Ariadne

It's a practical book about how to live a good life strongly based on positive psychology.
The idea is simple: we have 3 buckets in life that need to bed kept full for enjoying life. The buckets are: Vitality, Connection and
Contribution. We are presented with 10 experiments that aims to take care on each one of the buckets.
I was glad to know that many of the actions proposed were already part of my daily routine. Things like: meditating, exercising, practicing compassion, thinking about values and planning.
It's a “feel good” that can brings lots of interesting suggestions on how can we suffer less and live life more fully.

This was a perfect book to consume in audio form. I listened to it in the mornings and I enjoyed its friendly tone. It made me feel good about my life choices, because it touches on how it is important for us to build our own unique lives, without caring about “societal norms”. Each one of us will choose a different path, and that's okay. I liked it because it is a memoir filled with hiking references. It's beautifully written and such a feel-good read.

It's more about the how healing works in 3 parts: physical, chemical and mental. One cannot work without the other. So it gives a high level overview of all the things that might be the cause of the pain. And it's complicated! It creates awareness about underlying factors causing/worsening the pain, but it's all about contacting a professional.
So, there are no practical answers in this book, it talks about a few strategies but without diving in them too deep. For example: a diet with less inflammatory food suggesting ketogenic meals and intermittent fasting but it doesn't explain how that can be done.

Not my favorite of the series. Each chapter is one-character POV, and I didn't enjoy that in this one we get way more POVs, other than the core main characters. I particularly didn't enjoy the chapters with Marco Inaros and his son. They are not on my list of likable characters (for obvious reasons if you know the series) and there were maybe too many of those chapters. Anyway, I want to continue reading the series, it seems the plot will continue in a different direction, and that's promising!

Maybe I had higher expectations of this book. I loved the title and I thought I would find a more in-depth discussion of being an expat. In the beginning the books brings statistics, climate data, size, population size, etc. of one the most popular destinations for expats. Since I already decided where I want to go, many of these data were irrelevant to me.
I thought it was too basic, only scratching the surface of the topic. There are chapters about health, culture and work life talking about the pros and cons to consider depending on the life you desire in a new country. The most interesting thing of the book are the questionnaires that make you think deeply about the decision to move abroad.

A curious book, because it mingles some scientific approaches with Buddhism philosophy. It was actually my first contact with a book related to Buddhism. My main reason to pick up this book is that it brings some findings on the effects of meditation in our brains.

I think that the parts about meditation and inner peace were useful and enlightening. I was amazed at how the practice of meditation could result and significant changes on the brains of monks that meditate for long periods daily.

The main focus of the book is happiness, tho. And the author discusses many topics that usually can be related to our happiness: power, pleasure, wealth, etc. And the causes to our suffering: selfishness, ignorance, afflictive emotions, etc.

What I've learned from this book is that happiness is a skill, it must be learned and it resides in ourselves.

Is was a very positive reading, and lead me to think about how violent and pernicious our society can be by our state of mind. It is a book that encourages love, peace and altruism.

Towards the end of the book I felt it was becoming a little repetitive and the Buddhist content increased significantly.

Yeah, Huxley was right.
I thought this book would feel totally outdated because it was written in the 80's. Quite the contrary! We just have to replace “TV” with “anything we consume on the Internet right now” to make this book current. It is a thought provoking analysis of our Information Age and how media formats can shape our culture. It gives a clear distinction between the typographic era, when information was written, and the “show business” model we have today with lots of images, short messages and barely no reflection. Highly recommended!

??I didn't enjoy this book as much as their previous books. Maybe it's because this one didn't bring anything new to me. It has some more personal anecdotes and even childhood pictures from Joshua Millburn. It tries to focus more on relationships and at the end of the chapters, there are some suggested exercises for the reader. And again, since I'm familiar with their work there was nothing fresh for me. But I think it's a good read for people who aren't familiar with minimalism.??

It was an interesting premise overall, with posthumanism discussions and creepy religions. Lots going on here: complex worldbuilding. creative and unusual hard sci-fi concepts and bioengineering of specialized human sub-species.
There are different post-human beings that were heavily genetically modified, like Homo Quantus, who are able to make astounding leaps of intellectual analysis by stepping away from their individuality, Homo eridanus (The Mongrels): engineered people adapted to live in the deep-sea floor and the creepiest of all, Homo pupa (The Puppets): a type of slave species who were genetically modified to experience awe under pheromonal cues of their masters.
I gotta say some of the quantum philosophical passages about faith, existence and quantum calculations were boring to me. The part about Homo pupa and their blind worshipping was super disturbing, exploring the worst part of blind faith fanaticism.??

It was fascinating to enter the mind of Stephen King. The guy knows how to write good books. It's honest, interesting and to-the-point writing. The first part is a memoir, he talks about his childhood, early inspirations, his first jobs, his family. Then he talks about his trade. It's full of advice, even grammar tips. Take care of your vocabulary, avoid adverbs like the plague and master the elements of style. “You have to read a lot if you want to be a good writer”. So he is the type of person who reads all the time, every time he gets a chance. He goes through 70 or 80 books a year! That's impressive!

Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don???t have time to read, you don???t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King, On Writing. Kindle Edition. pg. 109

The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better. – Stephen King, On Writing. Kindle Edition. pg. 213

I didn't need to be convinced that God is a delusion, but it was interesting to follow scientific logic to analyze religion and its inconsistencies. Dawkins builds up the God Hypothesis and my favourite part of the book is then he presents the spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God, ranging from 1 to 7, including for example “Strong Theist”, “Impartial Agnostic” all the way to “Strong Atheist”.
I considered myself an agnostic but after reading this book I realized I am “De facto Atheist “ according to the Dawkins spectrum

“I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”

I liked it. It is a rich universe with politics, history and conflict.
The main character, Cordelia Naismith, is the captain of a survey ship from the peaceful Beta Colony. And there is Lord Aral Vorkosigan who is the leader of a secret military mission from the planet Barrayar. It starts with an attack to Cordelia's base camp that leads here into the hands of Vorkosigan, as a prisoner. There is a subtle tension between the two characters as they have to team together to stay alive. The plot brings discussions about honor, xenophobia, war crimes and cultural differences.
There is moderate action, lots of politics and just a hint of romance.

It's a rich historical fiction set in Scotland in the 18th century. Kinda like Outlander but without time travel. It's well done in terms of world building with lots of historical references regarding the Jacobite rising of 1745. It's an exciting book and the rhythm is good.
There was one thing that caused me uneasiness in this book: the prevalence of a raping theme. I know it's historical and you can argue that that's how things were back then, but it's a fictional romance novel and I expected less of it. For example, even though it's not explicit, the “male hero” (Alexander) clearly uses the implicit idea of rape to frighten the heroine (Catherine). Every men on the road that encounters Catherine (or any women for that matter) thinks about “taking advantage” of her. So maybe the setting was too historical/realistic for me?

Another brilliant sci-fi book with emotional and psychological depth. Set on a base on Mars, it's?? a mysterious thriller with untrustworthy AI's, conspiracies, personal trauma and complex characters. We get a lot of the main character's thought process, it's very intimate. The main character is a geologist and a painter, and she struggles with her decision to leave behind her husband and her daughter on Earth to pursue a one-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. Weird things happen at the base and from the first chapter I was totally into the mystery, wanting to know what happened. It features excellent mental health representation, it's raw and real. I had tears in my eyes when I finished it.

I loved this series, I loved the characters and their positive overall mindset to try to make their dystopian futuristic reality a better world. This one was faster-paced than the second one but not overly so. It had a good rhythm, alternating between world-building, the big plot to turn down big corporations, and the characters' personal drama. The romance is not fringy, sex scenes are very well written. I would read more stories in this universe!

This book makes an interesting argument: “Don't follow your passion!”. It's much better to master skills first and then that will lead you to a passionate career or life.
It explores this question thoroughly using case studies of real people's lives: a writer, a musician, a biologist, a venture capitalist, an archaeologist and entrepreneurs.

I liked the idea of differentiating between a “passion mindset” and a “craftsman mindset”. The author argues that you have to offer the world something (craftsman) and not wait for the revelation of perfect a predestined passion. It's essentially the difference between being active and passive.

The structure of the book is very academic because the author summarizes a lot: the concepts written earlier (within a chapter), the whole chapter after you finish reading it and the final chapter of the book summarizes pretty much everything.

It's not a long book but the summarizing structure tired me a little when I was reading it.

The book brings valuable advice, like: the importance of honing your skills and engaging in deep work in order to build what the calls your “career capital”. This will lead you to “being so good they can't ignore you”.

This book discusses how we can concentrate on doing our work intuitively. The approach suggests using to-do list as merely checklists to see if we are forgetting something. The author says he doesn???t even use lists anymore, unless he???s very busy. I liked the idea that we have to face the ???gnawing rats???: all the things in our lives that we put off and which then start to ???gnaw??? at us. He suggests we visualize the next actions of what is worrying us, identifying what we find difficult or scary to make the solution real, and leave it to our intuition to carry out the task later. Also, lots of good ideas: do one thing at a time, give things your full attention (no multitasking), take short breaks often to recharge, practice mindfulness. Some of the ideas were familiar to me, but he manages to present them in a fresh and simple way. The illustrations are gorgeous!??

This book covers detailed steps on how to plan our weeks so that it gets done regularly. I learned a few things that I will start implementing in my own routine. The most valuable message for me was the idea that I need to accept my reality:??

“...look at your life with zero wishful thinking. Be able to see when a timeline isn't realistic and accept that reality without getting emotional.”.??

This was a difficult book for me at the beginning. At first I didn't understand the pace of the book with its chapters with songs lyrics or news articles from magazines. It was not something I was used to, maybe.

The tone of the book is very melancholic and when I started reading it I thought it was too sad for me. So I abandoned the book for a few months, stopping at around 15%.

I eventually read some more later and thought that maybe I was too judgmental of the book. The story is about Jody Grafton, a singer and songwriter that seemed very real to me, because he has his flaws, uncertainties and is just trying to get along with life.

I was completely hooked by the story at around 40% of the book, and couldn't put it down until I finished it. It was emotional with hints of sadness but also it had that realization that life is simple and we are the ones who actually complicate it.

This book discusses how anxiety can become a habit we barely notice and suggests some ways we can get out of the loop. I enjoyed it because it focuses a lot on mindfulness practices, and how they can help in the process of noticing the anxiety habit. My main takeaways were: mindfulness meditation is an excellent practice to notice what is going on, loving-kindness meditation helps with resilience and well-being, and it reminded me to not fall into the ???Why am I having these thoughts??? question loop. It doesn???t matter why thoughts are happening, what matters is how we react to them.??