Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 5.8.23
This week, there are two great books on the list. The first book is about how our messed up childhoods are the source of many of our issues as adults. The second is about how Amercans need to reckon with the country’s past while still loving the country. Enjoy!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love by Vienna Pharaon
This is a fantastic book and a must-read for anyone who had a messed up childhood. I’m a recovering addict and alcoholic who was also the child of an alcoholic mother (she’s sober 17 years now), and something I’ve learned through my 10 years of sobriety and personal work is how much of our adulthood challenges stem from childhood. There are some awful books on this topic, but Pharaon killed it with this book, and it’s one of the better ones I’ve read.
If you struggle with your relationships, whether they’re romantic relationships, friendships, or work relationships, this most likely has to do with some stuff you went through when you were younger. Pharaon does a great job explaining how we develop trust issues or are quick to anger or have other problems as a result of experiences we had growing up.
There are a ton of great tools in this book and mindfulness practices, but the author also does a great job recommending the reader go to therapy for some more in-depth work as well. If I had to add one criticism of the book, it’s purely subjective, and it’s that there were a little too many anecdotes for my liking, but many people like that stuff. I’m just a research nerd. Overall, I absolutely loved this book and hope a ton of people read it.
A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change by Dolly Chugh
I’ve been meaning to ready Dolly Chugh’s books for a while now, and although this is her newer book, I read this one first. I absolutely loved it, and she put into words something many of us on the progressive left think and feel. Basically, this book is about many of the issues that stem from America’s past such as slavery, colonization, and much more. Many think that this means we on the left “hate” America, but the reality is that we love it and it’s difficult for many of us to come to the realization that America has made some major mistakes.
Dolly goes through many of the troubling aspects of America’s past and discusses the cognitive dissonance many of us go through while also maintaining our love for the country. Dolly is an immigrant, and you can tell from this book how much she loves our country. But as Dolly explains in this book, just because you love something unconditionally, it doesn’t mean we can’t have criticisms or desire for us to reckon with the past and do right by the people who were harmed.
This is a fantastic book, and although I doubt it’ll happen, I wish more people on the right who think we hate America would grab a copy and get enlightened.
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