Best of the Bunch: May 2018

Today I'm sharing the best book I read in May.

Of the 10 books I read this month, I had two 5-star reads:

Magician's Gambit by David Eddings

Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green

The first rating is pure personal nostalgia. I have to give the best of the bunch to...

I've been reading the Ask a Manager blog for a number of years now and recommend it to just about everyone who works. While the blog is in a Q&A advice column format, this book summarizes the most common types of questions through four categories: conversations with your boss, conversations with your coworkers, conversations when you're the boss, and conversations with your job interviewer. If you're a long-time blog reader there probably won't be much here that's new or surprising, but I still found it useful; while Green's responses to letter writers often provide scripts specific to their situations, this book is a compilation of more general scripts you can use for most difficult situations you might encounter at work. I honestly wish there was a non-offensive way I could suggest that everyone I work with read this book, but alas, I don't think that's possible. I will recommend it to everyone else, though!

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

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Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Where Am I Now? and Dune
Five years ago I was reading: Marcelo in the Real World
Ten years ago I was reading: Black Like Me

Ten Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week we're talking about bookish worlds you'd want to live in or never want to live in. Since I previously wrote about bookish settings I'd like to visit, I decided to go in the opposite direction for this one! Here are worlds envisioned differently from our own where I personally wouldn't want to live.

1. Any dystopia (1984, Brave New World, The Giver, Never Let Me Go...)
This seems pretty obvious... the definition of a dystopia is a place or society where things are not good, for one reason or another. There are plenty of books that fall into this category, and I wouldn't like to live in any of them.

2. Any post-apocalyptic world (Station Eleven, The Stand, The Road...)
There's some overlap with dystopian fiction here, but you can have a dystopia that's not proceeded by a catastrophe and a catastrophe after which people manage to rebuild something stable and not totalitarian. Even so, I hope I never have to live through a global catastrophe that wipes out most of the world population (assuming I lived through it, which I probably wouldn't)!

3. Most other futuristic worlds (Leviathan Wakes, Stranger in a Strange Land...)
Even if you look forward and don't foresee total destruction or the dominance of a totalitarian government, I don't necessarily like the predictions. Living in space and being dependent on the galactic economy for affordable air to breathe, or only encountering grass if you're rich enough to grow some inside your apartment? No thanks!

4. Chewandshallow (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs)
A world where food comes down from the sky depending on the weather is something that's fun in theory and would be terrible to actually exist in.

5. Dune (Dune)
This is a sand world that's so dry that you have to recapture and filter your own bodily fluids to stay hydrated. Blergh.

6. The world of His Dark Materials
I admittedly remember very little of this series (one reason I hope to reread them this year), but I remember it seeming very dark and like you were always in danger of getting kidnapped or being the victim of a politically or religiously motivated murder.

7. The Hundred-Acre Wood (Winnie-the-Pooh)
I didn't realize until listening to this series with my son that most of these beloved characters are kind of terrible. Rabbit is mean to everyone, Eeyore is passive-aggressive, Winnie-the-Pooh only visits people as an excuse to eat their food, Tigger lies constantly, and Christopher Robin gets bored easily and acts like he doesn't care about anything. There'd be way too much everyday drama for my taste.

8. Inkworld (Inkheart)
Not only is Inkworld basically like going back in time to when everything was controlled by the feudal system and there was no plumbing, but there's also the matter of people constantly popping in from the "real world" or disappearing forever. It's a fascinating idea to read about, but I wouldn't want to live there.

9. Narnia during the Age of Winter (Chronicles of Narnia)
I understand that Narnia is not always the way it is in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which is why I also hope to read the whole series this year) but that's always how I picture it when people talk about going to Narnia. I don't enjoy being cold. I don't want to go to a place where it's always winter!

10. Oz (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or Wicked)
Whichever version of Oz you're talking about, it sounds way too terrifying and unpredictable for me to ever want to live there.

Which bookish worlds would you never want to live in?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing and Dune
Five years ago I was reading: Gone Girl
Ten years ago I was reading: The Drama of the Gifted Child

Ten Character Names That Are Fun to Say

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I've done characters I'd name a dog after before, but never just shared some overall great character names. That's what this week's topic is about! It's hard to narrow it down to a list of favorites (names I would actually want for my children? names that capture the character's personality well?) so I went with ones that are fun to say.

