Category: Book Recommendations

Hello, fellow readers! My book choices this month have left me thoughtful and reflective. It will be a deep dive, as we consider the nature of evil, profound hurt, and whether it’s possible to heal. For instance, what makes someone evil? And if we have suffered under its harms, particularly for long periods of time, is it even possible to be happy and whole? Most importantly, can we avoid passing on our hurt to others as we seek to heal ourselves?

Let’s dive in! The first book I read this month is called Eichmann In Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. Eichmann was a prominent Nazi in Germany during WWII. In particular, it was his job to handle “the Jewish problem”, by removing Jews of their German citizenship (and hence, their rights), forcing them to emigrate, and eventually, managing the trains by which Jews were removed from their homes and taken to concentration camps to be exterminated. This book is the story of his trial after he was abducted by Mossad agents and brought to Jerusalem.

Early on in the trial, it was established that the idea of the killing the Jews – The Final Solution – was not his. He was merely following orders. The trial, and the book, explores Eichmann’s culpability. Is it possible he didn’t understand what he was doing? That he was killing people? Well, it turns out he knew, but didn’t realize it was wrong. How could he not know this was wrong? Well, people far more educated and important than him had assured him that this was the “moral” thing to do. ‘Scientific’ thinking in Germany at the time had declared Jews (and gypsies, and Slovaks, and the disabled and the mentally weak) were genetically inferior. Therefore, for the sake of the human species, and the German Volk in particular, they were better off gone.

But then, he also went along with Hitler’s orders because he didn’t want to face the consequences of disobeying. And it certainly didn’t hurt that his obedience greatly furthered his career – 3 promotions in only 18 months! Eichmann was granted upward mobility and greater social respect by following Hitler’s orders without question. As an uneducated, blue collar worker, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams when he became a part of the Nazi machinery. Who among us could resist that heady mix of power, esteem and respect? Who among us does not wish to belong? In a society where people like Hitler are revered, thoughtlessness and casual cruelty are an asset. So, was Eichmann at fault? Or was it the entire country who validated Hitler’s ideas by electing him in the first place?

Hannah Arendt, the author of this book, is the person who coined the term “the banality of evil”, for in Eichmann, we see a man eerily like ourselves. He wanted to be promoted, so he did his job well. He had no particular antipathy towards the Jews (in fact, some of his good friends were Jews); it was just a job that needed to be done and he happened to be the cog in the wheel that smoothed that path. During the trial, it became clear that he could never have lead, conceived, nor implemented such a complex solution on his own. So how evil was he exactly? And how should he be punished? (Spoiler alert: he was hanged).

We come to the ineluctable conclusion that ‘evil’ can be perpetrated very simply. For, it is nothing more than a lack of thought or consideration. A lack of empathy. How often have any of us hurt someone without thought? I know I have. In the moment, usually under stress, I just didn’t consider how someone else was being impacted because I was more concerned with myself. I didn’t learn of their pain until much later. By then, much harm had been done. Was that evil?

Yes, I know, Eichmann’s life presents us with a much more extreme situation. People weren’t just hurt. They suffered and died. Horribly. I’d like to think that if I had found myself in his exact position, I would have made a different choice. But Stanley Milgram’s electric shock experiments from the 1960’s definitely cloud things. The results of these experiments showed that the vast majority of us are disturbingly obedient to authority, even when we know someone is being hurt. (Look them up if you haven’t read about them yet. They’re fascinating – along with Zimbardo’s famous Stanford prison experiments). Arendt’s book leaves you with the thought that empathy is everything. Without it, we’re just animals. The most cruel and heinous actions can be perpetrated, and justified, whenever we fail to show it.

In last week’s blog, I already mentioned my second book this month. It’s called What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, and it’s the story of her journey from a scarred, traumatized child, to a healing, more self-aware adult. Her mother abused her as a child, and her father neglected and then later abandoned her. As many Asians do, she succeeded spectacularly despite this harrowing past, but not without hurting many people along the way.

This book is the story of how she tried to heal herself, and resolve generations of family trauma, through conventional talk therapy, EDMR, restorative yoga, meditation, IFS, and the help and support of friends. She tried everything. ‘Hurt people hurt people’ was her mantra. She just wanted to stop all the hurting. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, particularly for those who are also struggling to recover from difficult pasts. Her perseverance and determination to improve herself, despite the odds, is incredibly inspiring.

