When I read a book, I’m often immediately drawn to that group of pages in the middle that have darker or lighter edges. They are usually made out of thicker, glossy material and bear photos, illustrations, or some important aside.
They are also sometimes the only part of the book worth looking at.
It’s a new year but I still have a lot of reading left to do from last year. I’m making it a point to finish the ones worth finishing and not just leave them until other books steal my interest.
That’s going to be hard because I already have five books requested from our library and several more that I intend to request this week. Then there are the ones I’ve returned without reading and need to get again.
But I’m going to give it a good try. I’ve already finished a couple of the ones pictured below (but not the C# book. I’m not sure why that even came home with me) but the rest are waiting. I guess I should stop typing now and go read a book.
As with most self-help texts (that’s another term for a book, not a short message you type out on your phone and send to your friends without fixing the mistakes autocorrect caused) out there, the meat of Benjamin Hardy’s book Willpower Doesn’t Work could probably be condensed to about 20 pages without impacting the message one bit. In fact, I think 20 pages is being generous.
The thrust of the book is that rather than trying to will yourself to do what needs to be done, you must customize and control your environment so you’re predisposed to accomplish your goals.
There’s nothing new in the book that anyone who’s researched productivity in the least doesn’t know. Get off your computer, turn off your phone and give yourself a deadline are some of the tired but useful pieces of advice found in the book’s pages.
There are also the obligatory nods to the evolution theory that are found in most how-to, self-help, cooking, travel and car repair books. Usually something along the line of your ancient ancestors needed to process “danger” when a sabertooth attacked so that’s why your brain’s the way it is and this book taps into that. Nonsense, of course, but it seems to sell.
So why am I reading a book that I don’t seem to think much of? Maybe I’m a sucker for book titles. I like the fairy tale idea that a book has some nugget of knowledge that all the other books (and internet sites) don’t. I know willpower doesn’t work because I’ve experienced it’s failure time and again. So maybe this book has a just as simplistic method that does work but with minimal effort on my part.
It doesn’t. But any book that attempts to nullify one paradigm of productivity probably has a recommedation for another one. And in reading about that different paradigm, you might find a point of view you hadn’t thought of (or had at least forgotten about) before.
Sometimes you just need a gentle reminder to turn off your computer because you’ve fallen back into the habit of staring at it for twelve hours a day. And it’s not bad advice to turn off your phone and set deadlines.
Most books (including this one) carry a bit of advice and then fill in the remaining pages with stories and anecdotes. If you want inspiration, read through them. Otherwise, scanning the headlines and speed reading through it gets you just as much out of it.
Here we go again with five of the books I’ve been digging into over the last week. The subjects this time around are an interesting mix of projects, publishing, drawing, writing and poetry. Some weeks I find a ton of books all on the same subject I’m currently interested in. Other times it’s a random mix. Either way, I typically learn something useful and get entertained at the same time.
Once again I’m bringing you the fivebooks I’ve read or have been reading over the last week.
Every week I hit the library, yard sales, bookstores, kindle and my own collection in search of something interesting to read. I thought I could start sharing what I’m reading each week and let you know what I liked and didn’t like. So here’s the first installment.
Gooley is one of the world’s foremost experts on natural navigation. For those of you not familiar with the term, natural navigation is land navigation using ones knowledge of nature and nature’s patterns. This book will tell you things like what plants and can tell you about the direction you’re facing or how the presence of certain birds can indicate the time of day.
You’ll learn a lot about observation and how to use your surroundings to live a more engaged and fulfilling life.
2. Look Big: and other tips for surviving animal encounters of all kinds by Rachel Levin
Look Big is a fun, quick read. It’s not just about surviving life and death encounters with animals. Levin is also full of advice on what to do when you come across raccoons and turkeys. I’ve come across wild turkeys, skunks and deer right in my front and back yard. It would have been nice to have read this book before then. But better late than never as they say.
