The Trial of Lizzie Borden
Rating: 4/5 | Y'all. This mystery is WILD. I'm not usually big on true crime, but I'm so glad I read this one. Cara Robertson has spent her life — literally, this started as a thesis paper — researching Lizzie Borden's story. She's able to paint a rich history of what we know about the crime, and about the trial. (Click the post to read more.)
The Trial of Lizzie Borden tells the true story of one of the most sensational murder trials in American history. When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence. Was she a cold-blooded murderess or an unjustly persecuted lady? Did she or didn’t she?
The popular fascination with the Borden murders and its central enigmatic character has endured for more than one hundred years. Immortalized in rhyme, told and retold in every conceivable genre, the murders have secured a place in the American pantheon of mythic horror, but one typically wrenched from its historical moment. In contrast, Cara Robertson explores the stories Lizzie Borden’s culture wanted and expected to hear and how those stories influenced the debate inside and outside of the courtroom. Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper accounts, unpublished local accounts, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden offers a window onto America in the Gilded Age, showcasing its most deeply held convictions and its most troubling social anxieties.
Author: Cara Robertson | Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: 4/5
Y'all. This mystery is WILD. I'm not usually big on true crime, but I'm so glad I read this one. Cara Robertson has spent her life — literally, this started as a thesis paper — researching Lizzie Borden's story. She's able to paint a rich history of what we know about the crime, and about the trial.
If you aren't aware, Lizzie Borden lived in the 1890s with her father and stepmother. One day, they were hacked to death with an ax. Literally nobody except Lizzie could have done this — and that was the prosecution's entire case. Problem is, there's also no way she could have done this. There is zero physical evidence, including the fact that nobody ever saw any blood on her. WILD.
The book reads like hard nonfiction, kind of dry except for its subject matter. But it doesn't matter, because you'll be so hungry for more details and to know what happened next. I also really appreciated the fact that there were photographs printed throughout the book. They added great context and broke up the pages a bit, which was nice.
I can't say that this book solved the mystery (because the mystery remains unsolved), but it has certainly given me plenty to spew at people at parties. (Yes, I obviously go to very riveting parties.)
We Are Not Refugees: True Stories of the Displaced
Rating: 3/5 | We Are Not Refugees was an important and very interesting book to read. Agus Morales is a journalist who has spent years traveling the globe, interviewing people who've had to flee their homes. (Click the post to read more.)
Never in history have so many people been displaced by political and military conflicts at home — more than 65 million globally. Unsparing, outspoken, vital, We Are Not Refugees tells the stories of many of these displaced, who have not been given asylum.
For over a decade, human rights journalist Agus Morales has journeyed to the sites of the world's most brutal conflicts and spoken to the victims of violence and displacement. To Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Central African Republic. To Central America, the Congo, and the refugee camps of Jordan. To the Tibetan Parliament in exile in northern India.
We are living in a time of massive global change, when negative images of refugees undermine the truth of their humiliation and suffering. By bringing us stories that reveal the individual pain and the global scope of the crisis, Morales reminds us of the truth and appeals to our conscience.
Author: Agus Morales | Publisher: Imagine
Rating: 3/5
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of this book! It's on sale March 5th.
We Are Not Refugees was an important and very interesting book to read. Agus Morales is a journalist who has spent years traveling the globe, interviewing people who've had to flee their homes.
What has come out of those travels are stories and stories and stories. Stories of people who do not think of themselves as "refugees," because the world has cast "refugees" as poor, destitute, helpless beings. And many these people came from a home where they once lived comfortably, once had a livelihood, once (perhaps still) had a family.
These people are people, and all they want is a safe place where they can go back to being productive members of society.
I think the point that really stood out the most for me was about their smartphones; many people look at these people who come with Nikes, and iPhones, and other consumer goods from our world, and that doesn't jive right. So they say, "If they're so poor, why do they have iPhones?"
And to that Morales says: As if a map isn't the one thing you need when you're lost. And he says: If I had to flee my home, my belongings, and my family because of danger, the last thing I'd leave behind would be my cellphone.
And despite the valiant effort, I still found it so, so hard to tune into these stories — to keep myself from viewing them at a distance. It's hard to look at that kind of pain and suffering and feel it consistently. So I think the only thing I can do here is to keep reading stories like these — more and more and more. Maybe then it will stick.
Heavy: An American Memoir
Rating: 5/5 | This may have been the most personal memoir I have ever read. Laymon isn't just writing about his life; he's practically writing poetry about his soul. I kept being re-surprised, over and over, at just how many of his deepest, darkest, most private thoughts, feelings, and actions were put down into words for the world to read. (Click the post to read more.)
In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Author: Kiese Laymon | Publisher: Scribner
Rating: 5/5
“I will wonder if the memories that remain with age are heavier than the ones we forget because they mean more to us, or if our bodies, like our nation, eventually purge memories we never wanted to be true.”
This may have been the most personal memoir I have ever read. Laymon isn't just writing about his life; he's practically writing poetry about his soul. I kept being re-surprised, over and over, at just how many of his deepest, darkest, most private thoughts, feelings, and actions were put down into words for the world to read.
“For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn’t only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage.”
Laymon grew up in the Deep South, where he was exposed to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse all around him — not just to him, but also to the people he loved or idolized. He grew up hard-headed, for sure, but the contrast between this part of his personality — which was apparent from his actions — and the more introspective emotions he can now identify is striking.
But perhaps the bravest, most impressive part of this book is the fact that it's written to his mother. Like he's telling her the story of his life and her part in it — all of it, the good and the bad. Some of it very bad. No punches held, it seems. Writing true stories about the real people in your life is scary enough; it's a different kind of brave to write to them.
