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Dear Reader, In stark contrast to the last book that I read Maid (review here), I recently finished Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir by Wednesday Martin, which exposes the “mommy culture” of the wealthy residents of the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The title is in reference to the author’s background in anthropology and... Continue Reading →
Dear, Reader It is often the case that after death the deceased is held in higher regard than he was while living. Yet rarely is anyone upraised to the status of legend. This, however, is how many view the wise-beyond-his-years and gone-before-his-time Chris McCandless. Maybe we are captivated by him for his unshakable resolve, propensity... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, We meet Stephanie Land in a homeless shelter as her daughter learns to walk. She only has $10 in her bank account and is soon moving into transitional emergency housing. In the 2019 best-selling book Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, we see Land's struggle to provide a... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Every once in a while, you start into a book not knowing what you are getting yourself into. This is precisely what happened to me when I began reading Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino. Initially, I believed this book to be an analysis on the many ways we humans indulge... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Every once in a while, you will pick up a book, read two sentences of the summary and think to yourself “no thanks, next!” That is how I felt when I initially encountered The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, “I’m haunted every day by what I did as an economic hit man (EHM).” Those are John Perkins’s opening words of his autobiographical tell-all The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. While the book cover and title initially drew me into this story, I was a little hesitant that this was a... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, There are some big-name authors out there. Literally, writers like Stephen King, James Patterson, and Lee Child have their names printed just as big (if not bigger) than the titles of their books on the cover. In this way, just seeing a familiar surname is like a quality-assurance or brand marker for the... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, While many of us seek out information on “how to” do something, the book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink is all about “when to” do things. This book answers questions such as “when to change careers” and “when is a divorce more likely to happen” among others.... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, There are four types of people in this world, well, at least according to Gretchen Rubin there is. In her highly-acclaimed book, The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too), Rubin divides people into Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels based... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Have you ever heard of the book “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin? Me neither, but a few powerful reviews of the book made me curious to check it out: “A moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless.” –Joyce Carol... Continue Reading →
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