Four Stars

Best for:
Anyone with some interest in world history, or Icelandic history.

In a nutshell:
Author Bjarnason provides a condensed (and at times humorous) history of Iceland.

Worth quoting:
“…claim, respectively, that Icelander live for up to 150 to 300 years — because of the pure climate, or course. Which I’d say is fair reasoning: the human body is organic, and we all know that vegetables and other organic things last longer in the fridge.”

“Few countries are as vulnerable to global warming as Iceland. Glaciers have retreated by about 850 square miles since the end of the nineteenth century…”

Why I chose it:
I have a goal of spending one year living in Iceland. I visited in summer 2018 for four days and absolutely loved it, and have been trying to sort out how to return ever since.

Review:
Aside from transiting through the airport a handful of times, I didn’t get to properly visit Iceland until about four years ago. We stayed outside of Reykjavik, and visited a few of the amazing natural wonders, such as Gullfoss and where the continental plates meet. I’m pretty desperate to visit in the winter and see the Northern Lights. If you read my book reviews, you also know that I’m a fan of the crime novels that the nation has produced. So naturally when I saw this book I figured I would need to read it, and I’m so glad I did.

This is not a book of anecdotes or cute facts to share at parties. But it contains many of them. It’s a chronology that follows many hundreds of years of life on that very small island at the top of Europe, known to many outside of it as the place with the volcano that stopped air travel in 2010, or the place with the men’s football team that knocked England out of the Euros in 2016 (despite having a very tiny pool to draw players from). Maybe it’s known to you as the place where that Will Farrell / Rachel McAdams Eurovision movie was set, or where they filmed parts of Game of Thrones?

However you might know about Iceland, this book will likely teach you things you didn’t know. For example, did you know that a woman from Iceland reached North America about 500 years before that genocidal asshole Columbus? Or that Iceland played a role in the creation of Israel? That it featured in the space race and the Cold War?

Bjarnason is a great writer, making history interesting. I was able to picture every era and place he described, and I chuckled quite a few times as he wove his factual accounts with a little bit of humor. Books like this can be tricky to pull off, but he does it and does it well.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend and Keep

Rating: 3 Stars

Best for:
Fans of Constance Wu. People interested in learning about the impact of different aspects of Hollywood on actors.

In a nutshell:
Actress Wu shares stories from her life, mostly focusing on her non-famous time.

Worth quoting:
N/A (Audiobook)

Why I chose it:
I only know Wu from her starring role in Crazy Rich Asians, but this sounded interesting.

Review:
This is a book I find hard to review. I want to commend Wu for how open and honest she is, and how she confronts challenges she’s faced as well as times when she hasn’t acted in the way one would want. Basically, I don’t think she’s sugar-coated anything here. She’s vulnerable, and doesn’t make herself the ‘good guy’ all the time, but she has enough self-awareness where she doesn’t come across as oblivious to any damage her actions may have caused.

That said, I generally wasn’t that interesting in the stories she was telling. That isn’t to say the pieces of herself she chose to share were uninteresting or bad – they just weren’t quite for me. Hence the middling rating.

I do think this is a well-written book. I think I actually might have enjoyed it better had I read it instead of hearing the author read it, because at times it felt like she was acting the stories (intentionally at times), which was leading me to a specific feeling. With a written book, I think there’s a bit more opportunity for the reader to make their own interpretations and conclusions. Though, thinking more on it – is that appropriate for a memoir? Does my opinion of things really matter? It’s not my life, after all.

The aspect that most reviews have focused on was the harassment she faced from a producer while working on Fresh Off the Boat, and her suicidal period after being harassed off Twitter for expressing disappointment at the series being renewed. And those bits are infuriating for sure. But I think her vulnerability around her relationships is also interesting – her romantic relationships, her relationship with her mother, and her relationship with her younger sister. They are complex and complicated situations, and she navigates them without always making herself sound like a victim – she has agency, and sometimes makes good decisions and sometimes doesn’t.

I’m not sure if I would recommend this book, but if it’s on your TBR list, I’d imagine you’ll probably find it a worthwhile read.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
N/A (Audiobook)

Three Stars

Best for:
People with pretty serious anxiety

In a nutshell:
The authors, who I gather have created a support community for people with anxiety, offer their take on a variety of aspects of anxiety, including causes, treatments, management, and medications.

Worth quoting:
“What can happen is very different from what probably will happen.”

