Reviews and Comments

I was (like many) forced to read The Great Gatsby in high school, though I wish I hadn't as I was incapable of truly appreciating it at the time.

As others have mentioned, Fitzgerald's prose is unbelievable. In just a few words he can paint vivid imagery in your mind with layers of depth and analysis to accompany the emotions. The story and characters are beautifully written with a natural complexity that avoids the cliche 'good guys' & 'bad guys' we typically experience.

Just from my perspective alone, I found many themes and interpretations to the story which resonated with me, just to name a few:

• Clinging to the past and trying to repeat history expecting a different outcome. Recently this has tied nicely into my romantic life, where I've been noticing some repetition compulsion.
• Nick's character in general was someone I found myself heavily relating to, as I feel I tend to be the listening ear for the many people around me, which puts me in the center of some complicated situations. Many of his thoughts and reservations he keeps to himself about people around him reminds me of how I likewise internalize my judgements towards others but am able and willing to keep the peace. Even with complete strangers it's not uncommon for me to hear 'wow I'm not sure why I shared so much with you'—it's an interesting phenomenon!
• Obviously the more commonly discussed themes of Fitzgerald's criticisms of the American Dream
• Gatsby (I believe by design) is somewhat of an inspiration—at least to me. Despite being deeply flawed in core areas, I think he's overall an admirable character who is an honest victim of unfortunate circumstances.

And those are just the themes that resonated with me! There are a billion different things to take from this book, and I feel it's probably worth re-reading every few years as I'm sure there's more to get from it as we develop in life and stumble on different issues that resonate with us.

Watching the 2013 movie after finishing the book, I'm a fan.

Coraline is a children's book good enough to be organically read by adults. As it's fairly similar to the movie, I'll cover some not-so-obvious interpretations I had:

Throughout the read I couldn't help but feel like Coraline's other mother was a perfect embodiment of a BPD parent. Aside from the obvious BPD characteristics exhibited by the other mother, I felt the following quote summed everything up beautifully: "It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon love its gold. Int the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing."

After reading the book, I found a great blog analysis that touched on the many thoughts I had throughout the read: pensievely.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/seduced-by-borderline-an-analysis-of-coraline/

BPD-aside, very fun book. Made me laugh a few times, a bit creepy, and was nice to finally read the book. I adore the movie.

This book was not quite what I was expecting, and that’s not a terrible thing.

I was expecting a lot of advice and practical tips on minimizing different areas of my life. What I received was a birds-eye perspective on simplifying life as a whole, in addition to helpful mentalities to have on the journey (which is all arguably more important than basic advice)

Another way of putting it: Rather than this book telling you how to decide which clothes to remove from your wardrobe, it will make you consider the friends in your life and which ones deserve your time and energy.

Rather than dealing with the BS of 5 vs 10 pieces of clothing, this approach at simplicity and minimalism focuses on the largest drainers of our time/energy/life:

Poor relationships, poor jobs, poor friends, poor decisions.

So this book served as a healthy reminder to focus on the big things, not the small things.

I was expecting Stolen Focus to predominantly focus on digital focus, and the negative impacts big tech companies have on our attention. That’s definitely a good portion of this book, which was incredibly insightful, but there are many more concepts tied to focus I had never considered which were equally amazing to learn about.

Diet, environment, social factors, economy, politics, and more. Stolen Focus ties relations between the focus crisis to the climate crisis, the obesity crisis, the mental health crisis, and much more. These are all interlinked problems which feed on each other in disastrous ways.

This book is not a “how to reclaim your focus” guide, it’s rather a thorough investigation into how and why focus is so important, and what has happened to it. It gives you the context and understanding required to not just fight back personally, but socially.

Writing-wise, I was thoroughly impressed with the structure of the book. I was consistently captured by the book (ironically) as the author had a great balance of personal anecdotes, storytelling, interviews with dozens of experts, scientific research, and more. I felt the balance of facts, evidence, and story were perfect.

Great read, a must read if we are to reclaim some sanity in this insane world.

I went in with high expectations for this book. Running has been a massive part of my life since I was 8 years old, and getting to hear new perspectives on running was all I was expecting from this book.

Unfortunately, this book reads like a mid-level runner giving us a stream of consciousness about running; some of what’s shared being accurate, and some not. He shares many theories as to why and how certain things work - mainly based on hunches. Some hunches are correct, and some not.

I’m going to choose to ignore the frustrating number of hunches the author utilizes in place of science, and instead focus on the philosophy and emotional aspects of this book. (Which are the only somewhat redeeming parts of it)

Even in this realm, I really struggled to connect with the author with the exception of a few pages. A huge part of his passion for running seems to stem from pushing his body to extreme (arguably unhealthy) limits. This is not at all how I see running. I see running as a beautiful art form, one that can be relaxed. Simple. Effortless. Smooth. And healthy.

When I run, it’s about tranquility, connecting with myself, and connecting with my environment. The author ties running to the concept of a “void” almost as if he sees it as an avoidance coping mechanism. Perhaps I read too deeply between the lines, but I just didn’t find the author’s relationship with running to be one that I share. I’m happy he loves running and it provides him this value, but it’s just not something I can relate to.

The author also seems incredibly judgemental, particularly when it comes to the “fast girls” he sees near the college campus, college athletes who are running faster than him. He has the nerve to imply they are inexperienced long distance athletes, and they probably are unable of slowing down and running as far as he can.

What?

How does he know that? And why does it matter? It’s just such a weird thing to include in this book. Not only is he comparing himself to a different sex, but his assumptions regarding their physical fitness and training are likely strongly incorrect.

