Most of these books were quick and fun reads – 2 or 3 days max. However, August was a l o n g month for me and a couple of these dragged on with it. I felt I was still slogging through the same thing indefinitely. But… here I am on the other side of August and these books. 🙂 September is going to whiz by. I’d better start reading!
Pastrix: The Cranky Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber
“God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.”
This book is awesome. Nadia is standup comic-turned-Lutheran pastor. She weaves hilarious rants and stunning theological insight into her personal narrative of a flawed, beautiful, and unlikely life of faith. She honestly chronicles her journey from dropping out of college, confronting her own addictions, and living in her car to becoming an ordained Lutheran pastor of an extremely liberal and different flock. I loved the stories behind her sermons. A quick and enjoyable read about finding purpose.
“It was important to me that the House for All Sinners and Saints be a place where no one had to check at the door their personalities or the parts of our stories that seemed ‘unchristian.’ I wanted a place where something other than how we responded to rules was at the center of our life together. Yet, in the end, despite how much I love HFASS, I am still not an idealist, not when it comes to our human projects. Every human community will disappoint us, regardless of how well-intentioned or inclusive. But I am totally idealistic about God’s redeeming work in my life and in the world.”
The Chelsea Girls: A Novel by Fiona Davis
I have loved Fiona Davis’ books and this one was a wonderful story as well. However, I this one disappointed me; it lacked in character development, did not have a dual timeline like her others, and seemed almost to be written by a different person! Still, her story through the lens of a first time playwright about friendship and betrayal in 1950s New York during the time that McCarthyism was affecting entertainment industry was compelling.
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
Adam Grant has been recognized as Wharton’s top rated teacher for five straight years, one of the world’s twenty-five most influential management thinkers, and one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business. This book is named one of Sir Richard Branson’s 65 Books to Read in a Lifetime.
Can one individual make a difference? Adam Grant would shout YES! Grant is a social scientist who challenges conventional wisdom.
I can’t say enough good things about this book. Grant guides the reader through complicated ideas with stories and great examples. He says that “originals are actually far more ordinary than we realize; they simply question the status quo.” The book is about how (and when) successful originals champion their ideas, overcome fears, communicate effectively, overcome dissenters and grow support, and sustain originality. Grant uses recent studies to examine creative, moral, and organizational change at every level. I especially appreciated his “Actions for Impact” suggestions at the end of the book.
“When we become curious about the dissatisfying defaults in our world, we begin to recognize that most of them have social origins: Rules and systems were created by people. And that awareness gives us the courage to contemplate how we can change them.“
I want to include this paragraph because I’d never heard of ‘vuja de’ before and find it compelling:
“The starting point is curiosity: pondering why the default exists in the first place. We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of dĂ©jĂ vu. DĂ©jĂ vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.“
“In the quest for happiness, many of us choose to enjoy the world as it is. Originals embrace the uphill battle, striving to make the world what it could be. By struggling to improve life and liberty, they may temporarily give up some pleasure, putting their own happiness on the back burner. In the long run, though, they have the chance to create a better world. And that—to borrow a turn of phrase from psychologist Brian Little—brings a different kind of satisfaction. Becoming original is not the easiest path in the pursuit of happiness, but it leaves us perfectly poised for the happiness of pursuit.“
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving
I am that person who never understood why we learned about the Native Americans (and their maize, teepees, and feathered dress) “helping us” settle in America in elementary school when it came time for Thanksgiving. I don’t think I was ever told in school about how the white settlers brought diseases that wiped out much of the Native American populations, coerced them into signing over land and rights, tore families apart in order to “civilize” them, or exploited their resources. This same “narrative” continues as our country invades others all over the world in an effort to dominate. It makes me irate to be associated with this absurd behavior.
This book explains how whites unconsciously perpetuate patterns of racism in America. Irving bravely shares how she went from a distorted frame of reference and slowly became aware of the impacts of white privilege and systemic racism. What struck me most at the beginning was the phenomenon of white people, who care deeply about doing their right thing and loving their neighbors, keeping silent because they perceive that it’s not their place to interfere or so as not to appear stupid.
