April feels like a light month of reading for me, but in reality I did most of my reading with my ears instead of my eyes. And boy, was there a lot of listening.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christoper McDougall: I listened to this book, which is one part stories of the Tarahumara (a tribe of distance runners), one part analyzing why we get running injuries and how to prevent them. As a runner nowhere near being able to run ultras (yet?), the stories of some of the toughest ultramarathons in the toughest locations in the world drew me in and occasionally made me want to start training for some of these ultras. The characters are memorable, and the stories are educational and entertaining. I just wish there were more about the science and culture of running through history. (4 out of 5 ultramarathons)
The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom by Carrie Wilkerson: I listened to this book, narrated by the author. Truth be told, this book just annoyed me. I got tired of hearing all about Wilkerson’s personal life without its applications to starting her own business. Look, I’m sure losing a hundred pounds and raising a special needs kid has its challenges, but without telling me what this has to do with starting a business, I can’t bring myself to care. There’s a little bit of practical advice in here, but most of it is buried under the same material over and over again, which is only made more annoying by the chipper sound of her voice talking about profits. (2 out of 5 profit margins)
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet: This book took over a week to read, and I’m not sure why; it’s not a thousand-page tome, and I enjoyed reading it. Maybe I was savoring the prose, the character studies, relating to being the first in the family to go to college, remembering what life was back in 1999 and 2000, even though I was in middle school, not college. It’s a powerful book, one that you might like if you like character studies as opposed to plot driving the story. (4 out of 5 new environments)
Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time by Bill McGowan: I listened to this book. I’m a wee bit awkward when it comes to conversation, so this book turned out to be really useful in picking out speech traits that I need to improve. Whether you’re giving a speech, an interview, or just trying to get away from that one person who won’t stop talking about their fungus, there’s something in this book to help out. Even better, most parts of the book can help you in other areas of communication, so don’t neglect a section just because it doesn’t sound relevant to you now. If you’re seriously looking to improve your speech and communication skills, I recommend buying a physical copy of the book so you can mark it up and refer back to specific parts as needed. I may do this myself. (4 out of 5 speech tips)
Northbounders: 2,186 Miles of Friendship by Karen Lord Rutter: My friend’s mom wrote this children’s book, a tale of hiking the Appalachian Trail from the dog’s perspective. Copper’s point of view is perfect for the voice of a children’s book, and seeing the hike through the dog’s eyes lends a friendly voice to the story that fits Copper’s personality while making the reader wonder where Copper’s adventure will take him next. Since I’ve read my friend’s entire blog while he was hiking the trail, I was already familiar with a lot of the stories (and was there for the end). True to the style of a children’s book, there’s a summary at the end of each chapter (state) of what happened and main takeaways. Example: don’t mess with skunks. Sadly I wasn’t the first to rate and review on Goodreads. Alas. (5 out of 5 mountains)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare: This is one of those books I somehow made it through childhood without reading. This book tells the story of an orphan girl who moves from Barbados to a stern Puritan community in Connecticut. She hates everything and only feels like herself in the meadow when she visits an older Quaker woman. Unfortunately her relatives don’t take well to this as that woman is seen as a witch to everyone else. I wish I had read this book as a kid, but I enjoyed it as an adult. This is a great example of a book that shows a children’s book can be just as well-written as adult lit. (4 out of 5 witches)
The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor by Mark Schatzker: I listened to this book, which tells a history of food and flavor and how the flavors of food have changed over the last 60 to 70 years. This has led to spices and other artificial flavors being added to foods, often adding more calories and making us crave more of that flavor. While his thesis is well-argued, his solution is not practical for many people. He suggests seeking out fresher, less processed foods. This problem isn’t unique to his book; most of the food books I’ve read have suggested this. Still, this is a good read with research I hadn’t heard before. And now I want to ask my dad about how food tasted when he was a kid compared to now. (4 out of 5 Doritos)
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon: Even though this book suffers from several things I hate in books–instantly falling in love, little coincidences everywhere–I still enjoyed this book. Why? The characters. I enjoyed getting to know Natasha and Daniel and exploring the little things that made them well… them. Their hopes, their dreams, their natures and how they take in the world. Since one of the novels I’m working on for Camp NaNoWriMo is more of a character story than a plot-driven tale, this book was a good one to read in order to study how characters can be fully explored. (4 out of 5 insta-loves)
Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime — from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door by Brian Krebs: I listened to this book. While hearing about the spamlords and connecting some of the events to things I’ve heard about in the news was interesting, the book also had its dull parts. There was also a lot of information about Krebs’s personal life that I found kind of boring: his time on the Washington Post and all the not-so-juicy communication with the spamlords, among others. I can tell the author is a blogger; some of the content would have worked well as a blog post, but as a chapter in a book, not so much. If you’re interested in cybercrime history, you might like the informative parts of this book. (3 out of 5 spam messages)