1. Albus Dumbledore (the Harry Potter series)

2. Faintly Macabre (The Phantom Tollbooth)

3. Huckleberry Finn (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

4. Inigo Montoya (The Princess Bride)

5. Jean Valjean (Les Misérables)

6. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)

7. Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Longstocking)

8. Queequeg (Moby-Dick)

9. Ramona Quimby (the Ramona Quimby series)

10. S.Q. Pedalian (The Mysterious Benedict Society)

What other characters have great names to say aloud?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Open Adoption Book, The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing, and Dune
Five years ago I was reading: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, The Lightning Thief, and Does Jesus Really Love Me?
Ten years ago I was reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls

What I've Been Reading Lately (Quick Lit)

Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit to bring you some short and sweet reviews of what I've read in the past month. For longer reviews, you can always find me on Goodreads.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott: Although I have no personal desire to write a novel, this book does make me feel that, if I were to want to, that dream is within reach. That whether or not the book is ever published, the act of putting one's story down on paper is worthwhile. I can see why this book is so often recommended, and I would certainly be quick to hand it to anyone I knew who was trying to write their own book, particularly a work of fiction. I'm not sure how much practical wisdom it contained for me personally, but I'm glad to have read it.

When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne: In case I'm not the only one who didn't realize this, these books are not Winnie-the-Pooh sequels in the way that The House at Pooh Corner was a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh, even though they're listed as "Winnie-the-Pooh #3 and #4." I personally found the poems in this collection to be weak in form and mostly forgettable in content, but my son enjoyed them so much that I was able to set aside my critical hat enough to enjoy them more or less. I doubt that I will want to read them again in the future, though.

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller: I ended up liking this more than I expected. Eddie is a modern-day Greek tragic hero, with a fatal flaw that leads him to his doom. And while that flaw is usually seen as his love for his wife's 17-year-old niece, I think there's an argument to be made that this play is really talking about the problems of toxic masculinity. I can't say that this is a play I'll be thinking much about into the future, but I think Miller did a nice job with it and I enjoyed my book club's discussion.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr: Taking the reader through the history of technological changes, the science of neuroplasticity, and the research on how the brain is affected by new technologies, Carr builds a case that the way we use the Internet is making us better at certain, specific actions and worse at a lot of other things, like deep reflection and complex analysis of ideas. All of the information that Carr presented was fascinating and compelling in its own right; unfortunately, Carr kept making these overgeneralizations that did not account for human diversity, and the book (published in 2010) made predictions that seem laughable even eight years later.

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli: I don't understand how Albertalli hit it out of the park for the third time in a row, but she has. I laughed, I cried, I devoured the book. (Read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens first, though! No spoilers!) I'm bummed that so many people are hating on her plot choices; maybe because I didn't go into it knowing that the ship was fan driven, it didn't bother me as much?

Magician's Gambit by David Eddings: Finally this series has found its groove! I definitely understand the decision to republish this series with the first three books in one volume, because together they create a single story arc. This book has many of the scenes I remember most vividly from this series, particularly around Garion finally getting some training and learning how to do sorcery properly. Although I'm a more critical reader as an adult, I can't help but enjoy revisiting these characters.

Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green: I've been reading the Ask a Manager blog for a number of years now and recommend it to just about everyone who works. While the blog is in a Q&A advice column format, this book summarizes the most common types of questions through four categories: conversations with your boss, conversations with your coworkers, conversations when you're the boss, and conversations with your job interviewer. I honestly wish there was a non-offensive way I could suggest that everyone I work with read this book, but alas, I don't think that's possible. I will recommend it to everyone else, though!

America's Public Schools: From the Common Schools to "No Child Left Behind" by William J. Reese: This was, as expected, a pretty dense read, and I had to break it down into 10 pages a day to get through it, but it was ultimately an excellent, comprehensive history of the public school system in the United States, from the 18th century through 2005 when the book was published. It was fascinating to see how some of the tensions that exist within our current discussions of education have been around for decades, sometimes more than a century. I think this is probably too dense for anyone who's not a history buff or interested in education reform, but for those who are, this provides really valuable insights into this particular thread in American history.

What have you been reading this month? Share over at Modern Mrs. Darcy!

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: American Street and Hidden Figures
Five years ago I was reading: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, The Hidden Brain, and Does Jesus Really Love Me?
Ten years ago I was reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ten Books I Disliked but Am Glad I Read

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is pretty self-explanatory. I did not enjoy reading these books and would not recommend them, but I'm still glad to have read them for one reason or another.

1. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
Most of this book is either impractical or assumes you have no morals, and it's written in a condescending, smug tone. But as one of the books I read in my first year of work out of college, I appreciated how it encouraged me to challenge the societal assumptions about work. I think it may have introduced me to the concept of a results-oriented work environment, which has been a goal of mine for a long time and is now the lens through which I'm looking for my next job.

2. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
There were long stretches of this that were just painful to get through, but this was one of the few books I had left on a list of classics I had been working on since middle school, and it was satisfying to finish that list. And now I know what everyone's talking about when they reference this book!

3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Even though I hate the last 10% of this book with the fire of a thousand suns, this book was so unbelievably popular that I think I'd feel a gaping hole in my reading history if I hadn't read this one. I actually read it twice (thanks, book club) and now feel even more confident in my opinion of what a terrible book it is, which I feel the need to defend against all the people who like it.

4. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
The fact that I was able to construct a detailed, point-by-point criticism of this book's content was a satisfying reflection of the fact that I've spent the last decade putting considerable thought into our goals and lifestyle and how to achieve them financially, without having some arbitrary number in mind of how much we'd have to save to "feel rich." (Read I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi instead.)

5. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
This one is definitely just for the bragging rights. Way, way, way too much about the history and (very outdated) science of whaling for me to actually enjoy the story.

6. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
I feel like this book is so perfectly representative of a certain genre of fiction; as I said in my review, "Hey, it's a sexist, racist mess focused on one selfish straight white man, but that was just the time it was written, and there are THEMES! And SYMBOLS!" It's not just white men, though; the plot of A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe is extremely similar and just as bad. But hey, I would not have been able to make such an apt comparison if I hadn't read this "classic" first!

7. This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl
My 1-star Goodreads review of this book has received far more likes than any other review I've written. I couldn't call myself a Nerdfighter if I hadn't read this one, but wow — what a perfect example of what happens when someone takes the source material for a book and, instead of turning it into a compelling, well-edited story, just outright publishes the whole stack and lets it ride the coattails of a famous author.

8. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
This is another one where I'm glad to understand the cultural references (another book I read right after this one called someone a "Dobbin" and I was like, "I know what that means!") but what a slog — all the characters are awful people, and it wants to be a satire but is too cruel and dark to be funny.

9. Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill
I had heard about this book for years because in gay Christian circles it's held up as the "Side B" book (i.e., gay people are called to celibacy). I consider Torn by Justin Lee the ultimate "Side A" book (i.e., God blesses loving relationships between people of any gender), and I'm glad I've now read what's held up as the best of the other side because it's a depressing and terrifying mess. I know people who identify as Side B who do a much better job of explaining what it means to them, so I can actively steer people away from this book who are looking for a good example of Side B.

10. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
I hate this book and love the musical on which it's based, and having it read it I can now appreciate even better Stephen Schwartz's genius, knowing that much of what I love about the musical was not in the original source material.

What disliked books are you glad to have read?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!


Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: American Street and Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Five years ago I was reading: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, The Hidden Brain, and Does Jesus Really Love Me?
Ten years ago I was reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ten Books with My Favorite Color in the Title

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This is a fun and different theme for today! My favorite color is blue, and these are all the books I've read with the color "blue" in the title.

1. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
This is a YA novel about a girl who gets a series of envelopes after her aunt's death that lead her on an adventure through Europe.

2. Blue Bay Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
This is the sixth book in the Boxcar Children series. (I read all of them as a kid.)

3. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
This is one of the first Christian books I read that spoke honestly about the complexities of life.

4. The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight
This is an honest look at the Bible and the many false paradigms we try to impose on it, like trying to make it an instructional manual or a puzzle to solve.

5. Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
This is a classic picture book that my son so far has no interest in.

6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
This is a classic work of literature about a black girl from an abusive family who thinks her problems would be solved if she could be white.

7. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
This is a work of historical fiction for children that I appreciated way more as an adult than the first time I read it in fourth grade.

8. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
This is a picture book that my son loves. At one point he and I both had it memorized.

9. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
This is a middle-of-the-road Hercule Poirot mystery.

10. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
And finally, one of the most classic of all classic children's books!

What are some other great "blue" books?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!


Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Name of the Rose and Hidden Figures
Five years ago I was reading: The Power of Habit and The School of Essential Ingredients
Ten years ago I was reading: The Devil Wears Prada