3. Sitting Kills, Moving Heals by Joan Vernikos
I’ve written on this blog about the benefits of standing desks and the dangers of sitting too much. There’s really not a whole lot that needs to be added and I can’t believe there are so many books on the subject. Most of them can be boiled down “get up and move around more”. I mean, write a tweet or something but an entire book?
I’m also reading Get Up! : why your chair is killing you and what you can do about it by James A. Levine. I think the message is obvious from the title. Your chair is killing you! For goodness sake, get out of it; that’s what you can do about it! I might make a special trip to the library to return these two books early.
4. Mind Gym: achieve more by thinking differently by Sebastian Bailey
Your mind is like a muscle and you have to keep exercising it, blah, blah blah. I think the author needs to achieve a better book by thinking differently than all the other books saying the same thing. To be fair, I stopped reading this one early on so it might have been spectacular toward the end. However, you can buy it on Kindle for only $1.99 so it’s probably not spectacular toward the end.
5. Wits Guts Grit: all-natural biohacks for raising smart, resilient kids by Jena Pincott
I decided to give Jenna’s book a chance because it had the work hack in it. The premise is that the gut biome and the foods we put in it can affect our mood, memory and fortitude.
Most people understand that when you swallow medicine or a vitamin, it absorbs into your blood stream and affects your body and mind in extremely powerful ways. But then they shove their face full of sugar, colorings and artificial this-and-that without a clue these things act on us in the exact same way. This book looks at the foods we eat with a true understanding about how powerful they are.
This one was interesting, the writing was good and I liked the subject. But I never made it through the whole thing. Maybe someday I’ll come back to it. It’s $11.99 on Kindle but free as an audio book so the jury’s still out on this books true worth.
There you go. Five books I’ve been reading (or just paging through and then putting down with good intentions) recently. What books are you into? Let me know in the comments.
There are just too many interesting sites on the internet. Nobody can keep up with it all. The sad fact is that so much great content will go unseen by most people. But at least there’s so much of a surplus of content that we’ll never run out of interesting sites to peruse.
I found one such site the other day through a book at the library. I like books spawned from blogs because they show the best of what the web site has to offer. It’s a quick introduction to see if you want to take the time to dive in further. Anyway, the site (and book) I discovered is called Things Organized Neatly. The site is a photo blog on Tumbler that shows images of – things organized neatly.
There are toys, instruments, ingredients and vehicles, silverware, fruit and a lot more. All of it is meticulously arranged and photographed to make some really amazing art. The book itsef is great with short descriptions of the artist and several pages of their projects. The blog itself if fun to peruse but it’s difficult to search for particular subjects. I would encourage you to go find a copy of the book or take a look at the site. It’s worth a sliver of your internet life.
One of my favorite things to tell people is that I’ve started and stopped reading more books than I’ve ever finished. I’m not even sure that makes sense but it reminds me of an important decision I made several years ago regarding reading and learning. The short version of the lesson is that I don’t have to force myself to finish a book (or anything I’ve started) if it turns out to be a waste of time.
Maybe that seems obvious to you but for most of my life I’ve felt that if I don’t finish what I start, no matter how painful or pointless, then I’ve failed. All the while the truth has been that if I push through something pointless, that is the failure.
I just finished a book titled The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus by Dr. Hannah Fry and Dr. Thomas Oleron Evans. In it, the authors conclude (on pages 11 and 152) that two simple logic statements are all that is needed to prove Santa Claus exists. Fortunately for those who buy the book, they then filled the intermediary 139 pages with interesting calculations, projects and mathematical formulas about things related (sometimes marginally) to Christmas.
You might be wondering why I read a book about the existence of Santa Claus in March. Well, for one thing, it was there. I like to read interesting books when I find them. I found it in passing at the library and figured I could probably keep it for a long time without anyone else putting a hold on it. Also, if they’re wrong about the premise of the book, I want to make sure there’s still time to buy presents.
This is one of those books that you could read every word of but you’d probably drive yourself insane. It was funny and witty and possibly even useful (how to wrap presents in a mathematically efficient manner) but a little too deep in parts. Or maybe I’m just not “into it” because it’s March.