“After reading Bambara, I wondered for the first time how great an American sentence, paragraph, or book could be if it wasn’t, at least partially, written to and for black Americans in the Deep South.”
I'm a white woman from New York, so it's very safe to say that my privilege keeps me from understanding or empathizing about any of the experiences Laymon describes. I expected to get a glimpse into his culture, his struggles, his life. (This is why we read memoirs, after all.)
What I didn't expect — perhaps because Laymon's absolutely correct that so much of what's written by black Americans is written for white people rather than to and for black Americans, as this is — was to get so wholly absorbed by the power of Laymon's writing to the point that I temporarily forgot that I am "them." That I may have scratched the surface of feeling, temporarily, what it's like to be up against all of history and all of America's whiteness.
That was remarkable. And powerful.
All You Can Ever Know
Rating: 4/5 | All You Can Ever Know is Girls' Night In Club's February book pick, and I really enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook, which was well narrated. Nicole Chung is a really great writer, and her storytelling sheds light on experiences that many people do not often see or understand. (Click the post to read more.)
What does it mean to lose your roots — within your culture, within your family — and what happens when you find them?
Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From early childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hopes of giving her a better life; that forever feeling slightly out of place was simply her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as she grew up — facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from—she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth.
With the same warmth, candor, and startling insight that has made her a beloved voice, Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets — vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
Author: Nicole Chung | Publisher: Catapult
Rating: 4/5
“Family lore given to us as children has such hold over us, such staying power. It can form the bedrock of another kind of faith, one to rival any religion, informing our beliefs about ourselves, and our families, and our place in the world.”
All You Can Ever Know is Girls' Night In Club's February book pick, and I really enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook, which was well narrated. Nicole Chung is a good writer, and her storytelling sheds light on experiences that many people do not often see or understand.
Chung was adopted shortly after she was born. Her Korean parents said that the medical bills resulting from her premature birth would be too much for them to bear, so they wanted to give her a better life. The parents who raised Chung were kind, loving, and wonderful. However, they were not Korean, and they had no idea how big a difference that would make for a child growing up in almost-all-white Oregon.
Chung's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood as not just an adopted child, but also a non-white adopted child, were full of both love and strife. She had often wondered about her birth family but never sought them out. By the time she was ready to become a mother herself, though, she decided it was time — if only to have access to her (and her child's) full medical history. The result was more complicated and more emotional than she had imagined.
Memoirs like this are why I love reading memoirs so much; I have no experience with any of this, but I could try to imagine what it must like to be an adopted daughter, and I could try to imagine what it must be like to look different from everyone around you growing up, but I would never have even thought to try to imagine what it might be like to have both of those experiences at once, intertwined. Which is wild to me, because of course many adopted children in the US come from other countries.
Chung does a beautiful job of weaving her story into an arc that not only puts you in her shoes, but also makes you look out through her eyes.
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness
Rating: 3.5/5 | I read Joyful as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club, and it was really, really interesting. Ingrid Fetell Lee is a designer who's spent years researching the aesthetics of joyful things (like confetti and balloons and the Rockettes). Then she goes into how you can bring the same aesthetics into your own surroundings (short of throwing confetti around your home). (Click the post to read more.)
Have you ever wondered why we stop to watch the orange glow that arrives before sunset or why we flock to see cherry blossoms bloom in spring? Is there a reason that people — regardless of gender, age, culture, or ethnicity — are mesmerized by baby animals and can't help but smile when they see a burst of confetti or a cluster of colorful balloons?
We are often made to feel that the physical world has little or no impact on our inner joy. Increasingly, experts urge us to find balance and calm by looking inward — through mindfulness or meditation — and muting the outside world. But what if the natural vibrancy of our surroundings is actually our most renewable and easily accessible source of joy?
In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive while another fosters acceptance and delight — and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.
Author: Ingrid Fetell Lee | Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Rating: 3.5/5
“The power of the aesthetics of joy is that they speak directly to our unconscious minds, bringing out the best in us without our even being aware of it.”
I read Joyful as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club, and it was really, really interesting. Ingrid Fetell Lee is a designer who's spent years researching the aesthetics of joyful things (like confetti and balloons and the Rockettes). Then she goes into how you can bring the same aesthetics into your own surroundings (short of throwing confetti around your home).
She goes through the ten aesthetics chapter by chapter: energy, abundance, freedom, harmony, play, surprise, transcendence, magic, celebration, and renewal. She explains the psychology of why each one makes us grin like fools, gives examples, and tells stories.
This book made me want to buy plants, colorful paintings, mirrors, and more!
I dropped my rating to 3.5/5 because it did read a tad dry at certain points. I think the writing style is a little more formal than necessary, and sometimes she uses five words when two would do. I started to get a little impatient toward the end of the book. That being said, I learned a ton and would still recommend it!
The inside of the dust jacket is worth owning this book all on its own. Trust me.
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Rating: 4/5 | Anyone who reads a fair amount of nonfiction will tell you: Too many nonfiction books say pretty much nothing new. Refreshingly, When is not one of those books. I read it as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club. It taught me new things about myself and about the world and gave me real-life takeaways that I can implement. I only wish that it had been longer! (Click the post to read more.)
Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don't know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of "when" decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork.
Timing, it's often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science.
Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology, and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work, and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? Why should we avoid going to the hospital in the afternoon? Why is singing in time with other people as good for you as exercise? And what is the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers, or get married?
Author: Daniel Pink | Publisher: Riverhead Books
Rating: 4/5
“Afternoons are the Bermuda Triangles of our days. Across many domains, the trough represents a danger zone for productivity, ethics, and health.”
