Non Fiction Favorites
My Non Fiction Favorites to round out the year!
There has been so much about Body in these last couple of posts, which makes complete sense! I wanted to end the last Curious Mover of the year with some food for thought: non fiction books. The ones I loved this year. Yes, I have strayed away from my paradoxical love of baking, offering book suggestions rather than recipes. But here’s an exercise tip! I listened to all of these as audio books while walking, so you don’t even have to sit around to read. I walk a lot, therefore I “read” a lot! You can get your exercise on and book in too! Although it still seems like a time to escape reality with fiction, these books stimulate and inspire. They make great gifts as well!
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
creating meaningful gatherings
We will start off with this lighthearted book you didn’t know you needed to read! Now that gatherings are happening in full, Parker has a few things to keep in mind to make it memorable, unique, and special. She helps you to create structure and direction to shape the occasion. There are many choices to make that can make or break your gathering. Is it an intimate gathering at home, a business meeting, or a big celebration? If so, what venues will you choose to inspire your meeting or celebration? Is it an exclusive (specific people only) event or inclusive (bring a guest)? Is it four or four hundred people? Do guests have rules to follow before the event in order to make it more focused? Does the host have some preparations before he/she introduces guests? Are you going to create a celebration that has a traditional structure, or innovate? Basically why and how are you gathering? The choices to consider only elevate your gathering! Parker provides a guide so you can hone in your hosting skills, and make life more meaningful.
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
the legacy of the Sackler Family that led to the opioid crisis
If you have watched the HBO two-part documentary “Crime of the Century” about the creation and repercussions of the opioid crisis, you have already met Keefe. His book spans three generations of the Sackler Family. The second generation of three brothers, Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond, managed to get through medical school despite rampant anti-Semitism. In their early doctor years, it seems they genuinely wanted to help and succeeded in stopping the abuse of mental health patients. They freed them from horrible asylums to just doctor’s visits with medication that significantly helped their symptoms and their life. With a blinding ambition, Arthur Sackler discovered as a teenager how skillful marketing sold more products. He first started successfully selling cod liver oil. The taste of money and greed was ignited. Money at any cost. His three brothers were responsible for creating Valium, suppressing any information of side effects in order for the drug to sell. This helped pave the way for the unscrupulous third generation Sacklers as they started marketing OxyContin. False claims and compromised data of the drug to be safe, not habit forming or addictive narrative was aggressively pushed. Truth is, it is HIGHLY addictive and hard to get off of it. The profits trickled down: unlimited bonuses for their sales team, gift incentives for doctors to prescribe OxyContin, and pharmacies raking it in enough to turn a blind eye. This chain of greed and lies helped create the opioid crisis that still persists to this day. That being a simplistic view, the book goes into much more detail. It’s a fascinating read, and important to witness how big pharmaceutical companies with good marketing can cover up life threatening facts and skew information for limitless profit.
The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko
history and appreciation of one of the natural wonders of the world - The Grand Canyon
I was told about this book on my rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, but read it afterwards. It is an incredible book about the history and glory of the Grand Canyon, Colorado River, and the birth of conservation. We learn how hundreds of years before, people tried to conquer its depths and figure out how they can profit from the Canyon. When it went too far, The Sierra Club was born to save it, and still exists to this day. An unusual weather pattern created a great flood in 1983 when an excess of rain and snow pack almost broke the Glen Canyon Dam. As a result, the flood was created by this deluge of water and detritus released from the dam. There were people on the river, including some veteran river guides trying to break the speed record on the Colorado river. A riveting story of survival and ambition that had me on the edge of wonderment. It is beautifully written with poetic descriptions, as if you were right there seeing the colors changes on the rock walls of the canyon at sunset. Fedarko takes you there in this thrilling ride weaved in with the history of the Colorado river, the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, and the Grand Canyon.
The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
leveraging the power of discomfort to dramatically improve our health and happiness
Talking about wildness, Easter’s tagline is embrace discomfort to reclaim your wild, happy, healthy self. I have mentioned this book in past references as I read it months ago and it still lives with me. We all have become creatures of comfort. At some point, it has a negative effect on our health. The author takes us to research of the best doctors, to Bhutan, and even a 30 day hunting expedition in the Alaskan back country. All points to the positive mind and body benefit of challenges through discomfort. In Alaska he rediscovers boredom - a lost art form thanks to phones. It’s not a book that berates us for our modern ways, but a wake up call that I very much appreciated. Discomfort shouldn’t be a negative state, but one we can tolerate and benefit from. Our bodies become more resilient with discomfort, and this book is a great reminder to push ourselves out of our comfort zones for the sake of our health.
Israel by Noa Tishby
an accessible guide of the history of Jews and Israel for everybody
Growing up with supplementary Jewish education, I never once learned about the history of Israel in any of my classes. Enter Israel, a heartfelt yet serious book that boils down 5,000 years of history. Tishby writes from her perspective as a native Israeli with such grace, passion, and humor. I am at a point in my life that it is time to really understand and learn the very complex history of the Jewish ancestral homeland. That’s a tall order for anyone with such a polarizing interpretation of this history that exists around Israel. I learned so much from this book, it gave me the drive to learn even more. Currently I am on a second Israel history book, but this book is a great way to start the journey. I loved every minute of it and found it such an important read. You don’t have to be Jewish either to read it