Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 8.7.23
This week, I finished 3 book from some amazing authors. One of our older cats is extremely sick, so it’s been a really rough week, which is why the list starts out with one of my favorite philosophy books on life being hard. We also have a book about wonder as well as a book about struggles women face on a daily basis. 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).
Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya
I read this book about a year ago when it first came out and loved it. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been taking care of our older cat, and things aren’t looking too good. Books are often where I turn to better understand things, and I remembered this amazing book. Philosophy makes us think and look at situations in ways we may have never considered. This book covers a variety of topics on the hard things we all face as part of the human condition, and I highly recommend it.
Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity by Jeffrey Davis
I did not like this book. It’s definitely possible that I liked it less because of difficult things going on in my life, but I still wouldn’t have liked it on a normal day. This is just another one of your typical woo-woo nonsense books from a guy who makes money giving pep talks at corporate events. He draws arbitrary, subjective distinctions between things like wonder and curiosity and has practices for people to do.
It’s an extremely cheesy, non-scientific book. So, if you’re someone who loves random self-help books, then this book’s for you.
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen
This book is a must-read. Although it’s a bit longer than my average reads, I binged this book within a couple of days. Elise Loehnen is a phenomenal writer and managed to keep me engaged throughout the entire book.
As the title suggests, Loehnen goes through the seven deadly sins and relates them to various challenges women have to deal with while navigating the world. The book discusses how women have to manage their pride more than men, how there are double standards when it comes to lust, the body standards for women (gluttony), and the others. Typically, I’m not a fan of reading about history, but Loehnen did such a great job balancing the history of the sins, data, interviews, and her own personal experience.
I read these books to better understand what the women in my life as well as the women of the world have to deal with. I think what surprised me the most was how much I could relate to some (not all) topics in the book.
If I had to have one criticism, it was at the very end of the book when discussing grief. It’s not so much a critique as something I found interesting. Loehnen is vulnerable throughout the book and discusses the unexpected loss of her brother-in-law. She writes about the stages of grief and how it’s not backed by science, but then she discusses how she found comfort in working with a psychic medium. I’m personally going through anticipatory grief as a non-believer in the afterlife and have been thinking about how I wish I could believe in stuff like that, so I’m glad this was able to help the author during her difficult time.
Overall, fantastic book that everyone should read.
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