Anyone who reads a fair amount of nonfiction will tell you: Too many nonfiction books say pretty much nothing new. Refreshingly, When is not one of those books. I read it as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club. It taught me new things about myself and about the world and gave me real-life takeaways that I can implement. I only wish that it had been longer!
My favorite section was the one on chronotypes — aka whether you're an early bird, a night owl, or something in between. Pink makes the case for figuring out exactly how your body prefers to work naturally and catering to it. I'm most certainly an early bird (I'm writing this at 6:30am), and I've already started to make changes for productivity, like blocking off the mornings of my work calendar and moving recurring meetings to the afternoon so that I can take advantage of my most productive time.
The "nappuccino" is also really interesting. Pink advocates for drinking a cup of coffee and then taking a science-approved 25-minute afternoon nap. Apparently it takes about 25-30 minutes for coffee to hit your system, so by the time you wake up, you'll be double refreshed. What a cool idea.
This book isn't very long, but it's definitely worth your time.
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Motherer's Will to Survive
Rating: 4.5/5 | I love a well-written memoir, and this did not disappoint. Stephanie Land always knew she was meant to be a writer — she was right. Maid is well constructed, well written, and impactful. (Click the post to read more.)
"My daughter learned to walk in a homeless shelter."
While the gap between upper middle-class Americans and the working poor widens, grueling low-wage domestic and service work — primarily done by women — fuels the economic success of the wealthy. Stephanie Land worked for years as a maid, pulling long hours while struggling as a single mom to keep a roof over her daughter's head. In Maid, she reveals the dark truth of what it takes to survive and thrive in today's inequitable society.
While she worked hard to scratch her way out of poverty as a single parent, scrubbing the toilets of the wealthy, navigating domestic labor jobs, higher education, assisted housing, and a tangled web of government assistance, Stephanie wrote. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told. The stories of overworked and underpaid Americans.
Written in honest, heart-rending prose and with great insight, Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them. "I'd become a nameless ghost," Stephanie writes. With this book, she gives voice to the "servant" worker, those who fight daily to scramble and scrape by for their own lives and the lives of their children.
Author: Stephanie Land | Publisher: Hachette Books
Rating: 4.5/5
Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette for providing me with this book in exchange for a review! Maid is out January 22nd, 2019.
I love a well-written memoir, and this did not disappoint. Stephanie Land always knew she was meant to be a writer — she was right. Maid is well constructed, well written, and impactful.
One caveat: Stephanie is a white woman who struggled in a mostly white area of the United States. This book does not, nor does anything indicate that it intends to, speak for all single mothers in poverty. However, this privilege is also not explicitly recognized in the book.
Still, what it does do is paint a detailed picture of what it was like for Stephanie, and probably many others like her, to live through her circumstances. She had gotten pregnant accidentally during a non-serious fling with Jaime, who tried to convince her to abort. Then he became abusive. Once Stephanie managed to leave, she had nowhere to go — her family was either unable or unwilling to take her in. They were homeless.
She went from homeless shelter to low-income housing to another poor relationship to a moldy studio, etc. She did nothing but calculate how likely it was that they'd soon be homeless again at any given moment. She did her best to take care of her child, and she was also human. It's poignant.
The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviours that Transform Ordinary People into World Class Leaders
Rating: 2/5 | I read this book as one of the selections of the Next Big Idea Club, which I highly recommend if you like to read nonfiction. Unfortunately, though, I just didn't really get into this book. Maybe it's because I'm not at the point in my career where I'm looking for advice on how to become a CEO, but it just didn't hold my attention very well. (Click the post to read more.)
Everything you thought you knew about becoming a CEO is wrong. You must graduate from an elite college or business school. In fact, only 7 percent of the CEOs of today's companies went to a top school—and 8 percent didn't graduate from college at all. Never put a foot wrong. In fact, people who have become CEOs have on average had five to seven career setbacks on their way to the top.
Drawing on the biggest dataset of CEOs in the world—in-depth analysis of 2,600 leaders, drawn from a database of 17,000 CEOs, as well as 13,000 hours of interviews—The CEO Next Door is crammed full of myth-busting and counter-intuitive insights in what it really takes to get ahead. Discover the way actual CEOs of top companies think and behave, and the kind of traits to develop if you want to make your ambitions a reality and take your career right to the top.
Author: Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, with Tahl Raz
Rating: 2/5
I read this book as one of the selections of the Next Big Idea Club, which I highly recommend if you like to read nonfiction. Unfortunately, though, I just didn't really get into this book. Maybe it's because I'm not at the point in my career where I'm looking for advice on how to become a CEO, but it just didn't hold my attention very well.
The concept of the book is certainly interesting. The authors are C-suite headhunters who ran a research project with a ton of data points to find the qualities common to the most successful CEOs. Their research shows that many people can be (and are) good CEOS, not just the archetypes like Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. They break down the four main qualities and then give practical advice on how to hone these qualities in yourself. They also support their ideas with many, many examples of real people in real situations.
Here's what I think: These authors had so, so much data, and so, so many stories, and they really wanted to get as much of that in as possible. They could have put this information and advice into a long-form article and been just as convincing. But they would have had to take out some supporting stories and examples. I like stories and examples, but I think this just had too much.
Maybe if I had my eye on a CEO-shaped future, I would have been more engaged. But for me, it was just hard to stay engaged.
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Rating: 4.5/5 | There are a lot of nonfiction books out there, and so many of them are just okay. They put forth an idea in a book that could really be a long-form article; much of it is fluff. The Art of Gathering is NOT that. This book was refreshingly original, useful, and gosh darn interesting. (Click the post to read more.)
