I got this from my sister for Christmas last year. The only profession I can recall really wanting (as much as little kid wants anything) was astronaut. Of course I didn’t actually do the things one would need to do, like join the military, to do that (and my vision would have disqualified me before anything else did). But I still talk about going to space someday.

This book is different from Mary Roach’s “Packing for Mars” in a good way: it’s told from the perspective of an astronaut from Canada who has been to space three times, including as commander of the International Space Station. The book is a memoir of his time preparing for, supporting, and traveling to space, and is framed as a way to be successful in life on Earth.

He makes some great observations, including a chapter on sweating the small stuff (you should) and treating the things that lead up to the big events (going to space) as just as important as those big events. It makes sense – if everything is focused on these large events that may or may not happen, and that’s all that is seen as worthwhile, everything else (the vast majority of life) will seem like a waste, or sad. And while it might not be this dire for all of us, his advice of being as prepared as possible and thinking about the ‘next thing that will kill me’ can be helpful too.

I also really liked his discussion of being a minus one, a zero, or a plus one. His idea is that we are all one of those things in each role we fill, and those who come in aiming to be a plus one when they are new on the scene tend to end up as a minus one. He suggest we all aim to be a zero (someone who doesn’t screw things up, but isn’t the champion), and by doing that, as we develop expertise in the area, we eventually will end up being a plus one.

I think that with many of his suggestions you could argue that there is a downside (if you’re focused on the small stuff, how do you look at the bigger picture), but I also think it depends on perspective. In that example, you look at the big picture but then break it down into much smaller steps to complete to get there, and care about each of those steps. Which actually seems to match most of the advice people give with things like goals and resolutions. My goal might be to buy a house, but I can’t just say that and then it happens. There are a lot of smaller steps involved, and each of those involves smaller steps, and it makes sense to lay them out and work at doing those steps well.

I’d recommend this book for sure – it was a pretty quick read for 300 pages, and his writing is interesting and vivid. If you aren’t going to get a chance to read it, though, please check out the video the author put together while on the ISS. You may have seen it before. It’s pretty great.

Four Stars

I’m doing decently well in my career, but until this year I haven’t really supervised anyone full time. My first employee is young, and eager to learn, and I want to figure out how to be a good manager for her while also ensuring the work gets done well.

So I went in search of a good management book for someone like me. Let me tell you – the business and management section of most bookstores is bleak. It’s like the self-help section (odd cover art, weird fonts, bizarre titles), but without the soul. However, this book stood out as one that seemed less distressing and focused on money. Ms. Pollak has built her career providing advice and coaching to others, and with this book she is targeting the millennial generation, as they are the ones starting to step into leadership roles for the first time. Now, I am technically Generation X, but a lot of what she shares in this book still applies.

She starts with a history of business and management philosophies, which is a good place to find more books to read on this topic. She then moves in to ways to ‘learn,’ ‘lead,’ and ‘last.’ She has great suggestions on social networking, managing conflict, and different management styles. The way she presents the information worked really well for me; when I finished reading it I went through and copied down all the parts I really wanted to remember into a book so I would follow up on the items. I’m not going to end up doing everything she suggested, but I feel good about the ones I plan to pursue.

My only complaint is this one section, where she talks about outsourcing what you can. “If it will save you time for more important personal or professional priorities, why not hire a virtual assistant or intern to take care of tasks such as grocery shopping, scheduling haircuts and doctor’s appointments, running errands, hanging your new curtains, or even doing your holiday shopping?” Virtual assistant? Sure. But intern? I disagree. An intern should be learning about whatever field they are working in, so unless they are interning as a virtual assistant, suggesting people get one to hang curtains strikes me as inappropriate.

Despite that misstep (at least she didn’t suggest hiring an UNPAID intern), I feel good recommending this to others looking for a not-cheesy management book.

Five Stars

“A colleague once told her, Wilson said, ‘We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love.’ That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail.”

The above quote sums up beautifully much of what Dr. Gawande discusses in this really lovely, interesting and motivating book. Being Mortal focuses on how modern medicine has failed us in that it can keep people alive much longer than it used to, but often at a very serious cost. His focus is primarily on the elderly, but he also includes the seriously, terminally ill in this exploration.

