Adventures With Alex

Tag: reading

  • BR321) “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.  4/5 rating. 271 pages. Book #37 of 2023. Read August 27, 2023. Annie missed the opportunity to give this the subtitle “Meditations on (or maybe in) Nature”. This is an absolutely beautiful book of prose. Reading this is no small undertaking if it is to be actually enjoyed…

  • BR318) “The Least of Us” Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth by Sam Quinones.  4/5 rating. 390 pages. Book #34 of 2023. Read August 15, 2023. This book talks all about the US path from OxyContin to fentanyl, and finally meth: highlighting the lives of some users, people from…

  • BR317) “Prodigal Summer” Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.  4/5 rating. 444 pages. Book #33 of 2023. Read August 6, 2023. This novel tells three intersecting tales of lives near the Virginia-Kentucky border. One of them is Deanna, a National Forest worker living in the woods and looking to find coyotes. Another is Garnett Walker, an old farmer who…

  • BR235) “The Art of Showing Up” Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. 3/5 rating. 289 pages. Book #2 of 2022. Read January 8, 2022. This was an okay book about how to “show up” for both ourselves and the people around us. I thought that the advice in here…

  • BR55) Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, Volume One by Mary Oliver.  5/5 rating. Book #130!! of 2019. Read November 17, 2019. I had read a few Mary Oliver Poems and enjoyed them enough to get this book: from that, I fell in love with her as a poet. Mary has a beautiful, melodic way that…

  • BR53) A Year of Living Kindly

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    Alex Furst
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    A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You by Donna Cameron.  4/5 rating.  Book #128 of 2019. Read November 15, 2019. As the title of this book suggests, this was brought about by Donna’s commitment to live a year where she really focused on kindness in her…

  • BR46) The Republican War on Science Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney.  2/5 rating.  Book #121 of 2019. Read October 16, 2019. I was deeply disappointed by this book. As a person who sees the blatant disregard so often for science by Republicans in our government, I was expecting to read a well-thought-through way to counteract this and get…

  • BR44) Coming Apart Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010 by Charles Murray.  4/5 rating.  Book #119 of 2019. Read October 14, 2019. This book was a fascinating discussion about the stratification of American society by class. While the two extremes of the class spectrum are looked at, Murray shows the many causes that have…

  • BR43) Emotional Intelligence Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman.  4/5 rating. Book #118 of 2019. Read October 10, 2019.  This book is a modern-day psychology classic. It introduced the idea of emotional intelligence into the mainstream as an even more telling metric for future success in life than IQ. I implore ANYONE…

  • BR38) Option B Book Review

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    Alex Furst
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    Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Find Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.  5/5 rating.  Book #111 of 2019. Read September 28, 2019.  This book discusses many people who have faced adversity and the ways they were able to breed resilience and find joy in their lives. The numerous stories she includes, as…