Every day we find ourselves in gatherings, Priya Parker says in The Art of Gathering. If we can understand what makes these gatherings effective and memorable, then we can reframe and redirect them to benefit everyone, host and guest alike. Parker defines a gathering as three or more people who come together for a specific purpose. When we understand why we gather, she says — to acknowledge, to learn, to challenge, to change — we learn how to organize gatherings that are relevant and memorable: from an effective business meeting to a thought-provoking conference; from a joyful wedding to a unifying family dinner. Drawing on her experience as a strategic facilitator who's worked with such organizations as the World Economic Forum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the retail company Fresh, Parker explains how ordinary people can create remarkable occasions, large and small. In dozens of fascinating examples, she breaks down the alchemy of these experiences to show what goes into the good ones and demonstrates how we can learn to incorporate those elements into all of our gatherings. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of big ideas with real-world applications that will change the way you look at a business meeting, a parent-teacher conference, and a backyard barbecue.
Author: Priya Parker
Rating: 4.5/5
There are a lot of nonfiction books out there, and so many of them are just okay. They put forth an idea in a book that could really be a long-form article; much of it is fluff. The Art of Gathering is NOT that. This book was refreshingly original, useful, and gosh darn interesting.
“We get lulled into the false belief that knowing the category of the gathering—the board meeting, workshop, birthday party, town hall—will be instructive to designing it. But we often choose the template—and the activities and structure that go along with it—before we’re clear on our purpose.”
Priya Parker is a professional facilitator; she designs and leads impactful events for a living. This is very different from what she dubs the "Martha Stewart approach" — this book has absolutely nothing to do with hors d'oeuvres presentation or decor. It's about how to structure an event or gathering with a purpose so that it's never just "okay." So that you don't waste your own or your guests' time by hosting it. So that awkward small talk et. al. can give way to impact (big or small).
I especially enjoyed the chapter on rules — things like no cell phones, no talking about work, or really anything that places conditions on attendance. She argues that at first, they may feel forced or burdensome, but when done well, they can give people space to experiment in something new. I'm not doing this justice; you have to read it for yourself.
I'm really glad that I read this book. I truly learned, and I thought about what I learned. And I plan to implement these ideas sooner rather than later!
Educated
Rating: 5/5 | I may be a little late to the party, but oh man — am I glad I came. I do read memoirs regularly, but this was unlike anything I've read before. It's hard to describe why, but it's just good. It's just really well written, really engaging, really fascinating, and really emotional. (Click the post to read more.)
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.
Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.
Author: Tara Westover
Rating: 5/5
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
I may be a little late to the party, but oh man — am I glad I came. I do read memoirs regularly, but this was unlike anything I've read before. It's hard to describe why, but it's just good. It's just really well written, really engaging, really fascinating, and really emotional.
Tara Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho in a secluded, traditionalist Mormon family who believed that the end of the world was coming and that doctors and public schools are evil. And yet she managed to pass the ACT (despite never having spent a single day in school), go to college, and then get a PhD from Cambridge. But the more she learned, the more distant she grew from the family she'd always known and loved.
“To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s.”
It's hard to read books like this, to realize that there are real people like this. But Westover never once comes across as boastful for having "escaped." She's calm and smart and warm. Impressed is not a strong enough word for how I feel about her writing, not to mention her strength and self-awareness.
Read this book. Trust me.
I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff
Rating: 4/5 | I checked this audiobook out of the library because it was Girls' Night In's December book club pick. Abbi narrated it herself, which is always great. (I highly recommend listening to memoirs when the author reads them.) The book was really personal, totally real, and a true delight to listen to. Oh, and definitely very funny. (Click the post to read more.)
When Abbi Jacobson announced to friends and acquaintances that she planned to drive across the country alone, she was met with lots of questions and opinions: Why wasn't she going with friends? Wouldn't it be incredibly lonely? The North route is better! Was it safe for a woman? The Southern route is the way to go! You should bring mace! And a common one… why? But Abbi had always found comfort in solitude, and needed space to step back and hit the reset button. As she spent time in each city and town on her way to Los Angeles, she mulled over the big questions — What do I really want? What is the worst possible scenario in which I could run into my ex? How has the decision to wear my shirts tucked in been pivotal in my adulthood?
In this collection of anecdotes, observations and reflections — all told in the sharp, wildly funny, and relatable voice that has endeared Abbi to critics and fans alike — readers will feel like they're in the passenger seat on a fun and, ultimately, inspiring journey. With some original illustrations by the author.
Author: Abbi Jacobson
Rating: 4/5
“The things we are most afraid of are the things that will ultimately change our whole makeup.”
I checked this audiobook out of the library because it was Girls' Night In's December book club pick. Abbi narrated it herself, which is always great. (I highly recommend listening to memoirs when the author reads them.) The book was really personal, totally real, and a true delight to listen to. Oh, and definitely very funny.
Basically, Abbi went through a devastating heartbreak and decided to go on a cross-country road trip by herself to try to heal. The book chronicles her trip with a bunch of anecdotes and other stories from her life thrown in. I marveled at the mastery with which Abbi strung everything together. I can't imagine taking stock of all those things she wanted to say and finding a way to weave them into the timeline of her roadtrip...but she did just that, and she did it in a way that feels seamless and keeps the readers engaged.
I've listened to a lot of memoirs, and I don't often feel like I'm friends with the author when I'm done. But I kind of feel that way now. She comes across warm, friendly, down-to-earth, and also like a boss. Absolutely worth your time, without question!
Becoming
Rating: 5/5 | What a truly fantastic memoir. You're probably hearing that from everyone who's read this book, and that's for good reason. Its beautiful prose and thoughtful structure make it an easy yet powerful read. (Click the post to read more.)
