Category: Book

📚 Finished reading: Everything That Remains by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, ISBN: 9781938793196

I love this book. This was my fourth or fifth read through, which is probably more than any other book I’ve ever read.

📚 Finished reading: Allies by Alan Gratz, ISBN: 9781338245745

The Boy picked this one up at a school book fair and I read it with him. It was a bit gruesome and upsetting at times, but he didn’t seem to mind reading that kind of stuff right before bed. He enjoyed it and has since picked up another similar book by the same author. I thought it was fine.

📚 Finished reading: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, ISBN: 9780064401883

I read this one with The Boy as he was reading it in school. I didn’t love it, but it did have some good parts.

📚 Finished reading: How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t by Andrea Owen, ISBN: 9781580056809

I didn’t get much from this one. Admittedly, I’m not the target audience of women with low self esteem, but this was heavy on anecdotes and light on science. Very life-coachy. Maybe it would have seemed better if I hadn’t just finished the amazing Lost Connections book.

📚 Finished reading: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari, ISBN: 9781632868329

Excellent book. So much new (to me) information in this book. Full of well cited scientific research. Audiobook read by the author was very moving at times.

📚 Finished reading: Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance by Christopher McDougall, ISBN: 9780307742223

Good, but not as good as Born to Run. The style of this book was nearly identical to Born to Run, though I found it much more difficult to follow the story this time. I did enjoy the story of Greek resistance fighters during World War II, it just didn’t seem very coherent.

📚 Finished reading: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, ISBN: 9780307591166

Where do I begin with this one? The “lifestyle design” and travel parts of the book are actually pretty good. There’s a lot of interesting advice, and much of it is even somewhat useful. The business advice, though, is a mess. Most of it seems pretty sketchy (this guy comes from the infomercial world). If you have to follow up a piece of business advise with the disclaimer, “THIS IS LEGAL!”, then you may want to reconsider your life choices.

Audiobook from Apple Books.

📚 Finished reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman, ISBN: 9780151015443

Yes, I read this twice in one week. This time I read it with The Boy and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. My wife was around for parts of it and laughed out loud several times.

Audiobook from Apple Books.

📚 Finished reading: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, ISBN: 9781936891047

I have strong feelings about this book, both good and bad. The very loud orchestral music playing in the background through much of the audiobook didn’t do it any favors. Still, the author has some interesting ideas and I am probably going to read this one again. Very short.

Audiobook from Apple Books.

📚 Finished reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman, ISBN: 9780151015443

This was great, though not as great as the movie. Short (must have been abridged).

Audiobook from Apple Books.

📚 Finished reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen, ISBN: 9780451526380

I love Jane Austen’s writing. The story was just a bit too similar to Pride and Prejudice, but not quite as entertaining. I found this one harder to stay focused on.

Audiobook checked out from public library.

📚 Finished reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, ISBN: 9781594744495

Clever idea. I’m glad they sold a zillion copies of this book. I didn’t like it as much as the original. Most of the additions/modifications matched the original style and tone very well, with the notable exception of all the added sexual innuendo (too many jokes about “balls”). I’m glad this book exists.

I checked out the Audiobook on CDs from public library, converted to mp3, and listened in Overcast.

📚 Finished reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, ISBN: 9781853260001

Wow. I’ve never enjoyed a book so much I assumed I would find so incredibly boring. I doubt I could have gotten through it by reading, but in audiobook form (which I got free on Apple Books) it was fantastic.

📚 Well, that was most of the books I’ve read in the last 2-3 weeks. I cut back a bit on the podcasts I listen to, which freed up some listening time for audiobooks. I’ve been enjoying this.

📚 Finished reading: Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, ISBN: 9780385333214

How could I not love non-fiction about winning the national science fair by blowing shit up? We watched October Sky many years ago. Apparently I liked it enough my wife bought me this (hardcover) book that was the basis for the movie. I never read it. A couple years ago I donated it to the public library. I came across the audiobook on Hoopla and finally read (listened to) it. Good stuff.

📚 Finished reading: Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki, ISBN: 9780393609042

This is more of a personal journey than a how-to. Mildly interesting. Short read.

Audiobook available free on Hoopla.

📚 Finished reading: Let It Go by Peter Walsh, ISBN: 9781623367800

Fine, I guess. This is clearly aimed more at people who are dealing with parents’ estates than with downsizing their own stuff. The author is far more lenient with recommendations on what to keep and what to discard, so this might appeal to some people more than others.

Available available free on Hoopla.

📚 Finished reading: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, ISBN: 9781607747314

Not for everyone. Quick read. I wanted to like this more than I did. There are some good nuggets in here, but there’s also staggering hubris (e.g. “None of my clients have ever relapsed”… bullshit). I also could have done without all the anthropomorphising (the things and the home don’t have feelings). The nuggets can be summed up easily:

  1. Decide what to keep.

  2. Decide where to keep it.

Audiobook available for free on Hoopla.

📚 Finished reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, ISBN: 9780486784755

Great book, not at all what I expected based on film and TV depictions. I got the audiobook free from Apple Books a while back.