non-fiction

The Accountant's Story

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 15:36 on 25 July 2018

Okay, this is another case of a "dropped" book. Doron commented to me, "I'm reading this book now," to which I responded, "Oh, you are? Let me check it out from the library and read it, too," and here we are.

Except I read it faster than he did, finishing when he was a couple chapters in, and, well, okay, I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this, but it was an exciting read.

So, there's this guy, Pablo Escobar. You might have heard of him. I, for my part, was incredibly oblivious to much of the world around the time of Escobar's rise, domination, and fall, so while I was vaguely aware of his existence, I wasn't aware of his story.

Well, now I am.

This is the story of Pablo Escobar, as told by his older brother, Roberto. It is a fascinating story somewhat tarnished by Roberto's bit of whining "we didn't do anything illegal!" in various parts of the book. Okay, sure, doing the accounting for a cocaine cartel wasn't illegal, the whole operation wasn't exactly moral or legal. Neither was cooking the books to make the drug money appear to be real estate deals. So, while the history is fascinating, the near pleading "I didn't do anything wrong" was difficult to read non-judgmentally.

If you like non-fiction, and want an interesting recent-history read, this book is a good choice. If you're a fan of this genre, this is also a good choice. If you're more like me, and read it because you wanted to talk with a friend about the book he was reading, this is also a good book to read. I would not have chosen this book for myself, but still enjoyed the reading of it.

I Contain Multitudes

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 11:33 on 18 July 2018, kitt created this:

This is the next book in the Caltech book club. I, admittedly, skipped over the biological sciences when I was at Caltech, and that skipping is one of my regrets about my time at Caltech: I came in with these just plain wrong notions about science. Those ideas adversely affected my education, but, fortunately, not my love for science in all its (correctly science) forms.

Anyway.

I read this book, finishing before the first week's discussion, mostly because I keep checking these books out from the library, with due dates much sooner than the slower 1-2 chapters a week pace the book club has. Which is fine, I read the book club books quickly. That I subsequently don't participate in the book club discussions is less fine, I guess.

This book was a meandering survey of various studies, current research, and microbe history. I say meandering because the book lacked a compelling narrative arc. I was expecting maybe a history arc, or a current research arc, or even the author's journey arc. Instead, the end of each chapter lead into the beginning of the next chapter, with each chapter a swirl of interesting information and sometimes a self-contained narrative. Mostly though, each chapter was a fascinating, meandering discussion of a new topic about microbes.

And by fascinating, I mean fascinating. My incoming supposition was, given how much influence chemicals have over our mental state and body composition, the idea that microbes could and do produce chemicals to induce a state in their host doesn't seem so farfetched. After reading the book, learning about how much we know about microbes, and seeing how much we don't know about microbes, my supposition is more like a fixed assumption in my world. One of those "but, of course" obvious things only after the fact.

The Art of Stillness

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 17:21 on 9 July 2018

Written by the same author as The Lady and the Monk, this book was the subject of a "weekend reading" post. Given its author, I chose to download the book from the library (my being fortunate that it was available), and read it.

It's another essay book, which means it's a quick read, but it is none-the-less interesting, thought-provoking, necessary, and worth reading.

Iyer writes about "going Nowhere," about just being, and about stillness. The book has a companion TED-something video.

After The Lady and the Monk, I'm a fan of Iyer's style of writing, his voice in the writing, so I willingly read the book. I'm glad I did. The timing of it into my life was perfect - just as I needed to settle, to be still, this book and Iyer's words were with me.

I strongly recommend this book.

“What else would I be doing?” he asked. “Would I be starting a new marriage with a young woman and raising another family? Finding new drugs, buying more expensive wine? I don’t know. This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence.”
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One could start just by taking a few minutes out of every day to sit quietly and do nothing, letting what moves one rise to the surface.
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Self-Knowledge

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 19:32 on 8 July 2018, kitt created this:

As mentioned, I am a fan of The School of Life, their mission, and their products. This book continues that fandom in a strong way. And with this book, I'm well on my way to reading a significantly large number of essays this year.

This is a short book, 96 whole pages divided into six sections: Self-Ignorance, Philosophical Meditation, Emotional Identity, Honesty and Denial, Self-Judgement, Emotional Scepticism. The section that delighted me the most is the Philosophical Mediation section, as it explains the (classical) Stoic process of dealing with the stresses and worries of life by asking (and processing) the questions "What am I anxious about?", "What am I upset about?", and "What am I excited about?".

The last three sections were also particular relevant to me, but, well, your mileage may vary with this book. If you're in a reflective mood, this book is amazing and possibly a life-changer. That life-changing assumes the reader processes the book, and doesn't just read it, shrug, and toss it aside.

Normally, I'd list all the quotes of the book I found meaningful. Here, however, I realize that the parts I find relevant are revealing in a way I find too vulnerable. So instead, here's one note from the Faulty Walnut:

The walnut is extremely bad at understanding why it is having certain thoughts and ideas.

How to Write Short

Book Notes kitt decided around 14:45 on 8 July 2018 to publish this:

This book was one of two books about writing recommended to me by a group of web developers and web content people.

I am glad I read it.

Clark has lots of advice, and I had to stop highlighting the book because practically the entire book became a highlight for me.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who writes, not only short form, but also long form. Many of the recommendations are common sense and common writing advice, but the entirety of the recommendations all in one place make this book so great. Half way through reading the book, I went out and bought a hard copy (hooboy, Clark, you were buried, I had to hunt for the last copy in the bookstore!).

So, yeah, if you write, fiction, non-fiction, copy, content, blogs, tweets, any sort of writing, I strongly recommend this book to you.

Consider these historical and cultural documents: The Hippocratic oath The Twenty-Third Psalm The Lord’s Prayer Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 The Preamble to the Constitution The Gettysburg Address The last paragraph of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech
Page 5

The baseball card, the limerick, the lyric, the ransom note, the fortune in the fortune cookie—each stands as a work with a sharp rhetorical purpose and a clearly imagined audience.
Page 12

1. Keep a daybook devoted to short writing.

2. Include examples of great short writing collected from other sources.

3. Write short pieces of your own inspired by the ones you’ve collected.

4. Over time, examine your short writing for seeds of longer pieces.

Hope In The Dark

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:36 on 6 July 2018

I read a blog post recently where the author commented about being in an unmotivated state. He sounded depressed. My suggestion to him was exercise and help someone. Exercise has been shown to relieve depression. Helping another person, even in a small way, has helped relieve depression in everyone I know who struggled with non-severe and non-clinical depression.

My comment received a supportive reply (I really wish I had kept a link to the comment), and further comment that helping others as a way to combat depression was a thought she had read in Hope in the Dark. I put a hold on the book and read it when it dropped into my reading queue.

The book was written about finding hope to keep trying to change the world for the better, during the Bush Jr. administration. Solnit let us know through this book that while, yes, what the administration was doing was bad, citizens were pushing back. Many, many people said no, this is not acceptable, and pushed back on the bad policies and bad laws.

Any glimmer of hope of progress since that administration has certainly turned to despair in this administration, with its obvious greed, corruption, bigotry, racism, and misogyny.

And yet.

And yet.

Solnit comments on this many times in the book, about how despair is one part of the activism spectrum; that even during the darkest despair, there is still hope.

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