Book Love

Currently Reading: “My Beloved World” by Sonia Sotomayor

Cover of the book. It is a picture of Justice Sotomayor smiling up at the reader, with the book title below her.

Title: My Beloved World
Author: Sonia Sotomayor
Format: Kindle ebook
Progress: Location 2365 of 5180

Goodreads Summary: With startling candor and intimacy, Sonia Sotomayor recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a progress that is testament to her extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself. She writes of her precarious childhood and the refuge she took with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother. She describes her resolve as a young girl to become a lawyer, and how she made this dream become reality: valedictorian of her high school class, summa cum laude at Princeton, Yale Law, prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.’s office, private practice, federal district judge before the age of forty. She writes about her deeply valued mentors, about her failed marriage, about her cherished family of friends. Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-discovery and self-invention, alongside Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father.

My Thoughts So Far

This year, I’m trying to read one fiction and one non-fiction book each month. This book was a gift from my father, and my non-fiction pick for May. I don’t normally enjoy autobiographies, but I can’t put this one down, as Sotomayor is a surprisingly compelling raconteur. I say “surprisingly” because law, like philosophy, usually requires fairly dry expositions, while My Beloved World reads like a coming of age story.

With a tight weft of painful memories supporting rational life lessons, “My Beloved World” manages to pass on wisdom without ever becoming patronizing. I find myself rooting for her, even though I already know how the story ends, which is the mark of a skilled writer.

My Kindle Highlights

“…experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.” – location 76

“You can’t say: This much love is worth this much misery. They’re not opposites that cancel each other out; they’re both true at the same time.”- location 1246

“But more important was [my mother's] example that a surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.”- location 1858

“Always, my first question was, what’s the goal? And then, who must be persuaded if it is to be accomplished?”- location 2373

Vocabulary Words

  • miscegenation
  • extemporaneous
  • inexorable
You can callow along with me, my annotations, notes and highlights on my Kindle page. When I finish reading, I’ll write a book review there as well. I also try to review the books I’ve read on Goodreads, but I’m not particularly diligent about it, so no promises!

Much love,

signature

Author name:
Publish date:
May 16th, 2013
Discussion:
No Comments
Categories:
Book Love
Tags:

Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin

Tribes was an irritating book, and  I will probably  be re-reading it again within the next few months. There is a particularly astute comment on the Amazon.ca page for it actually: “The book’s substance is rather thin beyond the few examples and rants.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

What made the book worth finishing though, was that it made it  easier  to go back and face  my service  industry job once my 30 minute lunch  break was over.

Tribes is not just littered, but polluted with references and stories about  people you’ve never heard of doing stuff you didn’t realise  they were associated with.

As metaphors, they are mildly entertaining literary devices, hindered by the fact that metaphors only work when people know what you’re referring to. The most powerful parts of the book are when he is making statements about leadership, not extolling the virtues of people you don’t know. The reason I take issue  with business  anecdotes as proof of anything has to do with something called survivor bias.
Cal Newport, probably one of the internet’s most respected cult leaders on success, wrote about survivor bias back in 2008:

In his convention-busting book, Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb preaches the danger of survivor bias — a common fallacy in which we emulate people who succeeded without considering those who used similar techniques but failed. Taleb uses the example of The Millionaire Next Door, a popular finance guide in which the authors interviewed a large group of millionaires. As Taleb points out, the habits of these millionaires — accumulating wealth through spartan living and aggressive investments — should not be emulated unless one can determine how many more people followed a similar strategy but failed to hit it big.

Perhaps a more poignant example would be to find and interview the 10 people in the country who had the biggest and fastest overall increase to their finances in the last year. Guess who would dominate this list? Lottery winners. Ignoring the survivor bias, one could conclude: the people who get richest fastest all invested heavily in lottery tickets, so that’s what I should do too!

Just because it worked for so-and-so, doesn’t guarantee that  it’ll work for you. Godin’s Tribes has an extremely limited definition  of success, which can be summed up like this: The people making the world a better place are leaders, and everyone else is a member of the crotchety old guard keeping us from moving forward.
This is not true.
Some people don’t know what they want to do with their time.  Some people are extremely passionate about some extremely destructive ideas. Some people have not yet created their passion in their lives. Some people should not (yet) be leaders- they should (for now) be explorers.
And for those  people, of whom there are many more than I believe Godin acknowledges, this book would be of little use. This book  would be  of further little use for those who are already exploring unconventional  ways  to be  leaders, of which there are even more that Godin  acknowledges.

Whether you’ll learn  anything   new or find anything  useful in Tribes outside of the name-dropping depends on how disenfranchised  you currently  are from any capacity to be  a leader. This is why I enjoyed reading it. I work a full-time job at the very bottom of the ladder  in my company.  After each chapter, I’d  go back to work excited to look for ways to be a little less bored. In  every other area of my life, I’m actively engaged in work  that excites me and allows me to make a difference in ways that I’m proud of. My career is going quite well for someone so young. I believed that my job, however, was stunning  in it’s lack of opportunities  for  creativity  and  leadership.  That’s  why I  loved Tribes. It helped me recognize that my impressions in this regard were completely incorrect and that in fact, I have many opportunities each day to show leadership, in everything that I do.  There is value in that, even if there isn’t very  much.

But don’t take my word for it- check it out yourself and let me know  what   you think.

Much love,

A.Y. Daring

Author name:
Publish date:
September 19th, 2011
Discussion:
No Comments
Categories:
Book Love
Tags:

We Win or We Perish

A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice – we win – or we perish!”

