Title: 

I find this book difficult to describe because I disagree with the book cover description. Purportedly, this is a book about how to change your life instead of waiting for your life to change. In reality, it largely focuses on the author’s own challenges throughout her life, from early drug addiction and bulimia to her recent loss of her house in a wildfire. She reframes many of these challenges as ways in which she was waiting for something. She also includes thought-provoking questions that challenge the reader to apply the lessons she’s learned to their own life.

When the author was describing her story, I loved her writing. Her word choices were intelligent, original, and emotive. I felt for her even though her life story was nothing like mine. Some of the challenges she struggled with, particularly within her relationship with her husband, felt universal enough that her advice could be helpful to anyone. Her questions for the reader were thought-provoking and could encourage people to think about their life in a new way. As a memoir, I think this book had great potential.

Unfortunately, when she started to give advice, her writing started to include more cliches. Her attempts to relate each challenge back to the idea of waiting for change felt a bit forced. Often, unless you’d been through her specific situation, I didn’t feel her advice would be helpful. She never gave scientific backing for her advice. It was all based on personal experience, which seems most useful to me if people want to feel less alone in a particular challenge. If your house had just burned down, reading about the ways she deals with it and the ways in which she still struggles with it could provide a much-needed companionship in a difficult time. If you’re looking for an interesting personal story or if, heaven forbid, your house just burnt down, this might be the book for you. If you’re someone who just wants a self-help book about how to better seize the day, I would seize a different book.

Amazon|Goodreads

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Title: 

The authors Tom and David Kelley work together at the Stanford design school, where they help both people and companies to think creatively. In Creative Confidence, they share their personal experiences with many clients as well as some of the exercises they use to help students improve their creativity. They are strong believers that everyone is creative and can learn to access their innate creativity.

Given the description, I was hopeful that this book would contain advice that would help me come up with more creative research ideas. I was disappointed to find that much of their advice seemed like it would be more helpful to someone in a business or design position than to someone doing research. While some of their exercises could be modified or extrapolated from, I found little to be applicable directly. For instance, many of their suggestions center on trying something, anything just to get started and then refining. This could potentially work for me during the idea generation phase but is really awful advice for starting a research project (a far better approach would involve a lot of pre-planning).

In addition to not being personally applicable, I had a few other problems with the book. Almost all of the book was centered on personal stories and anecdotes. Research supporting their advice was hardly ever mentioned. Each chapter was supposed to focus on one step on the path to becoming more creative, but there were so many anecdotes that seemed unrelated to the overall theme that I often lost track of the point of a given chapter. They were a bit short on specific advice too. There was one chapter that had perhaps ten ideas for getting started, but many of these required a group to implement them. Finally, at times I felt the authors were simply advertising their design school. The name of the school was mentioned on nearly every page and I felt the authors relied heavily on buzz words to describe their work.

That said, I don’t think I’m the target audience of this book. The specific examples of innovation and design might be more inspiring or even directly useful to people in other fields. The writing was clear and easy to follow. The choice to gather all of their advice into specific activities in one chapter could make this a great reference book. I was incredibly impressed by how well my ARC ebook was formatted already as well, so if you think this could be useful to you, don’t hesitate to buy it in that format. Hopefully someone in business or design will  be better able to use this book.

Amazon|Goodreads

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Title: 

Hardwiring Happiness is all about focusing on the little things. It is not, however, just another one of those books telling you  ”live in the moment” which are so popular these days. Instead, it focuses on events and feelings that you can pay attention to in order to build up the inner strength you need to face specific challenges. By focusing on positive experiences, you help yourself remember positive feelings more strongly, despite our brain naturally remembering negative experiences better.

At times this book reads like a piece of fluff. It’s rooted a lot in the author’s own experience and clearly had the illustrative stories I think are so important in self-help books. It was less clear that the author was going to offer actionable advice or back his claims up with science. Initially, a lot of the advice sounded kind of new-agey and silly to me. Fortunately, the author includes explicit directions for performing exercises that will help you feel better about specific challenges. Even better, for me, they worked! For instance, I sometimes feel stressed about running late, so the other day when I was early, I took a moment to savor being on top of things. When I woke up the next morning feeling like I should be somewhere already, I was able to remember the feeling of being on top of things and relax. It might sound silly, but I really think I’m already feeling happier as a result of this and several other little practices from the book.

