Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 5.6.24
We have 5 books on the list this week. There’s a diverse set of books on this list, but they were sort of hit or miss for me. We have a book by a comedian, one about taxing the rich, one from a rich person, and one about Black people in horror movies. Enjoy!
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Get Your Sh*t Together: How to Stop Worrying About What You Should Do So You Can Finish What You Need to Do and Start Doing What You Want to Do by Sarah Knight
This is not a good book, and the epilogue just explained why. This is an insanely generic self-help book, and it fails in the same way that many others do: it’s not focused. There’s a saying in marketing, “When you try to market to everyone, you market to no one.” It’s like the author picked a ton of random topics that people may need help with and tries to address them all. In the epilogue, I learned she only had 2 months to write this, so maybe that’s why.
In addition to how unorganized this book is, there are really strange analogies she uses throughout the book. There’s one about Simon and the Chipmunks that made no sense, yet she used it from start to finish. Also, as someone in recovery, I found it very odd that she used this “12 steps to stop being a perfectionist” thing toward the end. I have thick skin, but I’m sure many in recovery would find it offensive.
For clarity, step 3 is “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Instead of God, she says to turn your will over to her? That was a big “yikes” for me.
There are a million other self-help books out there that I’d recommend over this one. But then again, she’s a best-selling author and this book sold a ton of copies. So maybe I have no clue what I’m talking about. I may give her another chance by checking out her first book, which is how she gained popularity.
I'd Like to Play Alone, Please: Essays by Tom Segura
This book by Tom Segura isn’t terrible, but I think it helped me realize that I just don’t like books by comedians. When I get a book by a comedian, I expect to laugh quite a bit. This is especially true because I listen to audiobooks, so it should be like listening to a comedy Album. I laughed maybe once or twice while reading this book, and one of the times was me laughing because Tom was laughing so hard while telling a story.
I love Tom’s standups. I’m less of a fan of his podcasts, but that’s neither here nor there. Again, this book isn’t terrible. If you’re someone who wants to learn more about Tom Segura’s life, this is a great book. He has a ton of stories about growing up and his early days in comedy. I’m just not a fan of memoirs. I guess I expect memoirs from comedians to be much funnier versions of the stories, but I suppose that’s what standup is for because they embellish stories and even make stuff up.
Anyway, I’m not trying to say this is a bad book, it’s just not my cup of tea. If you’re a Tom Segura fan and want to learn about him, this is perfect for you.
We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth by Jennifer Risher
I wish with every fiber of my being that I could remember who recommended this book so I could lose any respect I had for them. There were so many things that I can imagine I’d prefer to reading this book about a whining rich lady, like playing in traffic or getting a massage with sandpaper. All I kept asking myself throughout this book was, “Who the hell is this book written for?”
I’m going to do my best to not write an essay about this book, but please bear with me.
Jennifer Risher is a multimillionaire that I guess you’d call “new money”. She grew up with humble beginnings, but she clearly always cared about money. She lucked out working at Microsoft in the early 90s and married a guy from Microsoft who got hired at Amazon right before it blew up. They were worth a few million when he went to Amazon, and after Amazon went public, they were worth about $40 million.
This book is a memoir from Jennifer discussing how tough it is being rich. One of the few good things about this book is she is ridiculously honest throughout the book, but I think her self-awareness is lacking. The author keeps trying to socially signal that she feels guilty about her money while simultaneously flaunting her wealth, embracing overconsumption, and whining about what her husband did or didn’t buy.
It starts with the engagement ring and her obsessing about how the diamond wasn’t big enough until she finally is in tears and tells him she wants a more expensive ring. After having a child, she says she feels guilty about hiring a cleaner. Then, after the second child, she says she feels guilty about hiring a nanny for their home and as they travel the world. After that, she feels guilty about no longer cooking and hiring a chef for the house.
There are so many disgusting displays of wealth throughout this book, that I couldn’t list them all when I tried. They take private jets and then she gets concerned about her kids not being “grounded” after a conversation in a car that they don’t drive because they hired a driver. They no longer take a private jet with their kids, but they keep taking private jets for their day-long trips and fly first class around the world with the children.
