I love the podcast, How I Built This, and so when I heard that they were releasing a book, I knew I wanted to read it. How I Built This, by Guy Raz, is about the various through-lines that connect the different entrepreneurs he’s interviewed on his podcast over the years. How I Built This …
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore is the last book that I read in 2020, and it was wonderful. I had heard a lot about this book for a while and I’m glad that I finally had the chance to read it. The Radium Girls covers the stories of the young women who worked as …
In You are an Artist, Sarah Urist Green writes about different artists, and gives an art assignment based on each of them. I’m a longtime Vlogbrothers fan (I started watching their videos in 2007, which was roughly half my lifetime ago. In other news, I am elderly.) and Sarah Urist Green is married to John …
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi focuses on defining racism and naming a variety of the different ways racism shows up in our society. “Human-made environmental catastrophes disproportionately harming bodies of color are not unusual; for instance, nearly four thousand U.S. areas—mostly poor and non-White—have higher lead poisoning rates than Flint, Michigan.” …
White Rage by Carol Anderson is an examination of racism in America through the perspective of the racist policies that were enacted by white Americans to keep Black Americans oppressed. So often when white people talk about racism, they will say racism=bad, and even oppose specific racist policies, without acknowledging who has been enacting and …
A year ago today, I declared the following intentions for the decade. I wanted them to be broader than SMART goals, something that I could have as guideposts. I have no idea what my life might look like in 2030, but if I’ve consistently worked towards these intentions, I think that I will be happy …
In reflecting on 2020, it is so easy to summarize it as a lost year. It’s easy to say “COVID ruined everything, we all stayed home and watched Tiger King, the end.” I don’t want to minimize the impact of COVID-19. Over 80 million people have had COVID worldwide, and over 1.7 million people have …
On January 1, 2020, I declared that this would be my year of buying nothing. This year has been nothing like I expected. Nothing like any of us expected. Here’s what a younger, naive version of myself wrote about my year of buying nothing in January: I will still buy: Food (groceries, dining out, including …
Every Monday Matters was not for me. The author starts out by explaining his story – he spent his whole life chasing a Western ideal of success, but that made him anxious and depressed, and now he travels around the country speaking and inspiring people with his message. “I believe that we humans are all …
When I was in TFA, they had us do a sort of self-care plan based on The Happiness Project – pick a thing that will make you happier every month, and then do that thing. I read The Happiness Project that year as well, and I liked it. I also enjoy Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, Happier …