Finally, I rounded out the month with another tremendously helpful book, Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson. Hanson is a psychologist, and I’ve read a couple of his books, and also attended some of his free Wednesday night talks. He never fails to show kindness and compassion through both his words and his writing. The concept of Hardwiring Happiness is pretty simple: as Hanson says, “our brains are velcro for difficult experiences, and Teflon for good ones”, meaning that we tend to hold on to our negative experiences much more tightly than the positive ones, which causes us no end of emotional problems.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. We need to know where the dangers are if we want to survive. No doubt, this tendency to place more emphasis on negative experiences than positive ones helped humans to band together, avoid death, and thrive. But in our modern lives, holding on to these negative experiences long after their usefulness has only made us more anxious and depressed.

Hanson reminds us that our brains have plasticity – meaning they can grow and change under the right influences. We aren’t static. We have choice, and we can use that choice to ‘hardwire’ our happiness by remembering our positive experiences, savouring them, and then blending them in with all of our negative experiences to create a more complete picture of our lives. We tend to forget that, mixed in with our faults and failings, each of us also has many good traits, good times, and happy memories. Times when we felt safe, and loved, and connected. We just need to remember them, and emphasize them instead of only remembering the negative ones.

I did all the exercises at the back of the book, and found them really helpful. The concept of Hardwiring Happiness is pretty simple, and the book can get repetitive – the whole idea can be summarized in a paragraph! But the implications of the practice are profound. I really believe that these exercises can help a lot of people who struggle with depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, hopelessness, and feelings of loneliness. You just have to be consistent with it.

So, there you have it! The books I read this month. I hope you didn’t mind the deep dive today. I really enjoy complexity, and books that give me food for thought. Until next month, keep reading. 🙂

Hello everyone! I hope you have all been enjoying the emergence of spring. In Toronto, where I am, the weather has been just lovely. So lovely that I have been enjoying reading out of doors on my front porch, where I have planted some pretty geraniums and impatiens in pots.

I finished reading just three books this month, but two of them really blew me away and generated a lot of inspiration. I hope you find them helpful too.

The first book this month is The Great Work of your Life by Stephen Cope. I’ve read a couple of books by Stephen Cope in the past. In particular, I really enjoyed Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. But this book was a whole other level of awesome. It is based on the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu spiritual book that is required reading for many yoga teacher trainings.

Before you distance yourself from this book thinking it sounds too foreign or weird, just listen for a minute. The book is focused on finding your dharma, calling it your most holy purpose in life. In essence, your dharma is your calling. It’s that thing you were born to do. That thing you find most enjoyable in life, that lifts your spirit and is your gift to the world. There’s nothing outrageous about that.

The book is filled with inspirational examples of people who followed their dharma, like the poets Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, and the naturalist Henry David Thoreau. He follows Susan B. Anthony in her quest for equal political representation for women, and psychologist Marion Woodman through her battle with cancer. Harriet Tubman and Mahatma Gandhi exemplify selflessness, and the courage required to buck popular thinking and go your own way. In between the famous examples, Cope also inserts people from his own life who struggled for a time and then managed to distill greater meaning and purpose from their own lives.

It may not sound like it, but it’s actually a page-turner, and an invigorating one at that. It is guaranteed to get you thinking about the meaning and purpose of your own life and how and where to find your dharma.

The second book I read this month is The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. I actually didn’t like this book very much. This surprised me, because it’s a historical novel, which I normally love. It’s set during that often ignored, turbulent period just after the end of the US Civil War. President Lincoln has just been assassinated, the streets are awash in wounded soldiers, and now a string of grisly murders are being perpetrated in the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The murders just happen to mimic the deaths described in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is confusing, because the book had not yet been translated into the English language, so only an intellectual would know about it. The list of suspects is small.

After finishing this book, I looked back at the plot and the characters, trying to figure out why I found it so unsatisfying. I had no problems with the writing. The characters were distinctive and memorably drawn. If I had to make a criticism, I think maybe Pearl spent more time describing the mood of the time than he did advancing the plot, which caused the book to drag a little. But that’s just me. If you also enjoy historical fiction, you can give the book a whirl and let me know what you think. It’s possible it just caught me in an off mood. The book is a national best-seller, so it definitely has its fans.

