Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 6.24.24
We have 4 books this week and start with an awesome new book on free speech. We also have a great financial education book, one about the history of women and witch hunts, and we have an interesting take on a self-help book. Enjoy!
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Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know by Nadine Strossen
I’m a leftist and pretty progressive. My “side” is known for censorship and wanting to block speech. And trust me, I get this urge a ton because I hate bigotry in all forms, but I also know how important free speech is in our country as well as for the rest of the world. With that said, this is why I’ll read any book Nadine Strossen puts out. I bought this new book the second I learned about it because I (and I’m sure many others) need reminders as to why free speech is such an important right.
Nadine Strossen is a liberal feminist and the former president of the ACLU. She’s a legal scholar as well. This means she’s not some right-wing person just screaming about free speech while meaning “free speech for me but not for thee”. She has well-thought-out arguments and a slew of examples for why free speech is a necessity. I highly recommend this book as well as every other book she’s written.
Beyond Getting By: The Financial Diet's Guide to Abundant and Intentional Living by Holly Trantham
This is an excellent book if you want to learn about managing your finances and better understand how to make it in this capitalist world. Chelsea Fagan does the foreward and is the host of the YouTube channel The Financial Diet as well as their podcast, and that’s where I learned about this book from Holly. On their YouTube channel, they do video essays explaining capitalist systems and other money topics, so I knew I had to get this book. There are some parts of the book I don’t fully agree with, but that’s normal. It’s an amazing book everyone should read.
Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great by Joshua Medcalf
I’ve disliked the majority of self-help books I’ve read in recent memory, but this one was pretty solid. Joshua Medcalf wrote this in an interesting way, by writing it as a story we can take lessons from. It’s about a boy named John who is trying to become a samurai archer, and he has conversations with his sensei Akira. There are a lot of valuable lessons in the book about patience, perfecting and loving the process, and how to deal with failure. The way the book’s written reminds me a lot of the fantastic book The Courage to Be Disliked.
There’s a part in the book when the sensei asks John a question along the lines of, “How do you think these people were able to succeed?”, and John answers with, “Luck”. It kind of made me realize this is one of the reasons I’ve had an issue with so many self-help books lately. I’m obsessed with the topic of success and luck, and it’s made me a bit nihilistic knowing how much luck plays a role in success. While this is true, it’s also holding me back. I’m not sure how to get over that mental block, but this book helped a bit.
The book is a super short read, and it’s worth it in my opinion. There’s a few things that are super neoliberal “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” individualistic type things, but overall, it has some good lessons.
Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Sylvia Federici
This book was okay. I’m not a huge fan of history books, so take my review with a grain of salt because I’m sure many people would enjoy this book much more than I did. It’s definitely well-written and Sylvia Federici did an awesome job explaining the history of institutional violence against women via witch hunts. What’s interesting is that Sylvia explains it through the lens of how capitalism perpetuated witch hunts by demonizing women who were poor.
One of the main aspects of the book that had me extremely skeptical was that it said quite a few times that women had independence and autonomy, but then capitalism and witch hunts took away women’s rights. I don’t know enough history to fully question this, but from my understanding, women didn’t really have many rights until the 1900s, and this book discusses the history of the 16th and 17th history in Europe.
Again, I’m sure a lot of people will enjoy this book a lot more than I did. It’s not bad, but it’s just not really my thing. This one’s also a short read, so you don’t really have much to lose by checking it out.
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