Dawn's Reading Blog

I liked The Happiness Makeover: How to Teach Yourself to Be Happy and Enjoy Every Day so much that I bought a copy for my boyfriend. You could call it Buddhism-lite. Without mentioning Buddhism except in passing, it communicates many of the fundamental tenets that can lead to a more peaceful, contented life. The chapters are very short, perfect for reading at bedtime or a quick pick-me-up on a bad day. The writing style is informal and friendly. This one’s a keeper.

Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias is 95% about one place, so the “s” at the end of Utopias is a bit misleading. It’s about a place called The Villages down in Florida that’s absolutely gigantic and filled with retired people.

When I was a teenager, my grandparents wintered in Sun City, Arizona, which is what the other 5% of the book is about. Apparently Sun City was a second generation retirement community and The Villages is third generation. My grandparents loved Sun City and reading this book I could see why the people living in The Villages now love it. On the other side, the author makes many good points about why large retirement communities are a bad idea. He also makes it sound like buying into The Villages might be a bad idea.

It remains to be seen whether the Baby Boomers will want to live in these places which are both more social and more sterile than they’re accustomed to. I certainly can’t see my parents there, much less myself. But who knows what will happen when the time comes. Having a place away from children, and safe from the possibility of the children moving back home, could sound like utopia in another twenty years.

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think takes a psychological study approach to the subject of overeating, explaining the ways in which our minds trick us about how much we eat. The book was interesting when it stuck to the study results but got too close to being yet-another-diet-book at other times.

The main thrust of the book was that we can eat 200 calories more or less in a day without even noticing. If we eat 200 calories more every day, we gain weight; less and we lose weight. So if you can “mindlessly” be on the lesser side, you can (slowly) lose weight pain free.

The one thing the author didn’t address is that our caloric needs decrease as we get older, especially for sedentary people. So what is 200 calories less this year becomes the right amount next year and 200 calories too many the year after that. The truth is that we have to keep our eye on the scale and keep adjusting our strategies as bodies change.

That said, some of his strategies are effective ones. For instance, eating more slowly and off smaller plates; standing farther away from the buffet; not keeping food in sight. One “mindless” strategy I’ve employed is to eliminate foods that are ubiquitous but that I don’t really care that much about. For me, that’s french fries, potato chips, and soda. Not that those things aren’t good or that I don’t ever, ever eat them, but I don’t tend to crave them or miss them. By switching from a Quarter Pounder meal with fries and a soda to a Quarter Pounder with a side salad and water, I consume about half the calories and enjoy my meal no less.

For me, it’s all about finding a physical activity you enjoy and doing it regularly. Not only do I burn calories and up my metabolism, but I have extra reason to care how much I weigh. When I weigh more, my sports performance suffers and I get a quick, brutal reminder that overeating leads to underperforming. For people who really can’t bear exercise, this book provides some researched ideas into ways to keep their calorie intake as low as it needs to be.

Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone is more of a humor book than a spiritual journey. Unlike the author of Eat, Pray, Love, Beth Lisick never takes her mission too seriously or tries too hard. The chapters, each of which is nominally devoted to a self help topic, are mostly humorous accounts of what’s going on in her life.

She goes to some seminars and meets some of the self-help gurus. She laughs a bit at their fans. Sometimes she tries one or two things they recommend, half-heartedly. Sometimes the things actually work, despite her lack of commitment. At the end, nothing much seems to have changed except that she’s tired from working on herself all year long. Easier to laugh at other people, I guess.

Lisick is apparently a humor writer, and taken in that vein this is an entertaining book, but it leaves me longing for what it could have been. Steve Pavlina was more what I was looking for, though I don’t always agree with his emphasis. He is at least really trying.

I got Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease from the library, which was a good choice as it wasn’t quite the plague book I was hoping for. This is a clear, well-written, and obviously well-researched book on the mechanics of the plague virus with some historical background. Frankly, I was looking for something a little more hysterical. You know, blood and guts and people wailing in the streets.

If you want to know how plague gets transmitted (of which there are several theories) or how the plague virus could be made into a biological weapon, this is the book for you. If you want to read about people “bringing out their dead,” there’s probably a more entertaining choice.

I’m considering a second career as a high school math teacher by enrolling in the accelerated program available to people with undergraduate degrees in fields that are in demand. Of course, twenty years out of school and my math schools could use a brush up, so I bought Math the Easy Way as a refresher. As a refresher, it largely suits the bill, taking you quickly from pre-Algebra through the basics of Algebra and Geometry.

The last couple of chapters aren’t nearly as well done as the rest of the book. The chapter on word problems basically says, “Here are some word problems.” It doesn’t give much in the way of tips, strategies, or gotchas to watch out for. The chapter on statistics and probability is even sadder. It explains mean, mode, and median and leaves you there. On top of the scantiness of the final chapters, the answer key was growing increasingly inaccurate.

This book wouldn’t teach you anything you didn’t know, but it’s a thorough review of math basics and has plenty of exercises and tests to check yourself with.

I bought Massage Therapy Career Guide for Hands-On Success when I was considering going to school to be a massage therapist. As it turned out, the time between considering it and doing it was only about a week, so by the time the book came I was already enrolled. I do wish I’d read through this first and would advise anyone considering massage school to get an independent overview of the field from a book like this. There are many downsides to the profession and while Massage Therapy Career Guide doesn’t emphasize the negative, it doesn’t skirt over the negative either.

The Educated Heart: Professional Boundaries for Massage Therapists, Bodyworkers, and Movement Teachers was assigned reading for school. It mostly covers ethical situations you might encounter in a bodywork career. The author uses many examples and sidebars to keep your attention. I’m sure it’s important to be exposed to these potential situations theoretically before encountering them in real life.

I enjoy books about crazy people (perhaps because I am one) but I have a hard time buying into multiple personality disorder. Katherine, It’s Time: The Incredible Journey into the World of a Multiple Personality was an entertaining read but it didn’t really sell me. I just can’t believe it’s possible to have a job, a husband, kids and have blank spells in your life long enough for another person to live their life. “Liz married so-and-so” or “Penny had a job at such-and-such a place.” The coordination must have been intense. Especially considering they didn’t even speak to each other. I mean, most of us have enough trouble finding time to pick up the dry cleaning without having to wait our turn to inhabit the body. Can you imagine trying to remember where you parked?

Teaspoon of Courage: A Little Book of Encouragement for Whenever You Need It was a gift from my boyfriend. It’s very cute, especially if you like pictures of animals. The message is inspirational if a little clumsily forced to fit the pictures. Picture books for grownups are such a market these days. Although I appreciated the thought, I can’t quite wrap my mind around the book being worth the cost (of printing it, never mind buying it).