November 2020 Book Recap
2020 has been a year of managing expectations and perceptions. Self-mastery is the ultimate challenge and indifference to the uncontrollable, a much needed zen-like trait emphasized by Stoic philosophy: "No one can take away our ability to remain undaunted.” Stoicism can be a welcoming balm for restless souls, providing ballast amidst chaos—I cannot recommend *The Daily Stoic* enough, but if you're looking for a little more background, check out Ryan Holiday's latest book.
Thought to Ponder:
“We have forgotten how much we all have in common as human beings, how we all stand equally naked and defenseless against fate whether we possess worldly power or not.”
— Ryan Holiday, *The Lives of the Stoics*
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*Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius* by Ryan Holiday (NF) // [Philosophy; history: As a huge Ryan Holiday fan and history buff, this was right up my alley; just finishing up my second year through *The Daily Stoic.* "There is no better definition of a Stoic: to have but not want, to enjoy without needing.”] GoodReads Review
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*Greenlights* by Matthew McConaughey (NF) // [Autobiography; musings: Kind of cheesy, but also fun and certainly entertaining. “Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”] GoodReads Review
*Lunch Poems* by Frank O’Hara (Poetry) // [Classic: Meaty, with so much to chew on. I liked *Meditations in an Emergency* a tad more. "I seem to be defying fate, or am I avoiding it?"] GoodReads Review
*The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life* by Alex Trebek (NF) // [Autobiography/memoir; Short and sweet—rounded up because of the added poignancy reading it so close to his death.💔] GoodReads Review
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*The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains* by Nicholas Carr (NF) // [Psychology; technology: Clearly written in 2009, fairly interesting; nothing groundbreaking. “What we’re experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization: we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.”] GoodReads Review
*The Midnight Library: A Novel* by Matt Haig (F) // [Sci-Fi; books about books: Magical, introspective take on the multiverse through the portal of a library. Felt a tad too much like an adaptation of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future for me, but not bad. “We don't have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”]