Why I chose it:
I am a catastrophizing worrier, and I’d rather not be? Or at least, not be to the point that it doesn’t, like, interfere with my life. Which it doesn’t dramatically, but enough to be noticeable and obnoxious.

Review:
I’m not sure exactly what to write about this book. First off, I’m not clear how much of the background of the authors means I should trust the chapters where they talk about causes of anxiety. Like, I have no reason to doubt them, but they are unknown entities to me, so no idea. There are, at least, lots of references, so I could dive into them to see if they support the statements the authors are making, which is more than some books provide.

There are loads of different suggestions which I could see being very helpful to a lot of people. Nothing was brand new to me, but it was good to be reminded of some tools out there that exist. For that reason, part of me wants to hold onto the book, but mostly I think that I just am going to take a couple of photos / notes and then move on.

I’m not sure what I wanted this book to be, so that’s why I’ve rated it smack in the middle. It might be a great book if its what the reader wants. It might be not great if the information isn’t all thoroughly fact-checked. I don’t think it’s harmful, and is on balance probably helpful to some people, so that’s a good thing. Just not for me.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it

3 Stars

Best for:
People who like a real good revenge story, but also something a little different.

In a nutshell:
Bella Mackie is picking off her family, one by one. The twist? Most of them don’t even know she’s related to them.

Worth quoting:
“Tell me if the person I’ve fallen in love with seems like a monster. List the ways. Do a deep dive into it, make graphs. I want all the information.”

“The only thing worse than someone who enthusiastically devours all pop culture and spews it up … is someone who takes pride in not understanding new trends. You’re not better than that. You don’t get points for deliberately trying to avoid learning about what’s happening around you.”

Why I chose it:
I’ve seen it a few times in bookshops and finally decided to pick it up.

Review:
The book drew me in from the first page, because it starts unexpectedly. I’m going to gloss over that part and provide a bit about the high-level plot and discuss the narrator Grace. Grace is the one who is killing her ‘family.’ Her dad cheated on his wife with her mother, and then denied Grace’s existence while Grace and her mother Marie lived in a studio.

Grace is pissed about it, and I get that. So she spend time planning to basically wipe out the family. Which is made a bit easier because her dad is very well-known, and thus his family is easy to track.

Grace is not a good person. She doesn’t pretend to be, and she knows that killing a bunch of people puts her on the wrong side of moral. But she’s also a bit insufferable, which makes it both easy to root for her to try to right some wrongs, but also makes it easy to remember that, um, killing is also super wrong. Grace is the worst kind of judgmental – she thinks pretty much everyone is less intelligent than her, and really any choice any person could make is ripe for the mocking. Not outwardly – she’s very good at blending into the scenery when she wants to. But her inner monologue is snarky and her social commentary at times feels a bit like someone trying to sound cool on Reddit.

The book itself is well-written – I kept reading it and wanting to read it, and had to force myself not to pick it up before bed last night because I knew I’d just stay up too late reading it. As it was, I finished it in three days, and one of those days I was working.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it (I don’t tend to keep fiction books around, but I hope whoever picks this up at the free library at my Tube station enjoys it as much as I did)

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of well-written and insightful autobiographies of public figures.

In a nutshell:
Actress and author Driver shares the details of a few stories that provide the reader with real insight into her life.

Worth quoting:
I listened so didn’t take down any particular phrases, but there were definitely multiple times I had a strong positive reaction to something she shared.

Why I chose it:
On one level, I’m a bit of a fan in that I think she is fantastic in Grosse Pointe Blank. On another, I have vague memories of claims that Matt Damon broke up with her on Oprah, and I was sort of hoping maybe she’s touch on that? (Spoiler: she does, in the classiest way possible.)

Review:
What an absolutely lovely autobiography. Given I’ve listened to some this year that left me a bit wanting in terms of both the quality of the writing and the choice of stories shared, I was a slightly hesitant, and thought perhaps this was no longer my genre of choice. Driver’s writing put all concerns to rest, as she provides a well-written, well-edited, and well-read (seriously, get the audio version she reads herself) collection of essays that provide insight into a privileged life. And even with that privilege, I didn’t get the sense ever that she was out of touch, or unaware of how lucky she has been in some aspects of her life. She seems to have a strong sense of self, and that comes across in this book.

The book isn’t just about her time as an actress – in fact it starts with a story about her being a bit of a brat as a child. I’d say nearly half the book is about her childhood, and the stories are fascinating. She doesn’t go from episode to episode – she seems to have carefully selected things that for her represent an important time and story in her life. There are just a handful of chapters, and each chapter is pretty narrowly focused, so don’t expect to get her literal life story.

She obviously does discuss her career, but I’d say it’s maybe 1/3 of the book max? The final chapter is heart-wrenching and beautiful, covering the short illness and death of her mother.

As with any memoir, I have no idea what was left out, how truthful the stories are, etc. But I get a sense that Driver has shared a lot of herself, and while it’s obviously not all of herself, it doesn’t feel censored or self-edited in an untrue way. I don’t ‘know’ Driver in any real way, but the book makes me feel now that I do, just a little bit, and I appreciate her contribution to this genre.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend

Four Stars

Best for:
Those who are interested in being more intentional with their time and attention.

In a nutshell:
Artist and author Odell explores ways to be more intentional with our time, and how that relates to community and environment.

Worth quoting:
“That tiny, glowing world of metrics cannot compare to this one, which speaks to me instead in breezes, light and shadow, and the unruly, indescribably detail of the real.”

“The impulse to say goodbye to it all, permanently, doesn’t just neglect our responsibility to the world that we live in; it is largely unfeasible, and for good reason.”

“What is needed, then, is not a ‘once-and-for-all’ type of quitting but ongoing training: the ability not just to withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity.”

Why I chose it:
The cover kept jumping out at me in bookshops, and then I read something where this was recommended, so figured that was enough to pick it up.

Review:
This is one of those books where the ‘worth quoting’ section could have gone on for pages and pages. Odell is a talented writer, and the book is filled with poetic phrases and insightful paragraphs that get the reader thinking critically about one’s place in the world, the choices one makes, and the impact one has on the community and environment around them.

The book is laid out in six strong chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter, ‘A Case for Nothing,’ makes the argument that we need the space in between, the silence, to think and live and contemplate. And while this ‘nothing’ is often seen as a luxury, she argues that it shouldn’t be – that we all need this time and ability to not have to be productive, to be active, to be consuming.

The second chapter explores the sort of knee-jerk reaction I know that I’ve seen in books that might be considered similar to this one – lets just leave it all behind and retreat forever. But Odell points out that not only is this not feasible for most, it’s not actually what we should be doing, because we owe something to our communities and to those we would leave behind.

From there, her third chapters explores different ways that people have exercised their right and need to withdraw their attention from where the current economy demands we focus it: social media, capitalism, overall ‘productivity’ in the sense of doing doing doing. After making the case of ways to fight against these strains on our time and attention, she then spends a chapter exploring how to engage our attention in other ways. It’s not about finding the right app to limit screen time; it’s about being intentional and recognizing that where we fix our attention creates our reality.

The last parts of the book focus on community, environment, space and time. I could be more specific, but I’m still processing what I’ve read. I didn’t expect the book to look so heavily at environment and ecology, but that is a consistent theme, and the fact that Odell is an avid bird-watchers plays heavy into the analogies she provides. She then wraps up discussing the idea she calls ‘manifest dismantling;’ that is, looking at ways communities have deconstructed the mistakes of their place that have disconnected them from nature and the world around them.

I think my review might suggest this book is all over the place, but it’s not. There’s just so much to contemplate, it’s one of those books that I would have loved to read as part of a book club so we could have discussed each chapter in depth. Regardless, I know this one will stick with me.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep

Two Stars

Best for:
I am not going to recommend this to anyone, though I could imagine that perhaps fans of Jordan Peterson might find this to be right for them? Not for any specific reason, just a feeling I have.

In a nutshell:
The best I can describe this is as the book form of one of those personality tests management consultants rely on that don’t have any backing in science and yet very confidently reduces everyone down to a series of dichotomies.

Worth quoting:
Nope.

Why I chose it:
This is how The School of Life (authors of this book) describes itself: “We are a passionate group of people devoted to psychology, philosophy, therapy, art and culture – and on a mission to build exemplary tools that bring about growth, calm and self-understanding.” Sounds fairly up my alley, especially the philosophy aspect. Turns out, not so much.

Review:
There are a few different perspectives out in the world on the concepts of ‘nice’ and ‘kind,’ but most of the ones I tend to agree with are those that view ‘nice’ as a sort of outwardly performance, whereas kindness is an action that shows caring for someone else. It’s fascinating to me that the authors chose to focus on being nice, and not kind, but in reading this book, I’m not even sure they got that right.

