Books about contentment, climate change, and castles
Radically Content: Being Satisfied in an Endlessly Dissatisfied World by Jamie Varon
This is an earnest, encouraging book that reads more like an extended pep talk— but in a charming way. The author, having chased success and clout for many years, writes about her experiences with learning to both accept herself and understand what really mattered to her in life.
While narratives like this often annoy me (I remember reading one book where the author kept on trying to be #relatable but it was all stuff like "You know how it is when you accidentally spend $200 at Target on stuff you don't need, LOL"), Varon did a great job of sharing her story while keeping the takeaways broad enough to be relatable to larger swath of the population. She's still young (about my age), so a lot of her cheerleading encouragement doesn't apply to those who are older (for instance, she spends a long time reassuring the reader that life doesn't end at 30… apparently the 20-somethings are worrying about this).
But for all these nitpicks, I found the book to be delightful, and she has a genuine warmth to her that shines through the pages, encouraging me to live the life I truly want, not the one that others have chosen for me. Highly recommended, especially for anyone in their 30s or younger!
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe
I was first introduced to Hayhoe's writing in the anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (one of my Top Five Books of 2020), in an essay about how we discuss climate change. She also gave a TED Talk about this subject in 2018, and this book is an expansion of her basic premise: the most important thing we can do about climate change as individuals is to talk about it… but how do you even do that?
One part psychology (do people change their minds, and if so, how?), one part philosophy (what are the key components for connecting with people who either disagree with us or feel hopeless about the climate crisis?), and one part hard science (what are some of the most common arguments against human-caused climate change?), this book is enormously informative and thought-provoking.
Talking about the climate crisis is something I've historically been very bad at (whenever someone talks about "taking small steps" toward solving it, I still have to stifle a howl), and so this book gave me a lot of ideas for how to communicate more effectively about this issue that affects all of us. Definitely recommend!
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
This book's dust jacket purported to be a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, so I was upset when Howl and Sophie don't even show up until 80% of the way through the book… I complained to Zach that Jones had "C.S.-Lewis-ed" me by writing a story about new characters! The Orientalist world-building also wasn't great (think Disney's Aladdin levels of stereotyping). Both those aside, though, it was still a clever and entertaining story about a young man trying to rescue a princess with the aid of a genie, a flying carpet, and an ex-soldier-turned-con-man. Once I got over my grumpiness, I enjoyed it.
Previously on What I've Been Reading:
All What I've Been Reading posts
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