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African-American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.
Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Author: Michelle Obama
Rating: 5/5
“Let's invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.”
What a truly fantastic memoir. You're probably hearing that from everyone who's read this book, and that's for good reason. Its beautiful prose and thoughtful structure make it an easy yet powerful read.
The book is broken into three parts: "Becoming Me," "Becoming Us," and "Becoming More." "Becoming Me" chronicles Michelle's childhood and family upbringing, from when she was very small until she was a young lawyer after grad school. "Becoming Us" follows Michelle and Barack's relationship, marriage, and the presidency. And "Becoming More" goes from relatively recent events through the present.
Every bit of this book was fascinating. I knew very little about Michelle's family or upbringing other than that she grew up in Chicago, and now I know just how beautiful it was. I also knew little about the Obamas' early marriage, and now I know that was beautiful as well. But those things were challenging too, and her transparency about them is poignant.
All in all, this isn't a memoir to be missed. It's worth every bit of the praise it's received, and I'm really glad that I got the hardcover to add to my shelves.
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
Rating: 5/5 | I listened to this audiobook in the week or so leading up to the 2018 midterms, and I actually had it in my ears as I voted. I finished it that evening, before the elections were decided. That was an excellent choice. (Click the post to read more.)
In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Women’s March, and before the #MeToo movement, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic—but politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded women’s slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men.
With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel—from suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel—as is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions.
Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traister’s latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.
Author: Rebecca Traister
Rating: 5/5
"...Senator Mitchell's approach had been 'Let's keep things under control, under control.' The women's insistence they get to talk, that they got to insisted that Hill get to tell her story, was the moment that George Mitchell lost control.
Yes, things were out of control. That was the point. Because control was when no one was able to report the story of Harvey Weinstein raping women; control was Donald Trump getting elected president, thanks to voter suppression and the electoral college systems designed to suppress, and better control, nonwhite populations. Control was the unchallenged reigns of Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby. Control was women being too terrified to defy Eric Schneiderman by telling of how he hit them; control was ensuring that no one cared about the abuses sustained by Ford factory employees or flight attendants; control was all male presidents and vice presidents; control was only two black women senators and no black women governors in the history of the country; control was marital rape being legal to the seventies; control was slavery and locking women in unsafe shirtwaist factories. Control was Jordan Peterson's Taoist white serpent, thrust at us against our will."
I listened to this audiobook in the week or so leading up to the 2018 midterms, and I actually had it in my ears as I voted. I finished it that evening, before the elections were decided. That was an excellent choice.
Traister does a great job of picking back through our country's history, calling attention to the ways women's anger shaped the world. She acknowledges all the hesitations women feel around their angry emotions, picks them apart, and helps you to see that they are, in fact, okay.
This book is not a rallying cry to anger. She is not trying to make women angrier or convince them to go on tirades through the streets. Instead, she reminds you that the tirade you already want to go on is justified and normal and could actually have an impact, and that women (mostly black women; shout out to the black women for real) have been going on tirades to make change for centuries. She has facts and anecdotes and she's powerful and convincing.
I think what I learned the most from this book was that, as a white woman, my anger is new. But women's anger is not new. Women of color and women in oppressed groups have been angry for a long time, and they know what they're doing. So we don't need to build a new fight; we simply need to join theirs.
This was my favorite quote, and the one that I remembered as I went to bed while they were still counting the ballots:
“Consider Shirley Chisholm, who cried when she was mad, and who didn’t win. She lost. And yet. She pulled Barbara Lee into politics. Barbara Lee, who was the only person in Congress to vote against the AUMF, which she has been trying to repeal ever since; a fight she has also lost. Barbara Lee, who pioneered a bill in 2015 that would overturn the Hyde Amendment—a major step forward for poor women on an issue that no one had dared to touch since the 1970s. Lee’s bill went nowhere. But enthusiasm for her efforts would help opposition to Hyde to find its way into the presidential agenda of Hillary Clinton. Who lost. And whose loss helped spur the entry of perhaps tens of thousands of women into electoral politics and provoked this country to take women’s experiences of sexual harassment seriously for the first time. Some of those women will lose, too. But that will not be the end of the story either.”
Calypso
Rating: 3.5/5 | Calypso was delightful. I listened to the audiobook, actually, which I love to do with nonfiction because the author usually reads it. Listening to Sedaris read his books is especially fantastic, and this one was no different. To parrot what literally the entire rest of the world says, he is hilarious and very real. (Click the post to read more.)
David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book. If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.
When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.
With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny—it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.
Author: David Sedaris
Rating: 4/5
“Increasingly at Southern airports, instead of a 'good-bye' or 'thank-you,' cashiers are apt to say, 'Have a blessed day.' This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne. 'Get it off me!' I always want to scream. 'Quick, before I start wearing ties with short-sleeved shirts!'”
Calypso was delightful. I listened to the audiobook, actually, which I love to do with nonfiction because the author usually reads it. Listening to Sedaris read his books is especially fantastic, and this one was no different. To parrot what literally the entire rest of the world says, he is hilarious and very real.
In Calypso, Sedaris focuses on the themes of getting older—what that does to both yourself and your family. The stories often come back to "The Sea Section," a small beach house he and Hugh bought so that the family could vacation there. The book's construction comes across cohesive and charming.
My favorite essay was the one where he talked about all the different ways people swear during their road rage across the world. It actually made me guffaw out loud while I was in the car with my husband, but my second-hand explanation of the joke fell flat. (Apparently I'm not David Sedaris, who knew?)
Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech
Rating: 3.75/5 | This was a really interesting book with a great concept. Gluckman, who works in the tech industry herself and found herself really waking up to the gender issues within it, set out on a mission to interview some tech powerwomen. (Click the post to read more.)
It is no secret that the technical world is a male-dominated space. From the cultural belief that Computer Science is a “subject for boys”, to the assumptions and discrimination women experience in the field, it can be challenging for women at every stage to thrive in tech careers.
Nevertheless, some high-performing women persist and succeed as leaders in tech despite the gender biases pitted against them. Pratima Rao Gluckman—a female leader in tech herself—embarked on a project to collect stories of the leadership journeys of such women. She wanted to know the details of these women’s stories, and how they accomplished their achievements. What influenced them during their childhoods? Who were their mentors? What successes and failures did they experience? What magical ingredients helped them thrive in a male‑dominated industry?
These questions and more inspired Gluckman to interview nineteen women leaders in several levels of technology industry, including VPs, CEOs and directors, all of which are collected in this groundbreaking book, Nevertheless, She Persisted. Whether you are a young woman thinking of a career in software, a middle-career or executive woman, a parent, or a man curious about the role gender plays in tech, this book reveals the secrets, successes, and hidden struggles that women have endured to become both highly accomplished in their technical skills and effective senior leaders in their organizations. Their stories are illuminating, intended to inspire generations of women and help free our society from the limiting belief that ability is somehow linked to gender.
Author: Pratima Rao Gluckman
Rating: 3.75/5
Thank you to the author and publishers for providing me a free copy of this book so that I may have the opportunity to review it!
This was a really interesting book with a great concept. Gluckman, who works in the tech industry herself and found herself really waking up to the gender issues within it, set out on a mission to interview some tech powerwomen. She was looking to tell them world about their experiences, including both how they got to where they are today and how they feel about gender issues in the tech industry.
It took me a little while to settle into this book and allow it to claim my attention, but once I did, I found myself intrigued by these women. Each chapter features a different interviewee (19 in total) and follows roughly the same format. This got a little tedious after a while—I wish Gluckman had varied the structure a bit from chapter to chapter—but not enough to make me put the book down. I also liked how Gluckman provided these women in a story style rather than a question-and-answer style, and I liked that she inserted her own thoughts, opinions, and reactions along the way.
One of my biggest pieces of discontent about this book has to do with intersectionality. There were white women, Asian women, Indian women, and even Israeli women, but no black women. There were also no LGBTQIA+ women/individuals. There was plenty of talk about husbands and finding a supportive partner, but nothing inclusive there. Not even an throwaway admission that heterosexual couples aren't the only type. I understand that Gluckman chose these women largely out of her own network, but a little effort here would have gone a long way.
All in all, I liked the book and found myself interested and motivated by it. I'm not sure whether it will reach or engage it's target audience, but I would encourage young women interested in or just beginning a career in tech to give it a shot.
Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America
Rating: 5/5 | Zachary Wood is an impressive person. He wrote his memoir like he lives his life: free of judgment, open to interpersonal connection, assertive but not aggressive, and with plenty of room for the reader to maintain his or her dignity and opinion. He seeks to understand, to connect, to challenge assumptions, and to broaden both his and his readers' understanding of the world. (Click the post to read more.)
As the president of the student group Uncomfortable Learning at Williams College, Zachary Wood knows all about intellectual controversy. From John Derbyshire to Charles Murray, there's no one Zach refuses to debate or engage with simply because he disagrees with their beliefs—sometimes vehemently so—and this controversial view has given him a unique platform on college campuses and in the media.
But Zach has never shared the details of his own personal story, and how he came to be a crusader for open dialogue and free speech. In Uncensored, he reveals for the first time how he grew up poor and black in Washington, DC, in an environment where the only way to survive was to resist the urge to write people off because of their backgrounds and their perspectives.
By sharing his troubled upbringing—from a difficult early childhood filled with pain, uncertainty, and conflict to the struggles of code-switching between his home in a rough neighborhood and his elite private school—Zach makes a compelling argument for a new way of interacting with others, in a nation and a world that has never felt more polarized. In Uncensored, he hopes to foster a new outlook on society's most difficult conversations, both on campus and beyond.
Author: Zachary Wood
Rating: 5/5
"Without [the exceptional circumstances that allowed me upward mobility], my life would likely have been just like the other kids' in Bellevue. I could have had a dad in prison, a mom who was desperately trying to make it and didn't have the time or energy to give me love and support, and teachers who were sick and tired of my black ass and just wanted me to sit down and be quiet. The drugs, the violence, and the hostility—that was years of oppression and accumulated disadvantages coming out. I knew where that came from. Despite my relative advantages, I felt it every day. But I was also determined to make the most of my unique opportunities and hopefully use them one day to make a difference. And I could do that only by avoiding the traps that were laid at every turn for me and all the other kids like me."
Zachary Wood is an impressive person. He wrote his memoir like he lives his life: free of judgment, open to interpersonal connection, assertive but not aggressive, and with plenty of room for the reader to maintain his or her dignity and opinion. He seeks to understand, to connect, to challenge assumptions, and to broaden both his and his readers' understanding of the world.
Zach grew up in his mother's house. She had significant mental health issues and was both physically and emotionally abusive. Nevertheless, Zach learned to read early and escaped into books. But not fiction—instead, he learned anything and everything he could. Even after he left his mother's house, he drove himself into the ground (literally) trying to learn, to make himself useful, to be helpful, to defy stereotypes, to change the world. I have never met anyone in my life with a work ethic like Zach's. It is hard to even believe.