The third book I read this month was Widen the Window: Training your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma by Elizabeth Stanley. I found this book absolutely fascinating! If you are an adult and have been alive on this earth for the past few decades, you need to read it. It’s all about trauma, stress tolerance and resilience.

In the first part of the book, Stanley describes the physical signs of unhealed stress and trauma. You will recognize plenty of them. The more periods of stress you have undergone in your life, without managing to heal, the narrower your window of tolerance for further stress. And who hasn’t been under a lot of stress over the last few years? Common signs of unhealed stress include greater emotional reactivity, poor decision-making, and the sudden surfacing of inexplicable health problems, to name just a few.

Stanley rose to the level of captain in the US Army before having something of a nervous breakdown. As she tried to recover, she did a lot of research on stress and trauma. She discovered scientifically proven methods for widening your window of tolerance and eventually created a program that the US Army now uses to prepare its soldiers for the stress and rigour of war. The exercises she outlines in the book can be used for everybody, not just soldiers. Anyone who is trying to heal from the cumulative stress and trauma of living in the 21st century on planet Earth would benefit from this book.

I hope you enjoyed reading my impressions of these books. Maybe you were even inspired to check one of them out! Until next month, enjoy the sun, and happy reading. 🙂

Hello fellow Waayyy Behinders! In this book club, we take our time and choose books that call to us. These books may not necessarily be current, or make a big splash in the wider culture but they do bring meaning to our own lives. What have you been reading this month?

The first book I read this month is called Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. I don’t recall where I heard about this book, but it was popular enough that Netflix is creating an adaptation that will be released this December, starring no less than Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke. (So much for my vow not to review current titles!)

Initially, I was not too intrigued by this book. It’s dystopian, and describes our world suddenly falling into chaos. After the events of the last few years, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to dive into something so dark. However, as I kept reading, I got pulled in. I started to feel its profundity.

It’s about a family that goes on vacation, and while they’re away from home, something big happens. I mean big. The world changes. The power goes out. Cell phones no longer work. There’s no TV or radio. Large herds of deer run by for no apparent reason. Strange booming sounds can be heard outside. Is it a war? No one knows. The lack of information is what makes it so unsettling. The modern world bombards us with news at every available moment, so the sudden silence is frightening.

Essentially, it’s a book about how people handle uncertainty. Who can you rely on? How do you know? And then, there’s also the sadness of knowing that the world you once knew and relied on no longer exists. The thoughtfulness of this book really resonated with me.

The next book I read this month is called Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis. It seems I have reached that particular age in life where I am at a crossroads. I can see where I’ve been up until now. I’ve learned some things, and am now clear on where I don’t want to go. Yet I am also unclear of how I want to move forward. There are not too many productive years left to me. How do I want to spend them?

Of the books I have been reading recently about mid-life crises, I would say this one is middle of the pack. There is a lot of rich wisdom here, and I needed some time to reflect on each chapter. He talks about the ghosts of our childhood, about daring to be ourselves, about the value of suffering. There are not many myths or stories about how to navigate life, and he bemoans this fact. While I found this book kind and reassuring, I think my favourite so far, and the one I found most helpful, is Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr. If you are interested, I talked about that book in more detail in January.

First Impressions by Charlie Lovett, was a cute book. It divides its time between a love triangle in the present, and a segment of Jane Austen’s life in the past. The two plots intersect with the search for an old book that just happens to include a unfinished version of Pride and Prejudice at the end. We are led to wonder if Jane Austen really wrote Pride and Prejudice, or if she stole the plot from someone else. If you like Jane Austen, it’s a fun little romp. Otherwise, I found the writing a bit contrived.

This month, I also read Altruism by Matthieu Ricard. This was a large book that took me months to finish. In it, Ricard makes the case for creating a society based on empathy and compassion, rather than on capitalist greed. There is a big section in the middle where he dissects our worst qualities as humans – our ego-centrism, narcissism, selfishness, violence, and hatred. In the final chapters, he is more positive, and finds reason to hope that we can change and create a better world. I so want to believe this, but I am losing faith. In the end, I think all we can do is work on ourselves and try to widen our own perspective. Maybe then the world will follow.

