It’s summer, which means summer reading, which means all the fiction books! I really enjoyed this month of reading.
#16: The Overstory by Richard Powers
According to an interview Hugh Jackman did with Tim Ferris this is currently his favorite book, so obviously I had to read it because I think Hugh Jackman is the shit, and he did not disappoint. What starts as separate vignettes about different groups of characters merges into a masterful storyline that wasn’t overpowered by its message. Highly recommend this if you’re looking for some outdoor reading this summer, preferably in a place surrounded by trees.
#17: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I flew through this book on my first plane ride post-COVID and I wrote that whole sentence before I realized how punny it was, so there you go. I’ve heard great things about this book and even though I’m not big on magical realism I really enjoyed it. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is such a good storyteller, and this was an easy book to get wrapped up in and forget where you are. It doesn’t require too much focus to stay with the plot, and his writing is so consistently clean that it’s easy to appreciate every page. Highly recommend if you’ve got a few hours to kill while travelling or sitting on a beach.
#18: Principles by Ray Dalio
This book is on every list of “must read business books” or “books every successful leader LOVES!” or whatever, so when I saw it on sale in a bookstore I picked it up and I’m sorry I did because it’s completely overrated and ridiculous. Ok, maybe that’s an overreaction, I’m sure I got some salient points out of reading, but the entire book reeked of entitlement and for someone who touts the benefits of open-mindedness, his entire perspective was incredibly narrow. I ended up annotating it in two different ways, bracketing the things I thought were insightful and underlining the things that I wanted to remember so I could NEVER DO THEM EVER. Unfortunately, don’t recommend.
#19: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
This book was a little too woo-woo, even for me, and yet I still enjoyed it and have found it switching up my worldview in a lot of ways. I’ve started incorporating the habit of writing daily morning pages and going on weekly artist dates into my routine, and have been paying a lot more attention to my inner artist. Yesterday I felt restless and upset for most of the day but couldn’t explain why, until finally I admitted to myself that it was because my inner artist had been cooped up all week and needed to be set free to play and do something creative for a while. Recommend if you’re feeling creatively blocked, or like reading books that come with activities and tasks to complete.
#20: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
While I appreciated this for the well-done scary story that it was, what I loved most was that the book was secretly all about how badass women are. Though the book is told through the lens of four male friends, its main focus is the women who provide a grounding force in their lives, who are fiercely protective of what they care for, and who prove that they each ultimately have the power to destroy or save the world while the men just kind of wander around drinking beer and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. It was refreshing to read a novel with both a female protagonist and villain (although an argument could be made that the novel was protagonist-less), who were unique and authentic without dipping into any female stereotypes (i.e. no damsels in distress here). Highly recommend if you’re good with violence and like gasping audibly while reading.