Once he got to Williams College, he became involved with a student group called Uncomfortable Learning. Under his leadership, the group sought to bring speakers to campus who held radically conservative viewpoints—the most extreme of the extreme. His fellow students fought him tooth and nail, wishing to protect the safe space their campus had become for them. But he wanted to debate, to push everyone to think harder and deeper. This did not often make him popular, but it did make a statement. It also brought him national attention.
Zach states several times in his book that he wants to run for President one day. I hope he does; while I obviously can't decide whether I'd vote for him just by reading this book, his willingness to debate both sides of an argument and his ability to do so in a smart, respectful, effective way is sorely needed in the Democratic Party.
I tore through his memoir in just one day. It reads very well, and it opened my eyes to a perspective and set of experiences that my privileged upbringing never exposed me to. That alone is worth the time to read this book.
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions
Rating: 5/5 | Tell Me How It Ends is a short, concise, but hard-hitting work of literary nonfiction. It made me think about an issue that I haven't let myself think about to deeply, and it humanized it more than numbers and statistics ever could. This will only take you a few hours to read. Do it. (Click the post to read more.}
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear both here and back home.
Author: Valeria Luiselli
Rating: 5/5
"I hear words, spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives. They are delivered with hesitance, sometimes distrust, always with fear. I have to transform them into written words, succinct sentences, and barren terms. The children’s stories are always shuffled, stuttered, always shattered beyond the repair of a narrative order. The problem with trying to tell their story is that it has no beginning, no middle, and no end."
Tell Me How It Ends is a short, concise, but hard-hitting work of literary nonfiction. It made me think about an issue that I haven't let myself think about to deeply, and it humanized it more than numbers and statistics ever could. This will only take you a few hours to read. Do it.
"Rapes: eighty percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border are raped on the way. The situation is so common that most of them take contraceptive precautions as they begin the journey north."
Valeria Luiselli began volunteering as an interpreter for Latin-American children facing deportation, helping the nonprofit organizations who aid these children understand their stories in an effort to put together a legal defense to help them stay. These organizations have put together a 40-question intake form that attempts to gather the most useful information. It does allow them to begin to help as quickly as possible, but it's not perfect; with only a few weeks to find these children lawyers and put together a viable defense, most of the details from these children's experiences can't get captured on a form.
"They’ve fled their towns and cities; they’ve walked and swum and hidden and run and mounted freight trains and trucks. They’ve turned themselves in to Border Patrol officers. They’ve come all this way looking for—for what, exactly? The questionnaire doesn’t make these other inquiries. But it does ask for precise details: 'When did you enter the United States?'"
Luiselli is Mexican, and she has by now interpreted for many, many children who lived and fought through literal hell to get to the United States. She has heard these children's stories, and she feels the details deeply. She is in a unique position to write this book. It's riveting, profound, and insightful.
"No one suggests that the causes are deeply embedded in our shared hemispheric history and are therefore not some distant problem in a foreign country that no one can locate on a map, but in fact a trans national problem that includes the United States—not as a distant observer or passive victim that must now deal with thousands of unwanted children arriving at the southern border, but rather as an active historical participant in the circumstances that generated that problem....There is little said, for example, of arms being trafficked from the United States into Mexico or Central America, legally or not; little mention of the fact that the consumption of drugs in the United States is what fundamentally fuels drug trafficking in the continent."
I have no critique of this book. Thank you, Valeria Luiselli, for opening my eyes and my heart a little bit wider.
New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World—and How to Make It Work for You
Rating: 4/5 | New Power was a fascinating look at one of the many ways the world is changing. It offers a study of "old power" vs "new power" and suggests ways they can be used strategically together to help effect positive change. The old vs. new dichotomy is straightforward and makes a complex situation easier to understand. They also picked great examples to help illustrate their points. (Click the post to read more.)
Why do some leap ahead while others fall behind in our chaotic, connected age? In New Power, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms confront the biggest stories of our time—the rise of mega-platforms like Facebook and Uber; the out-of-nowhere victories of Obama and Trump; the unexpected emergence of movements like #MeToo—and reveal what's really behind them: the rise of "new power."
For most of human history, the rules of power were clear: power was something to be seized and then jealously guarded. This "old power" was out of reach for the vast majority of people. But our ubiquitous connectivity makes possible a different kind of power. "New power" is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It works like a current, not a currency—and it is most forceful when it surges. The battle between old and new power is determining who governs us, how we work, and even how we think and feel.
New Power shines fresh light on the cultural phenomena of our day, from #BlackLivesMatter to the Ice Bucket Challenge to Airbnb, uncovering the new power forces that made them huge. Drawing on examples from business, activism, and pop culture, as well as the study of organizations like Lego, NASA, Reddit, and TED, Heimans and Timms explain how to build new power and channel it successfully. They also explore the dark side of these forces: the way ISIS has co-opted new power to monstrous ends, and the rise of the alt-right's "intensity machine."
In an era increasingly shaped by new power, this groundbreaking book offers us a new way to understand the world--and our role in it.
Authors: Jeremy Heimans, Henry Timms
Rating: 4/5
“A key dynamic in the world today is the mutual incomprehension between those raised in the Tetris tradition and those with a Minecraft mindset.”
New Power was a fascinating look at one of the many ways the world is changing. It offers a study of "old power" vs "new power" and suggests ways they can be used strategically together to help effect positive change. The old vs. new dichotomy is straightforward and makes a complex situation easier to understand. They also picked great examples to help illustrate their points.
"Old power" is Apple: A company decides what is best for us, and then they control, market, and sell it. "New power" is Lyft or Airbnb: The crowd creates, manages, and distributes the product. The crowd is the product. "Old power" is the government (ineffectively) telling you not to drink and drive. "New power" is Black Lives Matter growing organically, without a prominent leader.
