Tag: Self-actualization

Books

Book 865: The Secret to Superhuman Strength – Alison Bechdel

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Secret to Superhuman Strength" with Amazon Affiliate linkI wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one, I just knew I would absolutely read it as I’ve read everything else by Bechdel.

I knew it was nonfiction and that it more than likely was going to chronicle her life. I mean, that’s her on the cover AND she’s a serial chronicler of her life and what she’s experienced. With Fun Home being about her dad and their relationship, and Are You My Mother? about her mom and their relationship, I honestly wasn’t sure where she’d go next.

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Books

Book 539: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (Guide #1) – Mackenzie Lee

Geoff W

After seeing this over and over being the darling of the book blogosphere and reading the rave reviews of it I figured I should check it out. I read a lot of LGBT literature, a lot of young adult literature, and quite a bit of adventure literature so I thought why not. And although I wasn’t completely disappointed, I was genuinely underwhelmed and for once it wasn’t the mood I was in. I’ll start with the not-so-great and finish with what I enjoyed.

I’m a finicky reader at best and have curated a pretty good system of choosing the books I read, including taking into account books that fellow bloggers who have similar tastes to me read, but this one just didn’t click for me quite like others have. I kept to my usual style of not reading anything about the author or the book after I decided I want to read it. [Generally I get excited about a book/author and purchase/reserve something by them and then I let it sit for a while so that I can clear my palate.]

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ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 503: Win at Losing – Sam Weinman

Geoff W

I’m still making headway on my pile of galleys/ARCs from the end of 2016 and early 2017.* Now this one is read I think I’m down to under five!

This is another one of those Tarcher Perigee books that I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to read, but the publisher reached out to me and it sounded interesting enough that I figured why not through it into the mix and thankfully, it covered a lot more than just sports (which I was really worried about at first).

The entire premise of this book is Weinman’s son throws a fit after a tennis match he “clearly” should’ve won, but didn’t and Weinman pondered the idea of losing and not just losing, but losing in such a way that it became iconic in certain aspects of our culture.

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ARC, Books

Book 497: Ordinary Goodness – Edward Viljoen

Geoff W

Now that I’m starting to settle into my new job (and have two weeks of vacation – when this posts I’ll be somewhere between Seattle and Alaska), I’m starting to catch up on galleys/ARCs that I received at the end of 2016.*

This is one of those books that goes in the pile of I would probably never pick up on my own, but since the publisher sent it and it was vaguely interesting to me I read it. I found the concept interesting and the idea of goodness outside of institutionalized religion is something I “believe in,” so I figured why not.

The book itself was easy to read and I enjoyed Viljoen’s writing style and the bits of himself he let seep into the book, but overall this was just a meh book for me. I’ve definitely read books that were much more focused than this one and maybe that’s what it was for me, what felt like a lack of focus.

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ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 485: Your One Word – Evan Carmichael

Geoff W

I received a copy of this from the publisher* late last year and am only just now getting around to reading a responding to it.There are a couple like that, and you’ve seen a few already. Even though I don’t generally read business books, but did read quite a few last year about managing up, I said yes to this because it sounded a bit less business and a bit more personality than the usual books.

What sucks is that I’m sure what I write later in my response is going to make it sound like I didn’t enjoy the book, but I really did. There were just a few things that weren’t to my #Taste, like that, and I should’ve noticed it from the cover of the book I mean there’s a big example of it on the front cover with #Believe. But honestly, what else could I expect from someone who has a huge social media presence for their first work.

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