shared the stories of so many people that have shaped what we know about autism today. This includes Donald Triplett, in the photo below, who was the first person diagnosed with the condition.  This book opened my eyes to the dark and tumultuous history of autism, but also to the heroic efforts of parents and few in the scientific community to advocate for individuals wit...

Here are the books I read this month. 7 by Jen Hatmaker  (4/5) Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hr Bookstore by Robin Sloan (4/5) I bought this book because I was intrigued by the title. And it's about a bookstore.=) This is fantasy/mystery novel about Mr. Penumbra's bookstore and the strange patrons that come in for odd and old titles. The new night shift clerk and protagonist Clay Jannon figured out what's going on, identified patterns using technology and inadvertently dives into a clandestine organization that has existed for centuries. I enjoyed this book. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller (4/5) This books starts a little slow, with Donald Miller narrating the story about writing the screenplay for Blue Like Jazz, a movie based on his life. He was doing this with two other writers and they collaborated over a many months. Miller learned about the storywriting for the movies and why some events in his life need to be rewritten for the story to be m...

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker . I finished this book yesterday. The author lives in Austin, Texas with her husband who's a pastor and 5 kids (two were adopted from Ethiopia). This book is her personal journal from months of challenging herself and family to take a closer look at their possessions and consumption by extreme reduction. She did each challenge for a month -- clothes, spending, waste, food, possessions, media and stress. It's called seven because she limited the items in the challenge to 7. Like wearing 7 items of clothing, 7 items of food, 7 stores to spend at, etc. It is extreme and sometimes that is what is required to realize how much we have, how much we can do without, and ironically how richer life would be with less. It is essentially a fast from things so that in the freed up space, the quieter but more important things are seen. Spiritual truths are revealed. The author shared funny stories and failures but she stuck w...

The main reason why I was able to stay on track with the reading goal for 2015 was Goodreads. I logged my progress as done or currently reading. The want-to-read list was also helpful because I refer to it whenever I need to check out books from the local library. Goodreads showed me this summary of my year. ==========================  Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte  It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizinni  The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler  Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner  The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd  The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood  Thrive by Arianna Huffingtom  Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson  The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton  Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto  The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt  Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom  The Amazing Adventur...

In mid-November, I completed my 2015 reading goal of 20 books. I've added four few more since then to close out my reading year. One thing I embraced this year was to let go of books that did not really interest me. I just leave them unfinished which I used to hate doing. Now I feel ok about it because I was able to divert my time towards more compelling choices. How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention and Discovery by Kevin Ashton As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative twenty years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity’s greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it. Creators, he shows, apply in particular ways the everyday, ordinary thinking of which we are all capable, taking thousands of small steps and working in an endl...

At the start of the year, I set a goal to read 20 books. I'm happy to report that I completed it, as of this week. For someone who rarely sets goals (or sets and forgets), this makes me feel accomplished.=) Here are the last three books to round up my 20. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates . This is written as a letter from a father to his son about growing up and life as a black person in America. I think it was from an Instragram post that I first encountered this book. I don't recall who it was but the person suggested that if you think you don't have anything in common with the author, that's more reason to read the book. It gave me a glimpse of what it is like to be black in a country that continues to wrestle with racism. The subject itself is heavy but Coates writes so beautifully and in a very thoughtful manner that it feels like a sentimental poem or song. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling . I don't...

Book # 17 for 2015 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo . I was intrigued by this book since it started appearing on many blogs/IGs that I follow. Most reviews were really positive but some thought Kondo's tidying methods were extreme, with 'ceremonies' unlike other tidying practices. I am interested in anything that can help put the house in order (better order?) so I had to check this out for myself. Thank you, local library! The first thing is that Kondo recommends doing a one-time big-time tidying process of the whole house according to a certain order - clothes, books...momorabilia. The main criteria for keeping or getting rid of stuff is the question "Does it spark joy?" This necessitates handling each object and determining how it makes one feel. So it's a long process but it also allows one to confront all the reasons behind keeping things we don't need or like. Is it attachment to the past or fear of the future? Kondo ci...