What I really liked about this book was that while it would have been easy for them, in today's political climate, to categorize old power as "bad" and new power as "good," they didn't. That would be unrealistic and not very useful. What they discover in their analysis of the way the world works today is that both types of power have uses in different situations. How and when to use each one is not a matter of right vs. wrong, but rather of timing and circumstance.
I think this book is especially useful to people who work in marketing, nonprofit, or another industry or role in which they are responsible for affecting the masses to achieve a noble end. Thinking about your toolbox in terms of old and new power is useful and actionable.
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate
Rating: 3/5 | They Myth of the Nice Girl was a quick read with some actionable tips, and I'm glad I read it. Fran Hauser is articulate and comes across warmly, and she has done her homework when it comes to backing up her points. At the end of the day, this book is one of those that takes a lot of things you probably know intuitively and puts them together in a way that feels useful and helps you steer your own actions. (Click the post to read more.)
In The Myth of the Nice Girl, Fran Hauser deconstructs the negative perception of "niceness" that many women struggle with in the business world. If women are nice, they are seen as weak and ineffective, but if they are tough, they are labeled a bitch.
Hauser proves that women don’t have to sacrifice their values or hide their authentic personalities to be successful. Sharing a wealth of personal anecdotes and time-tested strategies, she shows women how to reclaim “nice” and sidestep regressive stereotypes about what a strong leader looks like. Her accessible advice and hard-won wisdom detail how to balance being empathetic with being decisive, how to rise above the double standards that can box you in, how to cultivate authentic confidence that projects throughout a room, and much more.
The Myth of the Nice Girl is a refreshing dose of forward-looking feminism that will resonate with smart, professional women who know what they want and are looking for real advice to take their career to the next level without losing themselves in the process.
Author: Fran Hauser
Rating: 3/5
I’m describing a woman who cares deeply about other people and who wants to connect with them, who is guided by a strong sense of values to do the right thing. She is considerate, respectful, and kind. There’s a warmth and magnetism about her that draws people to her side and makes them feel good in her presence. At work, she’s fair, collaborative, and generous. Instead of competing against other women, she elevates them by sharing the credit for a job well done. She has a deep, unshakable confidence that there are plenty of opportunities to go around.
There were a few points in the book, however, where I feel like the advice was rushed and shallow. For instance, when speaking about owning your accomplishments, she says, "Why not submit yourself to be included on an appropriate list or even for an industry award? This is a simple strategy you can use to get credit for your hard work that can potentially lead to a host of opportunities." To me, submitting myself for some sort of industry award doesn't feel simple at all. It feels like a long shot and a lot of work for very little chance of success. That doesn't mean it isn't a good idea, but it's certainly not "simple."
One point Hauser made that resonated with me was the idea of offering to help. I am an empathetic person, and I find myself asking coworkers who seem to have a lot on their plate, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" I always thought this was a good way to offer my help and show that I'm a team player. But Hauser posits that to be truly helpful, you should ask if you can help by completing a specific task you know they need done. Otherwise, finding something for you to do becomes just another task they need to complete: "Offering to help is nice, but without volunteering to take on a definite and specific task, it puts the onus on the other person." This stopped me in my tracks. I'll be adopting this technique going forward.
I also liked her advice on confidence vs cockiness:
True confidence is not something that you are simply born with. It’s a skill you can develop by paying close attention to your successes in life and how you accomplished them. This purposeful self-reflection will result in the type of evidence-based confidence that does not come across as arrogant or pushy. On the other hand, when someone is full of self-importance and walks around believing that they are just generally wonderful without seeming to need real evidence to back it up, well, that’s not confidence—that’s just ego.
She went on to provide some techniques you can use to help reflect on your past successes when you most need it. I love this idea, too.The book is full of nuggets like this, it just takes a bit of digging to get to them. In the end, I do recommend it for young professional women like me.
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
Rating: 4/5 | This book was a quick, actionable, engaging read that left me feeling inspired to set goals and then go achieve them. Doerr is a leader in his field, and he writes clearly and confidently. (Click the post to read more.)
In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered.
Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked.
In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization.
The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention.
In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.
Author: John Doerr
Rating: 4/5
“We must realize—and act on the realization—that if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.”
This book was a quick, actionable, engaging read that left me feeling inspired to set goals and then go achieve them. Doerr is a leader in his field, and he writes clearly and confidently.
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It is a way of defining a) where you're going and b) the intermediate steps that can be measured so you know you're on your way there. This can help everyone in an organization understand true priorities and goals, and it makes it easier to choose what to spend your precious time working on.
You start with your objective and then list the key results that must happen in order to obtain that objective:
Objective: Growprofits in Q3
Key Result: Increase sales by 10%
Key Result: Trim expenses by 5%
Key Result: Get 1,000 new customers
In a company, those key results can then move down the funnel:
Objective: Increase sales by 10% (formerly a key result)
Key Result: Send sales team members on 3 sales call per day
Key Result: Achieve 10% return on advertising spend
Key Result: Decrease conversion processing time by 25%
I really liked the structure of the book. The concept of OKRs is pleasingly simple to grasp—that's kind of the point, after all—so Doerr doesn't need to spend chapters and chapters helping you get it. Instead, he lets other leaders speak for themselves, telling of the ways their own organizations use OKRs, the challenges they faced along the way, and the results they achieved. These aren't simple endorsements; they're complex examples that really shed light on everything Doerr teaches.
As I read, my mind kept wandering to ways I can better use OKRs in my own career and life. And what more do you want from a book like this?