Just Kids by Patti Smith

Just Kids by Patti Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

More of a love letter to her former boyfriend and famous photographer Robert Maplethorpe, rather than a traditional memoir. If you're interested in learning about Patti Smith's music career, this book doesn't really get there until nearly the end, and then only briefly discusses it. Otherwise really interesting and almost spell-binding narrative about being poor and artistic in the 1970s and 1980s New York City. Smith makes the city sound gritty, glamorous, and full of possibilities all at the same time.

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The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writing is great, especially for nonfiction. The people she writes about are fascinating, even when Orlean is writing about past people she hasn't met. She definitely manages to convey the excitement these people feel for orchids- all of the sudden I am super interested in orchids too and googling them. I really want a monkey orchid now, though I'm not good at keeping any plants alive so I probably shouldn't pursue that interest. Florida, in particular the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, is almost its own character in the book- wet, muddy, dangerous, and crowded with life.

I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I felt like Orleans led one way and then left us elsewhere. Relatedly, she suggests wanting to be personally transformed by her investigation of these people's passions but doesn't give us any indication that this has happened.

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Happiness Is a Choice You Make by John Leland

Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an interesting, thought-provoking book about old age and how to get the most quality of life. There is some science in it, but it's not a science-based book. Instead, it's based on a small number of long-term interviews. To a lesser extent, it's about facing the inevitability of death, but the focus here is on how to confront life now in order to be prepared for whatever form death takes. There are some valuable thoughts worth considering, and it has an overall inspiring tone I think a lot of people would enjoy.

For me, it doesn't go deep enough, it isn't scientific enough, and it doesn't make my top meaning-of-life books. (But it did just inspire me to go back and add that tag to a bunch of books.)

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The Analects by Confucius

The Analects by Confucius


This is a great translation. I only compared it to one other but it far exceeded the other translation. The language in the Analects is clear and then followed by short paragraphs to explain the missing context or the connotation of particular Chinese words. I enjoyed the number of passages focused on education and respect, though the ones about the historical politicians held less interest for me.

(I don't rate religious or semi-religious texts.)

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Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This isn't a 4-star book on its own, it's 4-stars as a good third book in a series that makes you like everything that came before it even better. Without the darker first two books, this one would seem unbearably silly. With them, this one is a bit of a relief. This one introduced a new character Cora who I didn't love. I was more interested in the characters we already knew, and Cora didn't interest me as much. I'm hoping there will be a fourth, darker book about one of the other characters we already know.

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The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam

The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book contained some interesting insights into Belichick's background and football strategy. The beginning suffered from a lack of chronology jumping back and forth between young Bill Belichick and his father Steve. It also felt like there wasn't enough about his most important time on the Patriots, in part because his early years on the Patriots were somewhat devoid of the bitter politics he encountered at his other jobs, and in part because this book came out in 2005, and since then Belichick has been coaching the Patriots an additional 12 years and won another 2 Super Bowls. I am a Patriot's fan via my Massachusetts-born husband, and I was disappointed that Belichick didn't pull out any defensive magic last night in Super Bowl LII.

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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I like this book because it totally immerses you in a strange world as an alien trying to understand- but not completely understanding everything. That strikes me as particularly realistic because it takes a really long time to understand a foreign culture, and probably you never fully get it.

I also like the way the main character develops a complicated friendship with a person of such a dissimilar culture, becoming deeply bonded while still not fully understanding each other.

Finally, the whole exploration of a gender-neutral society so far in advance of the gender nonconformity movement we are currently living through is really interesting, and particularly strange as seen through the eyes of a vaguely sexist but still open-minded main character.


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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mind blown. This is a lot like stepping into an intermediate or advanced class on intersectionality which is tough for me because I'm still trying to get a beginners' foundation in feminism, race equality, and intersectionality. Nonetheless, wow. I can't believe that I managed to get a law degree without ever even hearing about the prison abolition movement.

There's so much in here, so much to process, that I can't tackle all my thoughts on it yet. It makes me feel like I need to do a lot more reading to fully wrap my mind around the concepts Davis introduced.

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If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good book about the importance of good communication and how to improve at communicating with others. I’m familiar with some of the research that Alda referenced from other books. Alda seems to over-emphasize his own ideas and under-emphasize more researched strategies such as reading literary fiction (though he does mention it). He spends too much time making fun of “shakras” and not enough time explaining the research on the effectiveness of meditation and a simple explanation of say, breathe meditation. Still, it is definitely useful to read, and the more people that read it the better.

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Apology by Plato

Apology by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Interesting, moving, my favorite dialogue so far. Though we've all heard "the unexamined life is not worth living" I particularly enjoyed the full quote (depending on your translation this may vary obviously):

"And if I say again that the greatest good of man is to converse daily about virtue and all that which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it hard for me to persuade you."

This quote is a great precursor to Jesus:
“The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”


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