Tag: books
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5 books about focusing
Our ability to focus — or the lack thereof — is a major topic of conversation nowadays. From social media platforms with algorithms specifically designed to keep us scrolling to buzzing phones that hardly leave our sight, there’s so much about our surroundings that makes it hard to truly focus for more than a few…
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Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
“Anna read and understood everything, but she found no pleasure in reading, that is to say, in following the reflection of other people’s lives. She was too eager to live herself.” What an incredible, incredible novel. I’d been intimidated by Anna Karenina for years, despite reading Tolstoy’s tome War and Peace a few summers back…
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On slowing down and reading
Every January when I set reading goals for the new year, I tell myself that this will finally be the year when I slow down. I won’t care about how many books or pages I read. I won’t feel pressured to finish a book as fast as possible, or to rush through longer reads. Yet,…
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Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
“The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.” In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explores what he calls our System 1 — the intuitive, fast-moving side of our thinking — and System 2 — the slower, more logical side of our thinking. He discusses…
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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
“And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.” Claire Keegan’s short novel Small Things Like These is so easy to become enamored…
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The White Album by Joan Didion
“Of course great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service.” (“In the Islands”) Published in 1979, The White Album is a collection of Didion’s essays that were previously included in magazines. These essays span a myriad of topics, from Didion’s thoughts on California, Hollywood, and Hawaii to the…
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Reading goals for 2023 (informed by Atomic Habits)
January has arrived with its usual buzz around New Year’s resolutions. So many of us are reflecting on 2022 and thinking of how we want to feel and what we want to achieve in 2023. I love this process of reflection and goal setting, but I’m always cautious about not setting the bar too high…
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Top ten books of 2022
I’m so grateful to have had a lovely reading year in 2022. Narrowing down a list of ten favorite books was difficult, but these are the ones that have stuck with me the most over the course of the past year. Here they are, in the order that I read them: 1. East of Eden…
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December reading plans
It’s “stick season” as they say where I live, which means that all the leaves have fallen and the forests are like webs of bare branches. Mornings are frosty, days are short, and I’ve gone searching in my drawers for my favorite knit hat again. Downtown they’ve hung wreaths and lights from the lampposts and…
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Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
“It is the hour of the pearl–the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.” I’m obsessed with the atmosphere Steinbeck created in Cannery Row. It’s a sort of liminal space where thoughts, hopes, and dreams can run wild and judgment dissipates, if only for a brief while. I read this book…
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