My main criticism: I was amazed that she began her path so far removed from any kind of racism awareness, even how it impacted the lives of her friends. While reading many of her anecdotes, I found myself frustrated that somebody could have that much to learn. Many times I felt embarrassed for her! She must have thought that readers would identify with her slow evolution from blind to culturally aware.
“If there’d been a handout on conversation principles, it might have said: Don’t discuss religion, politics, money, negative emotions, fears, resentments, vulnerabilities, or bodily functions. Do discuss weather, hopes and dreams (as long as they’re none of the above), travels, who you know, who’s doing what where, commuting routes and times, consumer products you’ve tried and do or do not like, where you go/went to school, sports, and music. Remember, it might have said: problems are private.”
Irving goes into the discrimination against others involving the history of the GI Bill, America’s lending and housing institutions, quotas in universities, and other ways racism has become systemic. Discrimination results from privilege and her main point is that, until we realize our role in the pattern, we will not be able to change.
“Not only is race visible and permanent; it’s come to act as a social proxy for one’s value in American society. White has long stood for normal and better, while black and brown have been considered different and inferior. Social value isn’t just a matter of feeling as if one belongs or doesn’t; it affects one’s access to housing, education, and jobs, the building blocks necessary to access the great American promise—class mobility.”
“Four hundred years since its inception, American racism is all twisted up in our cultural fabric. But there’s a loophole: people are not born racist. Racism is taught, and racism is learned. Understanding how and why our beliefs developed along racial lines holds the promise of healing, liberation, and the unleashing of America’s vast human potential.”
“Be it Europeans’ initial assumption of the right to invade in the 1600s, the Indian Removal Act in the 1800s, or the English-only acts in the 1900s, the white settlers established and the white government of the United States has enforced a model of dominance and assimilation that elevates those who can fit the prescribed mold while excluding and destabilizing those who can’t.”
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
“As a female scientist I am still unusual, but in my heart I was never anything else.”
This is a beautiful memoir of a life in science in which Jahren naturally shares her friendships, her love of her work, and what her life as a botanist is like. I ate it up! There are so many cool facts about plant life tucked into compelling stories of hilariously disastrous road trips to conferences and research studies. Highly recommend for being scientific but accessible to anyone.
“Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. ”
“Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.”
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
A charming book about an introverted bookstore clerk and trivia player who comes out of her shell… right up my ally!
“Nina worried she liked being alone too much; it was the only time she ever fully relaxed. People were . . . exhausting. They made her anxious. Leaving her apartment every morning was the turning over of a giant hourglass, the mental energy she’d stored up overnight eroding grain by grain. She refueled during the day by grabbing moments of solitude and sometimes felt her life was a long-distance swim between islands of silence. She enjoyed people—she really did—she just needed to take them in homeopathic doses; a little of the poison was the cure.”
How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results by Esther Wojcicki
“We’ll do anything to prevent our children from struggling or suffering, which means that they never have to deal with hardships or adversity. As a result, they lack independence and grit, and they’re fearful of the world around them instead of empowered to innovate and create.”
Wojcicki, “Woj” to her many friends and admirers, is famous for three things: teaching a high school class that has changed the lives of thousands of kids, inspiring Silicon Valley legends like Steve Jobs, and raising three daughters who have each become famously successful. Here she shares her tried-and-tested methods for giving our kids the values and skills to succeed as adults. Her focus is raising happy, healthy, successful children using Trust, Respect, Independence, Curiosity, and Kindness: TRICK.
“What a job, to raise someone from birth to adulthood, bestowing upon them your knowledge and your values and, despite your best intentions, any number of traits you’ve inherited yourself. What a loaded task, to make every move, every day, in such a way that the impressionable larva-person in your home will see your example, process it into something within herself, and grow layers of muscle and soul over it until she is a fully developed human being. And all the while, the little person you’re nurturing is fighting you — spitting out the broccoli, not wearing the helmet rolling her eyes at your carefully chosen words of advice — and you become constantly worn down even as you pour your energies into loving her.”
I especially appreciated the chapters on grit and independence. Woj lets the kids lead in many ways, respects who they are, and encourages them to take risks and be independent at a young age. Her personal stories and examples really hit home and add so much to her key points and I enjoyed getting to know her.
