A book Review

Books have been always my best companions. When I am sad, when I am happy, when I am tired … and when I am sleepless. Most importantly, books are my refuge when reality becomes too painful to bear. In the coming days, I will introduce you to my escorts that helped me last couple of months to go through some difficult times of heartbreak, failure, loss, and disheartening.

The diary of a young girl by Anne Frank

I assume most of you have already read or heard about this book. The story of the little Jewish girl who wrote her diary while in hiding during World War II. The book was on my to-read list for more than 3 years until last February. In addition to messy days I was going through, I had a serious sleeping issue and I wanted to stop taking the sleeping pills that seemed to drag me to depression. To avoid overthinking about my own troubles, I thought reading a memoir would keep my mind busy with someone else’s struggle. So, I went through my "Memoirs and Biographies" shelf on Goodreads. I saw this book title, and I immediately chose it. What can ban negative thoughts better than a real story from WW II can do? However, every time I picked up my e-reader to read my eyes hurt badly (I only had free time at night), and I couldn’t read more than few pages. That was expected after spending more than 7 hours working on a computer. As the story captivated me, I wanted to go faster with reading it. Thus, I switched to the audio version of the book. It was narrated by Susan Adams, who had a nice calm voice that brought Anne to life in my imagination.

A book review

Books for Living  By Will Schwalbe

What I love more than book is books about books. 

I heard about this actual book before its official release while I was listening to The New York Times Book Review podcast ( the book is now released). I immediately pre-ordered the book on Amazon, and counted down the days... It was worth it. This particular book took me through completely a different experience. In addition to highlighting the importance of reading in our time, Schwalbe discusses some books that left a great impact in his life (sometimes they even changed it). He also shows us how books can define who we are and who we will become after reading them. He said in his book introduction: 

"... there's one question I think we should ask of one another a lot more often, and that's "what are you reading?" ... [it] isn't a simple question when asked with genuine curiosity; it's really a way of asking, "who are you now and who are you becoming"

My year in books (Part III)

My top 5 

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

As you noticed so far, I read lot of memoirs. I am a huge fun of this genre because it gives me a glimpse of people lives. I can live as many lives as I wish through memoirs ….

This particular one has a great impact on me. I still remember the day a close friend sent me a link about the first review of this memoir by The New York Times. I read the review, and I immediately bought the kindle version from Amazon. I went to the terrace (because it was strangely a warm and sunny January day) with my favorite drink, and I started reading. I fell in love with it from the first page. What an incredible book!! It really changed something deep within me, and I will always remember it.

This book won the best memoir title for 2016 on Goodreads, and The New York Times chose it among the top 10 books of the year. I’ve already written a review about this memoir. You can check it here. Give this book a try. I bet you won’t regret it.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Another great memoir. It starts with the following:

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

Although this is a legendary memoir, I didn’t come across with it until I read a book about writing memoirs (see Part I), and I am glad I did. McCourt told the tale of his childhood. A childhood that will make your eyes wet at least once. I was comfortably sitting in my favorite couch for reading; yet, his words made me feel the cold wet feet he lived with. A painfully honest memoir that made my heart melt. Give it a try.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

This was the last book I read for this year, and OMG! What a memoir!

Trevor Noah is a standup comedian. I first knew him from The Daily Show. I like his jokes and his accent. I adore is laugh and I love his mimicry. Add to it a really handsome face and a sexy voice!! What a great combination!

When I heard about his book, I couldn’t help but buy it and spend the needed time with it. To be honest, I expected to be disappointed (like it happened to me with Schumer), but I wasn’t. To my surprise, it was a great memoir. Not only well written, but it had a combination of pain, humor, and wisdom. Trevor told his story in an honest open way. A south African childhood isn’t an easy one. Yet, he made it out with a huge success. What attracted me the most, is his mother personality. She is a wonderful mom. A strong rebellious woman, who refused to let her environment dictate her life standards. With a mother liker his, how can he be anything but a good man? Lucky him, and all my respect to his mother.

Hey, a small tip to enjoy this memoir the fullest: listen to the audio-book version. It is read by Trevor himself. His sexy accent and voice imitation will take you to another dimension. Every evening, I would turn off the light, crawl into my bed and let the audio play while I close my eyes and listen carefully. I sincerely felt I was watching a movie, not listening to an audio-book.

Great job Mr. Noah!

My year in books (Part II)

Books That Disappointed Me

In this part, I mention the books that I read and regretted reading them. However, this is my own opinion, and you my disagree ... 

After you by Jojo Moyes

Well, this was the first book I read this year. I started it by the New Year eve, and ended it the next day. I wanted my first day of the year to be a little romantic, as I was single at the time, I thought a romantic novel can help. I was so happy to find out that “Me before you” has a sequel, but I was very disappointed after reading it (as much as I was after watching the movie). It ruined everything the first story was about. In short, I was disappointed and I don’t recommend the book for “Me before you” fans to avoid the disappointment.

The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins

To recover from that disappointment, I decided to pick up something new for me to read. I checked the best books for 2015 in different categories, and I realized I never read any thrillers in my life. So, I picked 2015 best thriller so far … and I was disappointed again. The story was so boring and long …. I just didn’t (still don’t) understand how it was chosen as the best thriller for 2015 !! I have no idea if I will ever read thrillers again … By the way, this book was adapted for a movie this year , and no, I won’t watch it.

Who moved my cheese? by Spencer Johnson

After failing with the fiction books I started my year with, I went back to my favorite category: nonfiction, and I chose this book, recommended by a friend. It was another disappointment. A boring story to give a good lesson. This is one of the most famous books in the world about … life I guess. The lesson can be applied to different fields. The book is not long (only 96 pages), but I believe the story could be told in much less pages. I just didn’t like it. It was not for me. So, I can’t recommend it. I read much better books about business and management (mentioned in other parts).

My year in books (part I)

Useful books

Some of my New Year’s resolutions for 2016 were improving my writing skills and working on my productivity issues. Therefore, I read couple of books about these matters. Here are the ones I recommend for you in case your next year’s resolutions are similar to mine.

Writing

The first writing book is “The Art of Memoir” by Mary Karr. The title attracted my attention while I was walking through Chapters bookstore during my last visit to Canada. The book stayed on my shelves for months, before I finally decided to read it. Karr has already three popular memoirs, and she is a writing teacher. She offers very useful advice and tips about how to write a memoir. In addition, she provides lot of examples from different memoirs, which allowed me to discover more interesting books. If you are planning on writing your own memoir or someone else’s, I highly recommend this book.

The second writing book was “Voice: The Secret Power of Great Writing” by James Scott Bell. I remember it was recommended to me on Amazon. I read it in one evening in summer time. I really liked it. As the title indicates, the book is full of simple direct advice for new writers to find their own way of writing. I highly recommend it, too.

Productivity and self- help:

One of the best books published this year about productivity and self-help was “The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy”, by Chris Bailey. Bailey took a whole year doing nothing but diving into different experiments for the pursuit of productivity. The results were a well-written and informative book. It pushed me to read further about different topics. If by any chance you plan to make your 2017 a productive year, then give this book a chance. It is worth your time.

This book also helped me realize that what keeps me from being a productive person is always bad habits. To learn more about the matter, I read “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. This is a famous book that provides interesting information about how habits are created and, consequently, how they can be stopped. So, go ahead and learn how to stop your worst habit.