For the life of me, I just can’t understand how someone who didn’t come from money can become this disconnected from reality. Then, at the end of the book, this woman has the audacity to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and how people shouldn’t stereotype the rich after she literally wrote an entire book about being a rich person stereotype.
Again, who the hell is this book for?
The only people I can think of is rich people or people hoping to be rich. For rich people, this book will help them feel less bad about hoarding their wealth and over-consuming while so many people have so little. Then, there are the delusional people who read this and think they’re somehow going to join the 1% and need this as a training manual for how to get used to being disgustingly rich.
One of the only other good things about this book is the chapter on charitable giving. It’s cool that they give, but even in this chapter, she’s aware that it has selfish motives. And it’s hard to give rich people like this kudos when they’re donating thousands here and there while also spending millions on ridiculous things they don’t need.
I almost forgot, at the end of the book, she tries to separate herself from the “ultra-wealthy”. She explains that “not all rich people are like the Kardashians”, further plunging her into the stereotype of filthy rich people who don’t consider themselves rich because someone has more money than them.
Am I glad I read this book? Absolutely. It fed me a delicious meal of confirmation bias about how awful rich people are. I guess it’s a little sad knowing that even people who came from nothing can become the absolute worst. I guess, fortunately, not many of us will ever have the opportunity to be come as awful as this author.
Edit: I just finished the book Tax the Rich by Morris Pearl and Erica Payne. Now I like this book even less
Tax the Rich!: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer by Morris Pearl and Erica Payne
This was a fantastic book, and I read it in about a day. Morris Pearl and Erica Payne are part of a group called “The Patriotic Millionaires”. They’re millionaires who advocate for higher taxes on the rich. Not only does this book shut down literally every argument against taxing millionaires (and billionaires), but it explains a ton about all of the tax loopholes the ultra wealthy use to avoid paying their fair share.
This book had a great chapter on the philanthropy the rich do as well. It talks about how often time, the money just sits there, and they get tax write offs while also giving high paying jobs in the organizations to their friends. One thing I wish it discussed was why millionaires like them don’t do more direct charitable giving. As a lower-middle-class person, I ask, “If you’re such a good millionaire, why not give 10 people $100,000 to completely change their lives?”
The other thing I wish they discussed was how we have 0 guarantees that the tax dollars will go toward anything useful. I think this is the #1 argument against taxing the rich. For example, we have the largest military budget on the planet by a large margin. How do we know these higher taxes would go toward free healthcare, or schools, or infrastructure? This seems like a massive talking point that I don’t hear anyone discussing.
One of the best aspects of this book is that it’s not insanely technical at all. When talking about tax stuff, it can be insanely confusing and boring. They break all of the tax stuff down in a very digestible way, and I appreciated that.
Overall, this is a must-read book. I appreciate the work these millionaires are doing and going against many of their fellow wealthy folks. This is a great start, but there are many more discussions to have.
The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman
This is a good book, but I really wish it was a lot better. It easily could have been, too. The book is about the history of Black people in horror and how they’re depicted. If it was primarily a social commentary and used examples throughout the book to make its points, it’d be fantastic. While it does this for about half the book, the other half just felt like filler that didn’t need to really be there.
Each chapter has a theme, and they’re very interesting themes. Obviously, it discusses the Black people dying first, but it also discusses how Black religion is depicted, spoof horror comedy, Black LGBTQ characters, and much more. The parts that bored me to tears were when the author just lists a ton of horror movies from the genre with a 1-2 sentence plot synopsis for each. He also rattles off a bulleted list of the movies and years they’re made.
It’s very well possible that these parts of the book were so boring because I listened to the audio version, but it was brutal. This book took me months to finish just because I had to zone out during those parts. I’m not really sure why the author needed those short movie reviews because the bulk of the chapter dove more in-depth and had an interesting commentary on each movie anyway.
This is the only book I know of that discusses this as a topic, so for that, I guess it’s worth the read. The social commentary is interesting enough for me to recommend it, but just be prepared for unnecessary lists.
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