On Immunity: An Inoculation

My wife and I have an appointment to speak with a doctor here in Germany about vaccinations for our daughter and so she (my wife) gently nudged me to get read up on the topic. When going out there to look for books I was immediately hit with the impression that many of them (even bestsellers) are incredibly biased! Eventually I pooled together a list of about five books based on this article and since I’m not known for my scholarly nature I decided to begin with Eula’s work first, because I read that it takes a more narrative approach.

Wow. Was that description an understatement. In my eyes Eula’s writing is masterful. She weaves in a lot of very interesting side notes and history and pop culture that then comes together to build beautiful and simply to understand metaphors, delivering each of her points. She spends time going through these points and making them memorable. And she even does so while telling the story of her own experience.

I’m about 10% into the book now and absolutely loving it, which is a surprise that I can say that of a book about vaccinations. I am incredibly excited to see if her other writings hold up to this same standard.

Have you read On Immunity? Or any of Eula’s other work? Let me know in the comments !

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

I am not oblivious to the fact that when something or someone becomes famous the feeling of “discovering” that thing or person is pretty much an illusion. To say that Marie Kondo has suddenly entered my life is a bit preposterous given the fact that she has a best-selling book and Netflix series. In short, she’s entered everyone’s lives.

That said, I’m quite happy to proclaim that a series of events recently lead me to take a closer look at why she was popping up all over the place. At first, I half-jokingly said to my wife that we should watch her Netflix series. That didn’t go over so well.

It wasn’t until later, though, that I bumped into a good friend I hadn’t seen for a while (maybe even a year!) and we connected a lot on the topic of the ups and downs of our recent lives. One thing that we both landed on was having too many piles of things at home. And thus, Marie Kondo came up.

I’ve decided that even if her method can be summed up without reading her book I’d still like to do so, and therefore I’ve grabbed a copy for my Kindle and dived in tonight, after taking a well-deserved break from traversing the angular mind of the talented Ben Lerner.

Have you read Marie’s book(s)? If so, please tell me in the comments what you think!

Angle of Yaw

After suffering a massive and surprise migraine for about a day and a half I found myself on the mend and decided that I’d pour my energy into a book. However, The Art of War was hardly what I was in the mood for so I opened another, lighter book I’d recently acquired.

Or so I thought.

Ben Lerner was a professor of mine in college and he always pushed me to push myself further. I won’t get into details here and now (though I’d love to eventually recount all of the useful lessons he taught me during those days) but I will say that reading his words is anything far from “light”.

Only two parts in so far I am bouncing begin scratching my head in confusion, reading sentences repeatedly, laughing out loud, and highlighting a variety of lines due to their powerful inspiration.

I find that this book, in particular, is one that I’ll be constantly revisiting and rereading often, as there is just so much going on beneath the surface.

Have you read it? If so, let me know in the comments and tell me how you’ve interpreted it.

The Art of War: Complete Texts and Commentaries

I cannot for the life of me remember where, but just recently someone (or something) cited The Art of War. I was immediately reminded that I have not read it yet. So, here I am! And already enjoying this “enhanced” version as it provides a lot of interesting context from the translator and others.

Have you read The Art of War? If so, what did you think? Tell me in the comments. (But no spoilers please!)

Journal29

I’ve had this lingering around for a while (and even carted it fruitlessly with me to the US and back on a recent vacation) but I’ve finally gotten around to cracking it tonight. I’ll wait until I finish it to give my thoughts (though I’m already blazing through the first half dozen riddles) but I can already say that I’m definitely enjoying it as a late-night way to unwind.

Mortal Engines

I honestly can’t say what turned me on to this book. After reading Ready Player One (and being grossly disappointed by the film) I picked this one up and started diving in. I’m not too far but I can say while I love the concept the characters and writing tend to have a bit of a juvenile feeling to me. I’ll try to explain that better once I finish the book and write up my proper reflections.

Have you read any of Philip Reeve’s work? I be curious to hear what you think in the comments below!

The Secret Lives of Color

I saw this one in a wonderful shop called Builders Booksource in Berkeley. The cover caught me at first but once I realized what it was about I was sold. I absolutely would’ve loved to support the local establishment but due to the book’s size and weight I decided to grab a Kindle copy for now and get the physical copy back in Berlin somehow.

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