They won.

I feel honoured to share this story with all of you. It is from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. The book actually changed the way I look at life. It inspired me so much that I got it tattooed last year (at Mom’s Tattoo Shop in Waterloo, in case you’re looking for recommendations). I hope this story resonates with you on some level as well.

Author name:
Publish date:
March 9th, 2011
Discussion:
2 Comments
Categories:
Book Love
Prose
Success Tips
Tags:

The It Gets Better Project Book: Coming Out March 22nd

Remember how I said something really amazing happened to me this week that convinced me to let go of my compulsive need to have a 10 year plan and just ride the waves of universe-given abundance, and other New Age, earthy stuff?

Well I just got a confirmation e-mail, confirming that I can share with all you Beautiful People what tripped me out. Look!

It’s my contributors copy! Yeah, you read that right. Contributor. Let’s turn to page 64, shall we?

Trippy, right? The second I finished wanking off to my accomplishment (what? I’m a capricorn, I live for this kind of stuff!) I sat down and actually read it. It’s actually a good book. Really good in fact.

I was expecting to enjoy it for all the predictable reasons- I contributed, I’ve read everything DS has ever written, I got it for free, etc.- but it’s actually a really,  really good anthology of essays. I should also disclose that I generally enjoy reading both anthologies and essays so this is a total best-of-both-worlds kind of thing for me. If you’re not into that kind of stuff, you may not enjoy it as much as I did.

Even if I wasn’t a part of it, I’d still have bought it you guys, it’s that good. The mix of famous, industry famous and non-famous people is really good too. I think that will make it more meaningful to the demographic that will need this the most. Yeah, Ellen Degeneres is awesome and has a hot wife, but not all lesbians relate to her, you know?

I loved “Growing Up Gay…and Kinky,” because it was unexpected and bears saying.

The selection of essays from religious groups/people/leaders warmed my heart. There’s a lot of religion bashing in the gay rights movement. It’s understandable, but it’s also damaging to those who search for solace in an accepting god, especially for kids who so badly need solace in their young lives. Religion, when done right, is about love, and so is sexual orientation, so seeing an essay written in Arabic from a Christian man (amongst others) was uplifting.

There’s also a story I can no longer find about a lesbian farmer which is incredibly important. It wasn’t until well after I uploaded my video that I realised that not everybody will/wants to live in a big city and/or go to university.

In the book’s intro, Dan Savage also addressed the fact that that the IBGP won’t/can’t solve the gay bullying crisis, which is true. It’s too complex for a simple resolution to be sufficient. What it can do however, is to illustrate potential and provide positive reflections for LGBTQ youth, of themselves, in a highly accessible manner.

On the back flap of every book is a youth resource card, which was a smart move. You can slip out of the house, head out to the library and BAM! list of safe places for you to figure yourself out, right there. The parent resource card was an excellent move too.

If you’ve never seen them before, Dan Savage is actually the dude on the right and  Terry Miller is the dude on the left. Their names are in alphabetical order, but the picture isn’t. I used to spend hours in the library as a kid, secretly reading each and every single book in the Gay & Lesbian section. That was how I first discovered Dan Savage, and I remember being scandalised by all the talk of santorum and safe words and rimming. (“You put your mouth where?!”)

That isn’t a part of this, but this is a part of that too.

I pass the baton onto you, Next Generation of Youth. Go forth, and read all the awesome literature that’s being produced to enrich your life and warm your soul.

A friend asked me if I get royalties for it. Nope. All the contributors, from Alison Bechdel to Ellen Degeneres to Barack Obama contributed their work gratis and all proceeds go to supporting the IGBP. You can find out more and pre-order your copy here.

If you’re of any age and are trying to figure yourself out, and discern what you want out of life and love, I have these three things to say:

1) I don’t know how to solve problems, but I do know how to listen, and if that’s what you need my dear, holla at a girl. I check my e-mail compulsively.

2) You are not alone, no matter how alone you feel. Sometimes, your monkey brain exaggerates the bad and shrinks the good, and if that’s what you’re going through, it’s OK to feel that way. Forcing yourself to be happy, while scientifically proven to be effective, isn’t necessarily the path for everybody. Sometimes, you just happen to be one of those people who needs time to ride the waves of sadness when they come, and then cauterize those wounds and move on when it’s time. There be help out there ya’ll!

3) It gets better. It may not get better tomorrow, or the day after, but if/when you make the choice, growing older can mean growing wiser and growing happier and you’re growing each and every second of each and every day, even as you sit here right now. Woah, right?

I mean, look at me! My life is awesome, and I have no idea what the hell I’m doing any more. I feel lost, but the journey’s pretty cool, so I’m going with it. I think the point isn’t to fall in love with someone and live in a nice house with an amazing career and cute clothes. I think the point is to fall in love with yourself, and be so deeply in love that the feeling is unshakeable and eternal, in the face of all the smelly shit life throws your way. You love yourself so much that even the stankiness of reality can’t shake your own beautiful groove. Hot.

Much love,

A.Y. Daring

P.S. I’m not sure if you can see it clearly, but the cover quote is by a man named Armistead Maupin. If you’re at all a bookworm and enjoy LGBTQ fiction, go read his stuff. I find it poignant and highly fitting that he was the one chosen to do the quote, considering that he didn’t even feel safe to come out until he was thirty, and now he’s rich and famous and totally living the IGB mantra like a pro.

Author name:
Publish date:
February 18th, 2011
Discussion:
2 Comments
Categories:
Book Love
Tags: