Author: Patricia Elzie

I’ll admit, when I started this book I had no idea what was going on. Reading it is like putting together a complicated puzzle without knowing what the final image is supposed to be. Partway through it starts to show itself a bit before presenting surprise after surprise. How this author fit so much in such a compact book is a magic of its own.

The book begins by introducing Chih and their companion, a neixin named Almost Brilliant who is also a talking bird. Chih is a Cleric from the Singing Hills Abbey and as such, they are a historian of sorts. They travel to a home on Lake Scarlet where they meet an elderly woman named Rabbit. Rabbit was the handmaiden of the Empress, and The Empress of Salt and Fortune is this Empress’s story, as told by her former handmaiden to the cleric Chih.

Each chapter begins with careful descriptions of a few objects, written with the words of someone cataloging the items. The someone, of course, is Chih. Rabbit then tells Chih the deeper meanings and stories of the sometimes seemingly benign objects they are documenting. Together, the objects reflect the tale of the Empress’s rise to power, starting with her being sent from the frosty north to the south, to marry the Emperor and bear him a child. Because she was foreign, she was not really accepted by the royal court and her handmaiden, Rabbit, was the closest person to her. The Empress eventually becomes known for her adoration of fortune tellers and mystics, often having them to the palace. After she has a child for the emperor, she is sent into exile and Rabbit with her. It’s when she is in exile that her real cleverness and power is proven.

Elaine Welteroth is best known for her phenomenal work at Teen Vogue, where she became the youngest Editor-in-Chief at a Conde Nast publication and only the second African American to hold such a title at Conde Nast. More Than Enough is her first memoir; however, given she is only in her 30s and continues to do amazing things, I’ll bet it’s not her last.

Elaine’s story arc is one that many high-achieving cis women can identify with. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and she was a fearless child who, while doing great things academically and even career-wise, made some boneheaded decisions when it came to relationships. She went through a period of making herself small, trying to fit into boxes that not only weren’t her shape, but weren’t for her at all.

While this is a memoir, there are also some really great pieces of advice in this book. One that resonated with me was when she got a coveted internship at Essence Magazine and they asked her where she wanted to be placed and she said she’d be happy anywhere. Truly what she wanted was to be in fashion. Her mentor told her then and there to always ask for what she wants.

As expected she talks a lot about her experience as a Black woman in a predominantly white industry as well as her experiences among many different subcultures of Black people because hey, we provide a range. And of course, she talks about both holding onto your dreams and working toward them as well as finding you’ve outgrown your dreams or that your goals have changed.

Shetterly grew up in Virginia and her father worked for NASA. Hidden Figures is nonfiction about the African American women who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) which eventually morphed, with other groups, into the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA). While the film version concentrates on NASA, and a few women, the truth is that African American women started working at NACA during WWII. It was only supposed to be a short commitment, but then it turned into so much more. The women started as mathematicians, or as they were called, “computers.” There was East Computing, where the white women computers were, and there was West Computing, which had the African American women.

I thought the book was better than the movie (and I liked the movie). The book offers so much more context and gravitas to what these women were achieving, especially during segregation, the Jim Crow Era, and the Civil Rights Movement. Shetterly points out how the racism in the U.S. was damaging (and still damages) how other countries viewed (and view) the U.S. and questioned the U.S. as a global superpower when our own citizens were not being treated fairly. It really lays bare the hypocrisy of opposing the treatment of Jewish people in Europe while here at home, our own citizens weren’t being afforded basic human rights.

I had no idea how incredibly significant the West computers were not only at NACA, then NASA, but as part of U.S. history. They not only were integral in aeronautics and the space race, but in integration as well. In addition to Katherine Johnson, we read about Dorothy Vaughan, who paved the way, and Mary Jackson, who went from computer to engineer, which was rare for African American women, especially at that time. The book also teaches us about so many more of the women and a handful of the African American men that we never hear about in the history books.

I’m a big fan of Nagoski’s Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, which I recommend every chance I get and wanted to also recommend Come As You Are. This book is focused on the sex lives and the sexual response cycle of cisgender women. This is because there is a bunch of research on the sexual response cycle and sex lives of cisgender women and not a lot of research on transgender women or nonbinary folks. That being said, a couple of the trans folks in my life have read this and told me they still were able to get some helpful information out of it. The language is definitely gendered, especially around anatomy, and that can turn some people off so I’m making sure you’re informed before you pick this book up.

Nagoski offers fresh ways of looking at things and dispels a lot of common myths around sex, such as the ideas that “women don’t want sex as much as men do” and “women that have a high sex drive have more testosterone.” One of the main, recurring focuses of this book is the Dual Control model of the sexual response cycle which is the idea that there is an accelerator and also a brake and sometimes they work together and sometimes they work in opposition. Nagoski fills the book with both anecdotes and advice on how to “turn on the ons and turn off the offs,” or to put it another way, how to press on the gas and ease up on the brake.

One of the things that Nagoski talks about that I deeply appreciate that is not talked about enough in sex ed is context and the power of context to either hit your gas pedal or hit your brake. And that the context that does one or the other for you may not be the same that does it for your partner. There’s also a context worksheet that helps you figure out these things for yourself as well as other questionnaires that can be helpful in figuring out your own brakes and gas pedals.

Come As You Are is a fun, informative read which I highly recommend.

This book absolutely blew my mind. Wilkerson examines the social hierarchies that exist in the U.S., such as race and class, through the lens of a caste system: the insidious underlying system of hierarchy that uses socially constructed identifiers like race, class, and so forth to maintain the privilege of those at the top and to keep those at the bottom, well, at the bottom. This book shows that if the caste systems of the United States, India, and nazi Germany were to be in a Venn Diagram, the diagram would practically be a circle.

I’d heard for years that the original nazis in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s had studied Jim Crow laws in America and it’s where they got some of their most disgusting and depraved ideas. I’d heard this, but I didn’t know the details. Readers: this book gives details, even details about the things done here in the U.S. that the nazis thought were “too extreme.” Yes, some facets and views of white supremacists in the U.S. were “too extreme” for the nazis. Wilkerson goes into horrifying detail about violence and lynchings and abuse so major content warnings there.

She writes about what she calls the Eight Pillars of Caste, those things that need to exist to uphold this framework. Things such as the idea of heritability, that your caste is determined by your family. Also an idea of purity versus pollution and certain groups being inherently superior versus the inherent inferiority of other groups.

While this book taught me a lot about history, this is not a history book. This is an examination of a still existing framework in which we live that affects everything from the media we consume to the healthcare we do or do not receive with the punishments and backlash that happen when someone dares to try to step out of the caste system, or do something above their perceived caste.

This book is a harrowing and necessary read to understand race in America.

Lori Gottlieb is a writer and also a therapist. This book looks at therapy from a bunch of different angles. Interwoven are stories about her work with her clients and how she came to be a therapist. Another main thread is about her finding a therapist for herself to work through what started as a huge breakup but also some much deeper stuff too. Finally, there are also bits about what therapists in general do, what therapy is about, and how therapy can help people.

One of the patients the author talks about, Julie, has terminal cancer. Julie is seeing Lori (our author) to help her prepare for her own death. If talking a lot about death and cancer are triggers for you, then you may not want to read this book. Other difficult things discussed with patients in this book are child abuse, alcoholism, and the death of a child. That being said, there is a good balance between the dark and the light in this book. At the end of the day, therapy is about doing the work and healing in what ways we can. It’s about being heard by an impartial party. It’s about getting unstuck when we’re stuck. It’s about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, even with ourselves.

I sincerely appreciate Lori Gottlieb’s willingness to be vulnerable with readers about her own process, the process of becoming a single mother by choice, her adventures with unknown illness, and her experiences as a therapist in therapy. There are so many gems in this book and I think it’s not only an entertaining read but an important read.

If you are expecting a book about how to delete your Facebook account and throw your cell phone into the ocean, this is not it. The author talks about how, actually, just divesting from social media isn’t the answer to resisting the attention economy.

The nothing that the author talks about in the title is, as she puts it, “only nothing from the point of view of capitalist productivity.” The ‘doing nothing’ is how to do things that aren’t seen as “productive” and sometimes even just do things for the sake of doing things or more importantly, doing things with a purpose that is not capitalism. After all, life is just a series of us doing things.

The author supports a shift from the “doing for capitalism” to more of a “doing for the environment.” She introduced me to the idea of bioregionalism but even more specifically, being fully present where we are and noticing the spaces we inhabit and the people and other forms of life we share this space with. One section of the book that I found super fascinating is about how certain pieces of artwork can shape the way we see other art and even the world around us. Similarly, with bird watching. Once you start bird watching, and naming the species of birds, you see birds in a different way than before you started doing that.

This book gave me so much to think about, especially as I am on a mission to be on my cell phone less. If I’m on my phone less, then it stands to reason that I would be doing more of something else. And maybe it’s not about the time I spend on my phone, but the intentionality of being on my phone. Maybe what I really want is to be on my phone more mindfully.

This book begins by detailing the importance of not focusing on goals, but instead focusing on systems and habits. There are many sports analogies in this book and the author points out that winners and losers have the same goal: to win. Having the goal of winning isn’t what leads to success; instead, it’s having a system in place where you make continuous small improvements to achieve the desired outcome. Also, having a goal makes there be an end point or as Clear puts it, a momentary change. So you reach the goal then what?

Clear proposes a system of atomic habits: small, consistent improvements that can build on each other to fuel bigger wins, bigger successes, etc. He talks about habits not only being “a thing you do” but how habits foster changes in your identity. It’s the difference between learning an instrument and becoming a musician or between reading a book and being a reader.

After making a very compelling argument for why habits, the book goes on to give a roadmap for how to successfully build habits. Not only how to successfully build good habits, but also how to break bad habits. He starts with introducing the “habit loop,” a cycle of four things: Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. That is, make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. He also inverts it for us so that we have a roadmap for how to break a bad habit.

The bulk of the book is then breaking down these four elements and how to implement them in a way that works. After that, there are some advanced tactics for going from good to great. I think one of the most important parts of this book is when he talks about how to continue cultivating a habit when it gets derailed.

Heads up that this book is very heavy on examples focusing on exercise, weight loss, and a couple things here and there that have the pallor of diet culture.

If you have set any goal or intentions or resolutions for this year, this book can be extremely helpful.

The premise of this book is that we need boredom in order to foster creativity while at the same time, boredom is increasingly hard to come by, especially with our current level of access to technology. I want to make it very clear that Bored & Brilliant is not anti-technology. I love technology! You’re reading this right now using technology. Some of my reading is done with the help of technology. The author is also a fan and user of technology, but wants readers to be engaged with technology in a more deliberate way rather than the mindless filling in the silences or gaps in stimulation that happen in elevators, on transit, and so forth.

Zomorodi created the Bored & Brilliant project in 2015 to try to find out, “If we changed our relationship to our gadgets, could we generate bigger and better ideas? Would there be a ripple effect of changes to the way we work, the way we parent, the way we relate to one another? Could this change the way we see the world?” It is a seven-step project that this book goes through, along with research about boredom and how technology affects our brains. The project is presented in a way that allows for readers to do it on our own.

One of the sections that really stuck with me was when the author begins discussing how technology has affected people’s ability to do deep reading. The internet has changed how we read, not only via language but scrolling and hyperlinks. It’s no longer the linear activity it often was. Zomorodi learns that people are losing the ability to “deep read,” that is, to sit with a book or novel that is involved and to focus and retain the information. As a reader, a writer, a librarian, a book enthusiast and professional, this is terrifying to me.

Another section that really stuck with me is about how tech professionals and visionaries, like Steve Jobs, limited or denied their own children access to tech. This alone is so telling and chilling to say the least.

Each time I read this book, it resets my relationship to my mobile phone and I’m grateful for it.

Full-disclosure: I am not a yoga practitioner. Historically, I am very yoga-averse. Specifically I have a strong aversion to American yoga from the cultural appropriation to the connection to the wellness industry. It’s been really hard to imagine a place for someone like me in a yoga practice; however, after reading this book, which was both an informative and cathartic experience, I was inspired to give yoga another try. That is how remarkable this book is.

According to Stanley, Yoga means “to yoke,” as in to join together. Lightness and darkness, good and bad. She says, “to yoke is to marry breath, though, and movement, to connect the body, mind, and spirit.” It’s about balance. She makes this connection in writing about her imposter syndrome and the necessity of embracing those fears. As is often said, you can’t have lightness without darkness. She talks about giving herself permission to take up space and giving herself permission to not know everything.

The way Jessamyn Stanley writes about poses and breathwork really connected with me in a way it hasn’t in the past. She talks about the yoga of everyday life. Yoga as a thing that you don’t only do in a studio or on a mat. Yoga as the daily project of living. The author’s teachings in this book are connected to stories of her own learning. It is both educational and memoir. I want to mention that she talks about fasting so if that is a trigger for you, know that it is discussed in this book.

My favorite parts of this book are her examinations of the American yoga industrial complex, the whiteness of American yoga, and the cultural appropriation which is so prevalent in American yoga. She gets very real about her own participation in capitalism and cultural appropriation and I think that’s finally what convinced me to take down some of my walls I had up that were keeping yoga at bay.

I enjoyed this book way more than I expected and as I mentioned, it has compelled me to integrate yoga into my own life.