Think about the above quote. We all want to do what we want – to have the freedom to decide when we will get up in the morning, what we will eat, and who we will spend time with. But, when it comes to our loved ones, it seems that so often what we most want is for them to be safe. It is that concern that has led us to do things like put people into nursing homes to keep them safe from falls, even though they are much more miserable. As long as they are safe, that’s all that matters. But Dr. Gawande makes the very compelling argument that the safety isn’t the primary concern, or shouldn’t be. Allowing people to live meaningful lives, whatever the person’s own definition, should be our concern as people age or experience the end stages of a terminal illness.

The book does a great job of illustrating how doctors really shy away from having the frank conversations with their seriously ill patients. They provide information, but that information is often based on what to do to lengthen life, not improve the quality of it. Taking a page from the palliative care / hospice movement, Dr. Gawande advocates for asking the hard questions, like what do the patients fear most, what is the quality of life they’d be willing to tolerate, and similar questions, to really get at the heart of their concern.

Dr. Gawande also looks at how, especially with the elderly, we focus too much on keeping them safe as opposed to happy. He provides the back story on the nation’s first true assisted living facility, where residents were allowed to do things like lock their doors. Yes, they might fall, but the staff was dedicated to providing whatever support services were necessary to allow these residents to keep as much independence as possible. It is amazing when you really think about how much we focus on things like fall prevention (which is important, obviously), but not on really figuring out ways to prevent the falls WHILE allowing people access to the things in their lives that matter, like deciding when to get out of bed in the morning.

I strongly recommend this book, especially for those who have parents who are elderly, or for those who care about the quality of life of seriously ill people. It asks us to reframe our thinking, and really consider what it is that we value, and how we would want others to take that into consideration as we got older or sicker.

And with that, I complete my second Cannonball Read.

Five Stars

Last year I reviewed a book about a forensic anthropologist, where I mentioned I do work related to death. It is one part of what I do, and (at least for now) has never actually involved me providing after-death care, or even arranging for it. It’s a possibility, though. And it is a field that I find unendingly interesting.

I can’t remember who recommended this book to me, but I’d like to say thank you. Its premise is one young woman’s experience working in a crematory. Most of the book – I’d say maybe 70% – involves stories from her time there, seamlessly woven with interesting notes about how different cultures have handled death of the millennia. She does a really fantastic job at this, especially since this is her first book. The book takes a bit of a shift towards the dark about three-quarters of the way through (I know, how much darker can it get? It’s a book about death! But it does), but it finishes up nicely.

Ms. Doughty’s book points out all of the ways that we have turned death into something to be hidden and feared. This is a relatively new construction – at least the hidden part. Many cultures have feared death forever, and some have just seen it as a way of life. Ms. Doughty, while a part of the death care industry, learns through her experiences that she wants to provide a different way of understanding and recognizing death. I’ve not yet read any of her blog posts (http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/) but I plan to, because I find her perspective interesting.

I bought this book at 1 P.M. today; I’m writing the review just before 6 P.M. I literally only put the book down to use the bathroom and to fold some laundry. That’s it. And at 240 pages, it’s not a short book. But it’s an interesting one, and one that I think has value not just for those who find the death care industry interesting, but for those who think that maybe there’s something missing from how we handle death in the U.S.

Four Stars

I found this book at this local store called Watson Kennedy, which is the kind of store I could easily spend hours in. It’s the kind of place where everything costs just a little more than it probably should, and where items are organized by color instead of type. It’s the kind of place that sells several kinds of olive oils as well as antique etiquette books. Anyway, the reason I share this is because it’s also the kind of store that leads people to buy books they really don’t need.

This is just such a book, but it was actually a joy to read. It’s a coffee-table-type book filled with lovely illustrations and tips for decorating your home. The tips are great, and only a little ridiculous at times. It’s a well-written and useful book (hence the four star rating), and I found it inspirational. The only problems are that a) I don’t really have a budget to start adding things to our house (although my husband and I both dream of a new couch, and maybe a coffee table that isn’t a $19 shoe rack from Target) and b) we rent our apartment. So a lot of the suggestions – especially ones involving painting walls or hanging a lot of items on the wall – just aren’t practical for us right now.

However! Someday we will figure out a way to buy a place, and at that point I will pull this book out again and look it over. The suggestions about lighting were especially great, which is a sentence that really makes me feel like an adult. I don’t think 13-year-old me would think that I’d enjoy a book with a lot of talk about lamps, and yet I did. If you are lucky enough to be about to buy a house, or trying to figure out ways to decorate your home, I think this is a nice book to pick up.