I have a few more minor complaints with this book, but to summarize my issues so I can move on with my life: - I didn’t connect with the author - I felt the author was spreading a lot of misinformation regarding technical details of training - I wasn’t a huge fan of the author’s outlook on running - I wasn’t a huge fan of the author’s outlook on the world - I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style - I felt the book provided almost no value to myself. It’s a memoir, and a memoir about someone I’m just not really that interested in - neither their personality nor their running 🤷

I’m sure some people out there would love this book, but I’m sorry - it was a painful one for me.

I don’t know where to start this review, though a bit of context is necessary:

I’ve never been a spiritual person, so I was expecting this book to challenge my perception of things. I also wasn’t planning on finding much value from it, my exceptions were fairly low. Well that was all wrong.

While some parts of this book are still difficult for me to wrap my head around, I can officially say this book is formally my first real experience with exploring my spiritual side.

I’ve always been a “recognize the issue” then “fix the issue” kind of person. Extremely logical, accepting all my life experiences as the reality. If these life experiences deviated from my internal concept of reality, then I need to go through some emotional stress to re-integrate what I learned from the event into my new reality.

It’s not a terrible strategy, and it’s been fairly successful for me. However, this book has introduced entirely new concepts that flip all of my strategies on their head. Rather than engaging with these stressors in the first place, why not just welcome them in? Why not just step back and watch them unfold without allowing them to impact my happiness and reflect who I am? Why not treat events as just events and not as anything more than that? Why would I tie my happiness and well-being to things outside of my control? Why would I pretend like I have any sense of control over the world?

These are all questions this book forced me to ask, and countless more. Some other incredibly important topics this book covers are: - consciousness, and how to recognize it inside you - who “you” are - how to deal with our inner voices - different ways of thinking about death - a whole new way of looking at the world, where you accept all outcomes

I really can’t condense everything this book has taught into a single review. All I can speak to is I feel this has triggered an entirely new journey for my life, where I’m going to learn a lot more about not just myself and who I am, but gain deep understanding about the world.

Context: I'm big into exercise, an almost daily runner getting in 50-60 miles a week during the season. With that said, I had a hunch my lifestyle when I finished my runs wasn’t fantastic. So I picked up this book and I’m very glad I did!

Starting with the positives:

1) This book changed my relationship with movement. A bike ride can be exercise or movement. Exercise is forcing yourself on a 30 minute ride to move. Movement is riding your bike to the grocery store. Movement is a byproduct of your lifestyle. Exercise is a byproduct of lack of movement.

This mental shift exposes the toxic modern-day relationship we have with movement. Since we live such sedentary lives, we've invented this concept of 'exercise' to prescribe ourselves 20-60 minute intervals where we try to fit in all the movement we need into a single session. It's the closest thing to a 'movement pill' our hyper-capitalist society can currently formulate.

2) This book changed my relationship with the term: sedentary. We associate sedentary as needing to be sitting or lying down. This is far from the case. The real issue with sedentary lifestyles is the lack of variety in movement. So for people who think a standing desk is fixing their problems, it will still suffer similar issues of lacking movement. We should be in constant motion throughout the day, and any stationary position, sitting or standing, is not healthy for us for long periods of time.

3) This book changed my relationship with comfort. Beds make us comfortable. Pillows. Couches. But this comfort generally comes at the cost of weakening our bodies. They create a vicious negative feedback loop that is found in other areas like orthotics (which likewise, prevent the body from building its own strength to break free from the orthotic that enables the weakness)

4) This book has changed my relationship with exercise. I still love exercise. I will still run. I will still go to the gym. I will still compete. But I will be aware that the rigorous repetition and single dimension of running will not provide me the complete health I desire. While running will give me incredible cardiovascular health and numerous other benefits, it's ultimately still a repetitive motion and needs to be incorporated with proper movement throughout the day.

This book has inspired me to find more ways to move throughout the day that aren’t just running. I'm now working from the ground more, which naturally encourages a lot more movement. I'm walking places, biking to local shops, avoiding the elevator, sitting on the ground, and I'm slowly phasing out a lot of my furniture so I can have a healthier environment at home. This book has triggered a fantastic journey that I'm excited to go on!

The only downside, and why I'm giving this book 4 stars: The 'exercises' felt silly. The entire concept of the book is to avoid prescribed exercise, so the author goes ahead and prescribes 'natural' exercises - whatever that means. The author admits they aren't a fan of this either, and mainly did it to cave to public demand. But when the public demands a toxic relationship with movement, why would you supply it to them, when your book is supposed to break free from that model? A bolder statement would've been to avoid all exercise prescriptions. However, even if someone finds value in exercise prescriptions, I found the descriptions to be useless for around half of them and I couldn't even figure out how to do them. So this was a big fail on all accounts IMO.

Overall: 4 stars. Really changed the game for me, but could've done without the exercises.

Context on why I was sent this epub from my friend in the first place:

I was perplexed over people’s obsession with the most bizarre nonsense. Astrology, crystal healing, modern witchcraft, and many more things I see all too often. My friend suggested this book and sent me over an epub as they felt it’d give nice context around the phenomenon.

Well, I have a much deeper understanding of the issue after reading this book. Sagan deeply loves science and has made me view science in a completely new light, it’s truly inspirational. I’m doing so, he covers pseudoscience and the many wonders of why we believe in things we believe in. Little did I know my questions of why people believe crystals cure cancer has a lot to do with our belief in witches (leading to thousands of burned women at the stake just a few centuries ago) and even things like modern aliens abductions (which have almost no strong evidence to back them up)

Sagan deep-dives into science, morality, how to develop a BS detector, how to think critically, the state of the world and where it may lead, and much more.

As someone who loves science and applies many of its philosophies across my life, it was a wonderful read that opened my eyes to the devolution of our ability to appreciate the beauty of science and critical thinking - instead favoring our crystals and astrology symbols.

Amazing book, that has made me all the more critical of where the world is headed.