Books, Professional Development

Book 253: The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg refers to this work as “a framework for understanding how habits work and a guide to experimenting with how they might change” (loc. 4405) and, not surprising, that’s exactly what it is. The Power of Habit provides an overview of how people, businesses and social movements have harnessed the processes behind building habits. And there is no doubt that Duhigg is a good writer. I found myself tearing up on multiple occasions, more for the story itself rather than his writing, but his ability to select the examples and write about them in such a way to evoke emotions is undeniable.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’re well aware that I spent 2013 working hard to make progress towards getting healthier physically. What I didn’t take the time on last year was my mental health. I knew coming in to 2014, I wanted to read books about various topics that I think could help me in my future relationships and friendships, my self doubts and even my future career (apparently a lot of the self-help books are found in therapy, business and self-help; odd?). So be forewarned this blog might get more personal than it ever has in the past.

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Books

Book 216: The Velvet Rage – Alan Downs

As with most pop-psychology books, I’m a little torn: do the benefits of the book outweigh the drawbacks of the book? And, as with any book, I found both good and bad parts. I can say regardless, I am glad I finally read this book. It’s been on my to-be-read list for ages, but the push from my friend Dominic spurred me to move it up my list.

The largest challenge I faced while reading The Velvet Rage was having to constantly remind myself that Downs wrote this book for the “masses” and not for academia or research. And as often as I did this, I still wound up harshly judging Downs’ generic and stereotypical observations, which I do for anyone including my own. His generalizations were not wrong, stereotypes exist for a reason, but I did have to ask how Downs’ feels about this and whether he has since acknowledged this as he does not discuss it in the novel. There is an updated, 20th anniversary, version of this book which would be interesting to read.

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Book Group, Books

Book 210: Persepolis 2 – Marjane Satrapi

If possible, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return was better than Satrapi’s first graphic novel Persepolis: A Story of Childhood. Don’t get me wrong, they were both great and the first one’s wit and humor (from the perspective of a 10-year-old) was better placed and timed, but this novel just dealt with adult issues an early 20s individual faces and thus I identified more with it.

I sill say, however, that this book provided less history and explanation about the revolution and continuing Islamization of Iran than the first and focused more on the challenges Marjane and other young women faced as women under the new rule from the stricter veiling and gender segregation to the lack of freedom of mobility and education for women and mandatory military service for young men.

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Book Group, Books

Book 209: Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi

I flew through this book and will need to read it again to savor more of the story. When I say I flew, I mean I read it in just over an hour. I read every bit of it and even glorified in the illustration a few times, but I’m moving on to Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.

I’ve wanted to see the film adaptation for a long time, but I never got around to seeing it. I’ve seen previews for it on many of the other films I’ve watched but I never took the initiative to seek out the film. So when our books into movies book group started to discuss a graphic novel I put this one out there and we selected it! I’m very glad I did and I’m still super excited about seeing the film. I believe the film encompasses both volumes of the story, but I won’t know until I watch it. I’m reading both volumes as if you remember I picked them up for helping out at the local library book sale.

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2013 Challenges, Books

Book 206: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth – Alexandra Robbins

This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I still found it an interesting read. My friend Chet sent it to me last year as a gift and after having a bit of a downer week a few weeks ago (dating and men suck – I’m back to the thought that men, or at least the ones I’m interested in dating, are stupid and you should throw rocks at them) and figured I’d find out why I am the way I am. And conveniently this counts as a bonus book for my Mount TBR reading challenge.

I was hoping Robbins would take it her analyses further, but she lead right up to numerous ideas and then just left them. She did provide a great job trying to define ‘quirk culture’ and explaining the ‘cafeteria fringe,’ but I can’t help but feel as this book is a pop-journalist book there wasn’t as much done as I would expect in an academically researched book. But she did provide many references and anecdotes of additional resources.

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