This book seems to be deeply invested in archetypes and the idea that in every category of being, people are either a or b, and these types are both diametrically opposed to each other and also not entirely sophisticated or deep. And somehow at the same time, each of these types within a category had me saying ‘what?’, ‘huh?’, or ‘how on earth did you come to that conclusion?’

For example – they talk about people who are Polite vs people who are Frank and that this stems from ‘a contrasting set of beliefs about human nature.’ Huh? What? After reading the chapter, I’m still not entirely sure what they mean, but nearly everything I wrote in the margins was some version of ‘that doesn’t make any sense’ or ‘show your work.’ Similarly, the chapter that talks about shyness – YIKES. Deeply insulting and just unnecessarily weird.

The book also talks about the value of flirting (what? why?) and offers some suggestions about how to be a friend. The latter isn’t entirely void of interesting and possibly helpful suggestions; basically just enough to keep me from assigning this book one star instead of two. But overall, it feels almost like an alien was given a few books to read and movies to watch, and then asked to write a book on human behavior based on that very limited experience.

I think perhaps the authors were meaning to write a book on how to be the sort of person other people might want to be friends with? Maybe? It still wouldn’t be a book I’d recommend, but this version just makes very little sense to me, and where it is coherent, it’s not backed up with any support.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Toss it (along with another book by the same organization that I won’t even attempt to read)

Three Stars

Best for:
Fans of either The Office TV show, or The Office Ladies podcast

In a nutshell:
Jenna ‘Pam’ Fischer and Angela ‘Angela’ Kinsey share stories of their time on The Office, which led to them becoming best friends.

Worth quoting:
N/A (audio book)

Why I chose it:
It was suggested by Audible and sounded fun

Review:
I didn’t watch The Office when it was on – I mean, I’m sure I saw episodes of it at the time but it wasn’t a show I regularly tuned in for. Some of it is just too cringe for me – my secondhand embarrassment is very easily set off – but some of it is really sweet. Once the show ended I watched it on streaming.

The book hits on exactly what I think any fan of a TV show wants. Behind the scenes gossip, interesting little nuggets about different famous episodes, deep dives into the main fictional relationships. This one also has the added bonus of learning about the real-life friendship of the two authors.

Unsurprisingly if you are familiar with these two actresses, the gossip is all kind and sweet. It sounds like everyone who worked on the show was just lovely. Really the only time there’s any tension is when discussing the fact that the show (I’m assuming the network, NBC) provided no maternity leave pay for Jenna Fischer, nor did they come up with ways to shoot around her leave, but they would accommodate other actors who had to be away when filming movies. Not cool, and I really appreciate that she spoke out about this, and the hardship of coming back to work five weeks post-partum because she needed the paycheck.

I’m not familiar with the podcast that Fischer and Kinsey started, similar to West Wing Weekly, but after listening to this book I’ll probably check it out.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend (who loved The Office)

Three Stars

Best for:
People looking for some quality long-form writing about some interesting and disturbing characters.

In a nutshell:
Keefe brings together essays he’s written for magazines over the past decade or so.

Worth quoting:
N/A – Audio book

Why I chose it:
Loved his past two books – didn’t realize this was a collection of long essays.

Review:
This is not a bad book. It was not exactly what I was looking for, but I did still enjoy it. I listened to each essay in one sitting (well, running – it’s perfect for a 4-5 mile run, cool-down and stretch), which I think was the right call, because I would get the full story all at once.

The first essay is one I recall reading when it first came out, about someone who sells what are likely counterfeit rare old wines. There’s some enjoyment in it because one of the people he rips off is a Koch brother.

Other essays cover El Chapo, a woman in witness protection in Amsterdam because she testified against her mobster brother, a famous attorney who takes on notorious death penalty cases, someone fighting to find the truth of the Lockerbie bombing, and others. Also … Anthony Bourdain. I appreciate the title but I think it’s a bit much – some people don’t really fit under the ‘rebel’ theme but they also aren’t criminals. I don’t know – I’m happy they put all these essays together, but the link is tenuous at best.

Keefe is a talented investigative journalist – that is not in doubt. At times I wish he’s choose different words in his writing – sometimes it feels a little like that episode of Friends where Joey uses a thesaurus to try to make his letter to the adoption agency sound fancy. But that’s a choice Keefe makes as a writer, and it only sometimes pulled me out of the essays.

I don’t think anything in particular is gained from listening to this as opposed to reading it, but I do think each essay should be consumed all in one go.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it (if I could – it’s an audio book)