Another great short story by Fredrik Backman. Helped me understand dementia better. One of my idols once said, “The worst part about growing old is that I don’t get any ideas anymore.” Those words have never quite left me since I first heard them, because this would be my greatest fear: imagination giving up before…
Be prepared to have a lot of assumptions questioned if you read this short story. If the first few lines interest you, read the book rather than the highlights here. This is a short story about what you would be prepared to sacrifice in order to save a life. Your hometown is something you can…
A good book to understand Russian and Baltic history and geopolitics. Excerpts: The sound between Big Diomede and Little Diomede, which is part of Alaska, is barely five kilometres across, but the International Date Line runs down the middle. In winter, when the sound is frozen, it is in theory possible, though of course strictly…
Plan to read this again for my 50th birthday. This is definitely a book that needs 2-3 readings before the message sinks in. I LOVE how he starts the book: This book is not a typical “how to” book. My chief desire is to stir thought, trouble sleep, and provide some wider perspective. It will…
More Celtic wisdom from John O’Donohue. “So many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence.” One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways of wonder. Martin Heidegger said that when you can conceive of a frontier you are already…
A small collection of essays that Sacks wrote just before he died. Worth reading. LAST NIGHT I DREAMED about mercury—huge, shining globules of quicksilver rising and falling. Mercury is element number 80, and my dream is a reminder that on Tuesday, I will be eighty myself. I often feel that life is about to begin,…
A family from Hanover, NH takes a gap year (9 months) around the world trip! Definitely can relate to this, except I did it as a single parent with 3 teenage girls!! Sophie’s relationship with the truth has improved steadily over the years. The underlying stubbornness has not changed much. One of the most appealing…
Paul Theroux is one of my two favorite travel writers along with Pico Iyer. I have read all his nonfiction books. I read this book when it first came out (it’s a Mexican journey but focuses quite a bit on the South of Mexico) and felt compelled to revisit it after reading The Oaxaca Journal…
Supposedly a book about ferns, which it does a good job with. Delves into a brief history of Mesoamerica, specifically Oaxaca in typical Oliver Sacks fashion. Amateurs—lovers, in the best sense of the word Ferns had survived, with little change, for a third of a billion years. Other creatures, like dinosaurs, had come and gone,…
Tragicomic story about the famous food blogger remodeling his Paris apartment. On the surface it is a series of rants about the remodeling, but it delves into the psyche of the Parisian. It may help you navigate your life if one day you find yourself living long-term in Paris. The part of being French that…