In terms of scientific backing, I think the author used a paraphrase of “research has shown” maybe twice in the whole book. He is well credentialed and does eventually get into some of the interesting theories of evolution of the brain underlying his ideas. He also occasionally mentioned other credible sources that influenced his theories. However, I was only really convinced that his work was backed by research when I reached his bibliography. This could easily have been a five star review for me had the author integrated this research into his text. As is, I’d love to give this to friends to read since I’ve found it so helpful, but I don’t think I can. I’d have too hard of a time getting people to look past the insubstantial sounding bits when the text doesn’t make it clear how much research is backing it up. That said, I’d love to talk one of you into reading it and actually trying the exercises, because I think this is a book worth sharing.

Amazon|Goodreads

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Title: 

The stereotypical introvert is not viewed as someone who could be a great leader, lawyer, or salesperson. Susan Cain challenges that view with both fascinating research and enjoyable anecdotes. This research strongly suggests that society could benefit from the complementary strengths of extroverts and introverts. However, much of American society is designed to favor extroverts. Cain discusses why that is; why we should try to change it; and how we can begin doing so.

As you’ve probably heard already, this is an awesome book. It has all the right ingredients to make me love a science-y non-fiction book. A dash of well-explained previous research, spiced up with anecdotes that relate the research to real life. A tasty new blend of old ideas forming the authors own theories. And a pinch of practical, research based advice for improving your life and that of the introverts around you.

These ingredients are all pulled together by the author’s clear writing and intelligence. She drew me in and made me understand how some very different people feel about being introverts. She gave wonderful answers to complex questions, starting by acknowledging that some questions have no simple answer. She also very tactfully makes it clear that she is not saying that introverts are better than extroverts, just that both types of people have something to contribute. All together it made for an enjoyable and inspiring read.

Amazon|Goodreads

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Title: 

All the Money in the World is a thoughtful series of essays on earning and using money to maximize your happiness. It’s full of interesting thought experiments, facts, and questions that will make you think about money in ways you never have before. The writing is great, reminding me of Malcolm Gladwell’s many books or Mirroring People, and definitely meeting my criteria that it be clear and concise. Although the chapters could be read as stand-alone essays, the interesting topic kept me reading one after another. My favorite parts were the fascinating personal anecdotes, but it was also important to me that the author cited research studies to back up her advice. Finally, there are actionable suggestions throughout which are collected into a useful worksheet at the end of the book. This was exactly what I look for in a self-help book – interesting, research-based, well-written, and useful.

Amazon|Goodreads

Title: The 20 Something Manifesto
Author: Christine Hassler
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆

As a 20-something, you’re often dealing with not having a logical “next-step” for the first time as you finish college, trying to find a job, and figuring out both who you are and what you want from life. In The 20 Something Manifesto, Christine Hassler has collected a bunch of short essays by 20-somethings at various stages of their lives and combined these with her insightful commentary. Throughout, she manages to sound authoritative and give good advice while never sounding condescending or judgmental. She’s also often very funny. There are sections on various topics of concern to 20-somethings’ from career and money to romance, each with suggestions for ways to find out what you want and how to get there. The only thing keeping this from also being a 5 star review is the author’s belief in “The Secret”, a silly but popular belief that simply visualizing something will make it so. Fortunately that idea, which in my opinion is the worst of self-help, appears very little in this otherwise exemplary book.

Amazon|Goodreads

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Personally,I just read two very good self-help books and I’m starting to notice a pattern in what I like.  First, the book has to be on a topic that interests me, which lately has meant books that relate to ways to be happy. It’s a particularly interesting question to me at this time in my life when I fell like an inherent part of being a grad student is questioning whether being a grad student is what will make you happiest (answer, yes, in the long term, haha). Second, the book needs to be written clearly and concisely, without being condescending. If books are either hard to follow or treating you like you’re stupid, they’re just less enjoyable. Finally, they need to include three things: research for evidence, personal anecdotes for interest, and actionable advice for usefulness.

One book I’ve already reviewed definitely met these criteria for me: The How of Happiness. I also recently read and enjoyed The 20 Something Manifesto and All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending. I’ll be posting mini-reviews of both those books later today.

Do you ever read self-help books? If so, what do you think makes a good one?

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Current Fiction Readings

This week I’ve gotten my fiction fix starting a new series by Lisa Shearin with the book Magic Lost, Trouble Found.  According to Netflix, I like movies with a strong female lead and I think that’s a big part of why I liked this book.  This book is told from the perspective of sarcastic, resourceful sorceress Raine Benares – definitely a strong female lead.  The book begins with Raine rescuing a friend hired to rob a powerful necromancer and taking a magical amulet from him for safekeeping.  Initially a sorceress of moderate power, Raine finds her powers increasing dramatically as she wears the amulet.  Unfortunately, many powerful people are also interested in the amulet, which turns out to be powered by rather dark magics which must be contained.  The adventures which follow take place in a well-crafted world, not terribly complicated politically but with enough factions and creepy locations to make things interesting.  Although detailed magical-mechanics are not given, there are no inconsistencies either.  Over all, a really good read.  I liked the author’s style and am already excited to start the next book!