Finally, I read The Groundbreaking: the Tulsa Race Massacre and an American City’s Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth. I have heard a lot about the Tulsa Race Riot in recent years. 2021 marked its 100th anniversary, so there’s been a lot of publicity about it.

Ellsworth starts the book with a brief chronology of the events of May 31 – June 1st, 1921 in Tulsa, OK. I originally thought that the massacre was more planned than it actually was. In fact, what happened was far more chaotic, more human, and, in many ways, far sadder. However, the bulk of the book is not about the riots at all, but about Tulsa and its attempts to heal. He describes the formation of a commission, which sought an official apology to the black community and discussed the possibility of reparations. There is long section about the search for mass graves, and the difficulty in finding them.

Ellsworth is a good writer, so the plot flows along well enough. But I think if you want to gain a deeper knowledge about the Tulsa Race Riot, his landmark book Death in a Promised Land is probably a better choice.

So, there you have it! My reads for the past month. If I had to name a favourite for this month, I would say it’s Leave the World Behind. I welcome any comments or suggestions. Until next time, keep reading. 🙂

Welcome to the February 2023 edition of The Waayyy Behind Book Club, where I talk about the books I’ve read this month. Hello, fellow readers! Come along and see if any of these books pique your interest.

The first book I read this month was Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment. Those in the know may already be familiar with Elena Ferrante from her celebrated Neopolitan series of books, now dramatized on HBO. The TV show is named My Brilliant Friend, after the first book in the series, and has been described as “a modern masterpiece” and also “what Jane Austen would write if she got angry”. Both the books and the TV show are fantastic.

The Days of Abandonment was written years before that, and is searing reading. It’s about a woman whose husband leaves her for another woman after 15 years of marriage. We watch as she goes through all the stages of grief, from denial, to anger, to hysteria, to numbness, until finally she finds acceptance and is able to move on with her life. It’s so raw and honest, you’ll swear she must be writing from her own personal experience. That’s what Ferrante’s writing is like. She knows your heart and is unafraid of speaking exactly what it feels.

The next book I read this month was just as gripping. Memorial Drive is poet Natasha Trethewey’s gut wrenching attempt to come to terms with the murder of her mother thirty years before. Trethewey was only 19 years old when her stepfather shot her mother in the head and killed her. This is devastating reading. You can feel Trethewey’s pain as she memorializes her beautiful mother, but you can also sense the relief as she unburdens herself. You can tell that this is a story that needed to be told.

I also read The Dude and the Zen Master this month. In it, Jeff Bridges and reknowned Zen teacher Bernie Glassman sit down and talk about life. If you love the movie The Big Lebowski, as I do, you can get drawn in by chapter titles like, “Sometimes You Eat the Bear, and Sometimes, Well, He Eats You”, and “Yeah, Well, You Know, That’s Just Like, Uh, Your Opinion, Man”, but I actually didn’t find much of substance here. You learn about some of Jeff Bridges’ experiences on movie sets, but other than that, nothing really revelatory. Unless you’re a big Jeff Bridges fan, I’d give this book a pass.

When Montezuma Met Cortes: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History by Matthew Restall was an intriguing read. Essentially, it’s a book about history and how it’s recorded. We all know that the victor gets to tell the tale, while the loser’s story gets left on the editor’s floor. Well, Montezuma was definitely the loser in this sad piece of history. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Cortes’ story is mostly self-aggrandising and is littered with plot holes. For 500 years, no one thought much to question it. But after Restall sifts through all the old documents and letters, we find a tale that’s far more interesting and compelling than the one you were told in school. Personally, I love this kind of stuff and couldn’t put the book down.

The final book for this month is The Road Less Traveled by M Scott Peck. It’s a famous book. I had to wait months before I could get a copy through the library. Yet, when I first began to read it, I could not understand why it has remained so popular. The book was written 45 years ago, and while the advice Peck gives may have been instructive back then, it’s mostly old news. I kept wanting to put the book down and walk away, but I was determined to give it a chance. I’m glad I did. The last third of the book was a masterful blending of psychology, religion and spirituality that could only come from someone really knowledgeable and wise. If you’re a searcher trying to find your path in life, this book still has a lot to offer. I know I learned a few things.

