Category: Books
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52 Books: The 2nd Half of 2016
At the beginning of this year, 2016, I set a goal to read 52 books. Why I didn’t give myself 2 weeks off for vacation I don’t know. The number 52 sounded catchy. On December 10th, I’d made it to 43. If I add the books I read at, used for reference or just couldn’t…
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Grand Trail
Grand Trail by brothers Alexis and Frédéric is a worship-inspiring coffee table-worthy tome of 16 [famous] ultrarunner portraits (Killian Jornet, Anton Krupicka, Scott Jurek, Anna Frost to name a few) 13 [also noteworthy] trail races portraits (from the more widely known like Western States and Hardrock 100 to ones new to me like Ultra-Trail Mt.…
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Nowhere Near First
Thanks to Sarah Lavendar Smith’s 2016 Gift Guide for Trail Runners post, I bought Nowhere Near First: Ultramarathon Adventures From the Back of the Pack by Cory Reese. I laughed. I cried. I read the book when I couldn’t sleep at night. Reese is not a pro, not a Killian Jornet. He runs closer to…
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My Beer Year
My Beer Year by Lucy Birmingham shares stories from her year of learning about beer by experience in preparation for the Certified Cicerone (beer sommelier) test. She went to a hop harvest participated in a beer judging contest as a judge cleaned the lines at a pub brewed beer with new friends attended a beer…
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The Happiness Advantage
Author Shawn Achor used to suffer from depression. His book proves we can fashion happiness for ourselves. First we need to understand how it works and Achor supplies 7 principles: The Happiness Advantage: happiness is a work ethic and there are specific exercises you can do to boost your happiness: Meditate Find something to look…
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New Aging
According to a recent Pew Study, for the first time there are more Millenials than Baby Boomers. Generation X lags but not by as much as you’d think making up 27% of the total vs 30% for Boomers. Given that roughly 1/3 of the population is confronting aging (I can see Julia Child saying, “You…
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Bad Arguments
Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense, is the perfect guide to this political season. Example: Appeal to Fear: “Mr. Frog lost the election after Mr. Donkey convinced everyone that if Mr. Frog became the school Dean, soon enough, the entire university would be run by frogs. There’s…
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Come Home to Yourself
Have you ever had a “failure to communicate”? (a famous line by Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke). Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Communicating will help. It Starts with You It all starts with communicating with yourself and Hanh devotes a whole chapter to it. “Many of us spend a lot of…
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The Girl
The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz continues Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series which includes The Girl with an assortment: with the Dragon Tattoo, Who Played with Fire, Who Kicked the Hornet’s nest. Larsson had plans for more books but was killed and Lagercrantz is the person who was chosen to write them. This…
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If You Love Words
I had read author Max Barry’s Jennifer Government and knew he was good. So I picked up Lexicon: A Novel, a book about: Emily Ruff, a street urchin, good with words Wil Parke, on the run, for reasons he doesn’t remember A missing word that kills in a world where words are weapons Lexicon alternates…