Non-Project Non-Fiction

Despite my dislike of The Secret, I decided to try another best-selling self-help book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.  I’m glad I did!  While I would describe most of the advice in this book as common sense, I think it’s also advice we all sometimes forget.  For instance, the first two chapters basically just say that it is better to praise someone than criticize them.  Well, of course!  But this definitely isn’t a rule we all always obey. Sometimes it’s so easy to let a criticism slip out, when it would really be better to calm down, begin with a compliment and then suggest a change in a non-critical way.  So while a lot of the advice the book gives is fairly obvious, I also think our daily interactions would be much smoother and more pleasant if everyone occasionally looked to this book for reminders on how to treat other people!

The book was also fun to read.  It includes some great anecdotes, which are most interesting because they give brief glimpses of the world in 1936, when the book was first published.  One other thing I really liked about the book was that it included specific cautions against insincerity and makes it clear that you should look for things you can genuinely compliment someone else on.

Summary

Magic Lost, Trouble Found - 4 stars – Fun read, great heroine, well-crafted fantasy world. Will definitely be reading the rest of the series!

How To Win Friends and Influence People - 3 stars – Mostly common sense advice on how to treat other people with consideration, but still worth skimming for a reminder of how we should ideally treat others.  Interesting for its anecdotes of daily life in 1936, when the book was published.

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I found the most awesome website this week, called lendle.me, which allows kindle users to lend each other books!  Courtesy of some other very nice “lendlers” (as the site calls us), I was able to read both Catching Fire and Mockingjay this week, finishing the Hunger Games trilogy.  I was planning on waiting for my monthly free book which I can borrow as a member of amazon prime, so I was thrilled to be able to read them sooner!  I’ve even been putting off starting other fiction books so I wouldn’t interrupt my involvement in the series.  Yes, I was that drawn into it.

The second book, Catching Fire, was very much in they style of the first book.  I would recommend it to anyone who liked The Hunger Games.  The main character’s indecision about Gabe and Peeta, the two potential romance interests, can be frustrating at times, but it definitely didn’t make me enjoy the story any less.  Although the beginning wasn’t as action-packed as the first book, events picked up at the end enough to satisfy any one, I think.  The third book, Mockingjay, had an even darker tone than the first two books, as the rebellion begins to have disturbing similarities to the current tyrannical regime.  I may have shed a few tears after I finished reading, but in retrospect, I think it was actually a reasonably happy ending.  My only complaint would be that the author focused a lot more on the darker parts while the happy parts of the ending were described very briefly before what felt like a rather abrupt ending.  It’s entirely possible that the authors intent was to leave us thinking about the darker parts of human nature and I wouldn’t say this was detrimental to the quality of the book.  But as someone who prefers the optimistic, I could have enjoyed it more with a focus on the happier parts of the ending.

I have also caved in to the siren call of the kindle and its one click delivery of books, buying the next book in the Septimus Heap series, Flyte.  I’m desperately trying to resist making buying books that way a habit though, as it’s just too easy!  But definitely looking forward to that review in a later Bookends post after the Boy and I finish reading it.

Non-Project Non-Fiction

I’ve been reading a lot of self-helpy type blogs these days and have started branching out into such books as well.   So this week I decided to read the self-help hit, The Secret.  This may have been a mistake.  The disorganized layout of the book, with large quotes breaking up the writing made the book difficult to get into.  A lot of the book was really painful to read, as scientific principles were twisted and used in ways that were never meant to be.  Particularly egregious examples include:

• the suggestion that you can avoid aging and illness by wishing to because all of our cells are eventually replaced.  Well sure, we create new cells, but we still age because our telomeres get shorter and our DNA begins to be damaged.  Not to mention the effect of UV rays and other factors on our DNA and possibly other still unexplored factors.
• and the justification of the law of attraction using string theory, explaining that we’re all energy and our thoughts emit a certain frequency, drawing to us that which we think about.  Right.  Plus the omnipresent universe can supposedly give us anything we think about, but can’t understand the difference between us thinking about something we want and thinking about something we don’t want.

Summary

Catching Fire – 4 stars – Similar enough to the first book that I would recommend this without hesitation to any who liked The Hunger Games.

Mockingjay – 4 stars – Darker than the other books and less enjoyable for me, but emotionally moving doesn’t do it justice.  This book really packs a punch.

The Secret – 2 stars – Mostly bunk, with a lot of really awful pseudo science.  Two stars instead of one because I believe some of the advice is good, if not for the reasons the book gives.

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