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain . I heard about this book when it was released a couple of years back. I should have read it sooner. So many points from this book resonated with me. I took down a lot of notes. I am familiar with the idea (and from experience) that introverts thrive in solitude, quiet and low-key environments while extroverts are energized by being around many people or lively situations. What was new to me is the concept of introverts being highly sensitive. Not in the emotional sense but in terms of being easily overwhelmed by stimuli. I can relate. I feel unsettled if there are too many things going on. I easily get roused by noise and consider absolute silence a luxury. Being an introvert is a challenge because of the Extrovert Ideal. Many of our institutions are designed for extroverts. For example, modern offices have open plans, we are forced to work in teams (not inherently bad) and are expected to be liv...

Here are the books I read in June.=) 13. Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom . I borrowed this book from a public book box at the park. It's about Mitch Albom's relationship with two men of faith. His rabbi, Al Lewis, asked him to do his eulogy which he agreed to do, albeit hesitantly at first. He felt an obligation to really know the rabbi so they met many times over 8 years at the rabbi's home, during special occasions, at the hospital. The other man of faith was a Christian pastor whose struggling church sheltered the homeless. Albom learned about the pastor's troubled criminal past and how he turned his life around to keep a promise to God at a time of desperate need. I read Tuesdays with Morrie years ago and it's amazing to me how Albom has nurtured deep relationships with these amazing people. This book left me feeling more hopeful about humanity and that is a good thing. 14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon . This book w...

These are the books I read in April and May, thanks to the local library. I tackled 2 award-winning heavyweights - The Luminaries (2013 Man Booker Prize) and The Goldfinch (2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction). Both of these took a while to get into but if you keep at it for the first 100 pages or so, the rest becomes easy. The challenge I had with The Luminaries was the number of main characters, keeping track of who's who and who did what, and switching between present and past in the narrative. The Goldfinch was more straightforward, but just as thrilling. It felt like an achievement when everything finally made sense at the end. I picked up The Book of Lost Things at the library because of the cover. I liked the typography and design, which evokes mystery. The story reminded me of the movie Pan's Labyrinth, otherworldly and dark. I chose Kitchen just because I have not read a Banana Yoshimoto book before. This did not disappoint. #9. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton ...

Books I read in February and March. #5. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd Sue Monk Kidd's phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivan -- a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul -- Kidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure (from Goodreads). #6. The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud tells the haunting story of a young man who narrowly survives a terrible car wreck that kills his little brother. Years later, the brothers’ bond remains so strong that it transcends the normal boundaries separa...

I set a goal for this year to read 20 books, based on how I did last year. January has come and gone and so far, I'm on track.  Here are the books I read in January, with some info from Goodreads and my comments. #1. Overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed is a book about time pressure and modern life. It is a deeply reported and researched, honest and often hilarious journey from feeling that, as one character in the book said, time is like a "rabid lunatic" running naked and screaming as your life flies past you, to understanding the historical and cultural roots of the overwhelm, how worrying about all there is to do and the pressure of feeling like we're never have enough time to do it all, or do it well, is "contaminating" our experience of time, how time pressure and stress is resculpting our brains and shaping our workplaces, our relationships and squeezing the space that the Greeks said was the point of living a Good Life: that elusive moment of peace called lei...

Closing the books for 2014 and setting goals for 2015. For 2014, I did not really set a reading goal but I still ended up with 20, which is definitely better than the previous years. I think it helped that I was logging the books I’ve read and want to read in my bullet journal, was more active on Goodreads and also took advantage of the public library. This year, I would like to hit at least 20 again. The last book I read for 2014 was Anita Shreve’s Light on Snow, Nang Lani’s copy and read while we were on vacation in San Diego. From Goodreads : What makes a family? That's what twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon wonders after she and her widowed father discover a wailing abandoned baby in the snow-filled woods near their New Hampshire home. Through the days that follow, the Dillons and an unexpected visitor who soon turns up at their door-a young woman evidently haunted by her own terrible choices-face a thicket of decisions, each seeming to carry equal possibilities of heartbreak...

All these books were borrowed from the public library. I can browse the collection online, reserve the books I want and Rich (since I'm using his account) gets notified once the books are available. Galing! #17.   The Age of Miracles . On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues. (from Goo...