So, that’s it for this month. Until next time, keep on reading. 🙂

It’s a brand new year! Welcome to the January 2023 edition of The Waayyy Behind Book Club, where I talk about the books I’ve read this month.

There were no entries in The Waayyy Behind Book Club for the last couple of months because my mother died, and I found it difficult to post anything during that time. I didn’t stop reading though! Reading was the way that I coped.

Here are the five books I read this past month. The first being Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize back in the year 2000 for her book, The Interpreter of Maladies. I remember reading that book many years ago, but I no longer remember what it was about! More recently, I read The Namesake, which was about a child of immigrants trying to assimilate into a new culture, while still holding true to himself.

Whereabouts is a bit different. Here, Lahiri is still exploring the themes of loneliness and belonging, but this time as a single, older woman. Childless and husband-less in middle age, she is beginning to question her life choices. Ultimately, she is happy with where she is, as an immigrant living on the periphery of a culture and a country. She gets along well with her neighbours and colleagues, but she also knows full well that she is at odds with the stereotype of what a woman should be. Her parents feel let down and her neighbours don’t know quite what to make of her, even as she follows her own heart. It’s a thoughtful book.

The second book I read this month was Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne. I have never really considered myself a feminist. That doesn’t mean I disagree with the idea that women should be treated equally to men, or that they shouldn’t be able to make their own life choices. But, perhaps because my own choices have tended to line up with societal norms, I have never been able to work up much of a passion for their mission.

Manne helped me to see how much work is yet to be done. Statistics show that women still don’t earn as much as men (even when doing the same job), they still don’t advance into the top positions in their line of work (even with equal or superior qualifications), they don’t receive equal justice when facing the law (particularly those of racial minority), or equal medical care (most scientific studies still exclude women), and they still do more than their fair share of domestic, non-paid work (even though male participation has ticked up in recent decades).

Manne perceives that the problem is less that women are thought of as inferior to men, as might have been the case in the past. Rather, it’s more that men have learned to expect superior treatment, or superior consideration, and then get upset if they don’t receive it. If this comment has raised your hackles, I suggest you give Manne’s book a read. It’s well well-written and she’s quite persuasive. I guarantee you won’t be able to put it down.

The third book I read this month was The Plague by Albert Camus. This book was on my reading list because of the recent pandemic, but it’s really not about a pandemic at all. It was written in the aftermath of World War Two, and here the plague is used as a metaphor for feverish idealism, or dogmatic thinking. When enough people think they have the right to enforce their opinions onto others, even to subject people to cruelty in order to get their way, the world has gone horribly wrong. Camus speaks through the voice of the doctor here, and he appears to be saying that our only true goal in life should be to help others survive and endure. It’s not about forcing others into our own point of view. And if killing is involved, we’ve definitely lost our way. I found it a profound read.

The fourth book I read this month was Watership Down by Richard Adams. It’s a classic book that has been on my reading list for years, and I have to say, I absolutely loved it! This is a wonderful book! The premise seems a bit silly: a group of rabbits leave their home warren and, after surviving many trials and hardships, aspires to set up a new one. Why should we care about a group of rabbits? It’s why I put off reading this book for so long. However, it turns out to be a novel that is not so much about rabbits as it is a thoughtful story about good leaders, and bad ones. And about how each of us has our own special skill, and when we find the courage to use that skill for the benefit of the entire community, we all become stronger. What’s not to love about that?

The final book for this month is Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr. It’s another book I would highly recommend, particularly for the middle-aged and older. Do you ever wonder about how you’ve lived your life? Could you have done it better? How can you even tell? Well, Rohr has some pointers for you, and I found them both thought-provoking and reassuring. ( Hint: if you’ve failed a lot, you’re doing better than you think!) It turns out that success in the second half of life requires turning the first half of life completely on its head. Rohr uses stories from ancient Rome, the Middle East, and the Bible to make his points, and he is persuasive – and encouraging.

So, there you have it! My list of books for this month. If you are interested in any of them, check them out at your local library. Until next month, happy reading!