The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain’s Journey by Linda Greenlaw: I tried so hard to get into this book but just couldn’t. The prose itself wasn’t bad, but I didn’t feel a connection to the author or the cast of characters, not to mention I cannot stand fishing. It takes a lot for me to abandon a book and it usually happens about once a year, but here we go. The 2017 abandoned book. (no rating)
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier: I listened to this book, and it is lovely. I already knew a little bit about big data and tracking before reading this book, but this book still added to my knowledge. More impressively, this book got technical without getting so technical that only security experts could get something out of this book. It’s well-written and engaging, and if you have even an inkling of interest in data and surveillance, you should read this. (5 out of 5 bits of data)
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller: I listened to this book, and ugh. I was ready to dismiss this book as some legitimate findings mixed in with some BS, but then it got worse. The authors claim that there are three attachment types in adult relationships: anxious, avoidant, and secure. Sounds okay so far, but the authors use the most exaggerated cases to show these types in action. The anxious types are exactly what you’d think of from a stereotypical clingy partner, the secure types don’t have any kind of worries at all in a relationship, and heaven help you if you’re an avoidant type because the way they’re characterized in this book reeks of emotionally abusive partner. There are a few good parts, such as the quizzes to help you figure out what type of partner you are, but otherwise, skip this book. Read something less exaggerated instead. (2 out of 5 potential partners)
You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers: I listened to this book, which is a memoir of living with faceblindness and growing up in a really messed-up family. When the book began and Heather mentioned a family secret, I was expecting something much more lewd than what had actually happened, like maybe Heather’s husband was once married to her mother and she didn’t recognize him because of her faceblindness. (I’ve read too much fiction, I know.) But no, the actual secret was quite dull in comparison. The story didn’t flow too well, either, and there was a lot of jumping that was hard to follow while listening to the book. I learned a lot about faceblindness, but I wish the story were more about faceblindness or growing up in a messed-up family because the two combined didn’t mesh together all that well. (2 out of 5 unrecognizable faces)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: This is the YA novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and… damn. I read this book in one sitting, stopping briefly about halfway through to heat up some soup for dinner and keep reading. This book is wonderful, the author is wonderful (seriously, I met her at an event here in Atlanta a month or so ago), and everything in this novel is just spot-on–the characters, the prose, the realness of the book, the significance of the events, everything. There were some parts that made me stop and think “Would that really happen?” but then realized that this was my privilege talking and yes, these things really do happen. Stop reading this review and go read the book for yourself. (5 out of 5 protests)
The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman: I listened to this book, which is a tl;dr of a traditional MBA program. The author first makes the case that you don’t need an MBA to succeed in business. He has a point, although some people go into these programs for other reasons. What Kaufman does instead is give an overview of most of the business and psychology concepts you’d hear about in an MBA program. Since this book is a summary, there is much more breadth than depth, and Kaufman acknowledges this. But there’s enough material here to give you a taste of what you’re interested in, as well as resources to continue your studies in the area of your choice. (4 out of 5 business plans)
A Passage to Shambhala by Jon Baird and Kevin Costner: I read this book for my library’s monthly book club, and unfortunately this book was a bit of a dud. The book takes place during World War I and is told in alternating prose and graphic format. While the art was great, the alternating storytelling method made the story itself hard to follow. The characters were also hard to distinguish in the art since the images weren’t in full color, but this could be a personal quirk of mine instead of an actual complaint. Despite my worries that I’d be the only one at book club who disliked this book, everyone disliked it. Whew. (2 out of 5 WTF moments)
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George: I wanted to like this book because hello, bookseller! Bookstore on a boat! In Paris! Main character going to find themselves! If there were math in this book, I’d say it were written for me. Jean Perdu is a bookseller who believes some books are remedies for what ail us, but he can’t seem to find a cure for his own ailments of the heart. After finally reading a letter from his lover who left him years ago, he heads south in order to make peace with his past. Good premise with interesting secondary characters, but the execution was disappointing and felt cobbled together and predictable. Some of this may have to do with the fact that the book was translated from German. If you like sweet predictable books, then you might like this. (3 out of 5 book barges)
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu: As I’m writing this review, I’m switching between this site, Twitter, IRC, email, Godville, and tracking a package out for delivery. This book delivers a compelling history of all the attention merchants trying to grab our attention, from commercial breaks to reality TV to Internet ads, and how we’ve been fighting back: adblockers, not paying attention, and the like. If you’ve ever wondered about how we’ve come to accept all these distractions in our lives, read this book. It’s a fascinating read. (4 out of 5 distractions)
What’s up next? I’m currently listening to Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Strangely enough, I’m not reading a physical copy of anything and haven’t in several days due to being busy with other things. Time to change this.