WHAT IS IN MY BOOKSHELF?
I have been trying to read more lately and I realized that after having finished a book I often try to write down what I learned from the book. You could call it a book review but it's more like a reflection of thoughts that the book triggered. I like to write about what lessons the book taught me or how reading the book changed my perspective on certain things.
I would like to mention again that this is not a fair book review because of how it is biased by my personal experience. I try to read both fiction and nonfiction so you will find a good mix of both the genres. These short reviews were buried in the deep recessess of my cluttered desktop and I've finally decided to let them see the light of day and be read by other humans. Hope you enjoy and maybe by the end of it you will know me better.
( And sometimes I write about movies too )
EDUCATED
by Tara Westover
I am almost halfway through Tara Westover’s memoir called ‘Educated’. It has gripping chapters with stark descriptions and short quirky yet thought-provoking stories. The book is set in rural America where Tara is a part of a family which practices Mormonism.
Her childhood was an unusual one and I sometimes find it hard to understand her faith and why she made some choices. But the beauty of the book is that it coaxes the empathy out of you. You begin to view the world through her eyes and slowly understand the reasons. The chapters reveal her strained relationship with her brother and father. I didn’t understand what kept her tethered to them and why even bothered but as the story progressed, I came to understand that it doesn’t always work like that. Family ties aren’t easily severed and loyalty doesn’t need much reason.
Her childhood had been so different from mine. The stark contrast is hard to ignore. My sheltered existence compared to her tumultuous one. The difference in the love that I received from my parents and the love she received from hers. The love wasn’t less in any way it’s just that it was expressed differently.
This one of the books that you want to hold onto, the ones that you dread finishing because it’s just so good. As it neared the end I felt amazed that there existed people who saw the world so differently than I did. And also how it is so easy to experience different realities or alter memoires of moments long past.
One of the reasons I love books is because it gives me insight into different lives and situations which you could never have. I was completely immersed in this book, and for a moment I was the little girl in Bucks Peak, pursuing an education that would change everything.
JOKER
Before I go and read and listen to what other people thought of ‘Joker’ I would like to just note down my thoughts on the movie while they still remain original.
I was riding the hype wave right till the end of the movie and then I questioned myself was it really that good? Is it the best superhero movie I have watched, I wont deny it, it was a pretty good. My eyes were glued onto the screen and there were many compelling scenes. The acting of course was amazing and the Joker did a really good job of freaking the shit out of me.
While watching the movie I kept noticing how I would keep trying to empathize with joker, I knew this was a story about a villain but I kept trying to find a hero in him. Trying to justify his future crimes and halfway through the movie I was desperately trying to see him as a decent man just blindsided into being the bad guy.
It was stupid of me to hope for such a thing but I wanted a hero in this story so bad. I knew the Wayne family definitely weren’t the good guys and maybe I won’t be able to see Batman the same again. The movie made obvious that one of the themes was the untrustworthiness of Billionaires and wealthy people in power. I don’t necessarily mean that the Wayne family were the bad guys even though before a certain point you think they are. Joker’s growing resentment at people with money and power makes perfect sense and it sort of reflects the unfairness of the real world and that’s probably when I felt bad for him. But the outrageous stunts he pulls makes you despise him a little.
What I find surprising is how people seem to say that people can see themselves as the Joker. I think I sometimes sympathized with him but I definitely couldn’t relate. He was severely abused and had horrible mental health and if he seems relatable something is wrong with you.
Throughout the movie I was confused about what to support was I supposed to rejoice the chaos and be happy for the Joker? Ultimately what I learned was that some stories don’t need you to dissect all the characters into the good guys and the bad guys, the story isn’t always trying to preach some sort of moral or prove a point.
THE POWER OF HABIT
by Charles Duhigg
Before I begin to review the book I just wanted to go back to one of my favourite Ted Talks of all time, in which Tim Urban talks about procrastination. The hilarious talk ends in a serious note, he discusses how procrastination makes people feel like a spectator in their own lives. This struck a chord in me and I have been thinking about it ever since. We think we are in control and conscious of our decisions but we are actually not. And some of these decisions make huge differences in our lives. During the last chapter of the book there is an extract from a speech David Foster Wallace gave in a university.” There are two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet two older fish which are swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning boys, how’s the water?’. And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’” Water, Duhigg explains is habits, “the unthinking choices and the invisible decisions that surround us every day”.
The author early on explains how habits help unload the brain from thinking about basic tasks so that the brain can work on more complex ones. The memory of habits is stored in the most primitive part of the brain the basal ganglia. They are ingrained in our every action and sometimes the way our life turns out. The author tells us numerous accounts where manipulation of habits has changed people’s lives, working of institutions and corporations. They explore how habits work and the author unfolds the anatomy of a habit. A habit can be represented using a loop. It starts with a cue which tells us it’s time to perform a routine and then after the routine is done it is followed by a reward. Every habit can be diluted to this kind of a cycle. One of my personal favourite stories that the author narrates is that of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. It is a gripping chapter and it relates incredibly well manipulated habits to his continuous success in competitions.
This is one of the books that reveal the complexity and machination behind the simplest of situations. It breaks down circumstances where habits that were ingrained in common people brought out a revolution. It also gives us detailed accounts of how lives of normal people were turned around by the change of small habits. There is a lot the book covers which I will not be able to in this six-hundred-word review. And there will be a lot of things that I have already forgotten or will forget in the near future.
My biggest take away from this book is the better understanding of human behaviour. Humans also follow simple algorithms and to change something we need to tweak the algorithm. This may seem a little tangent but I always had a distorted idea of freedom. I felt like freedom meant doing whatever you want. Through the years (to be exact nineteen of them) I have learnt that freedom means being in control of your life. Having decisions that you make affect your life whether they are good or bad. And sometimes we are not in control of those decisions and they are often made unconsciously. Falling into comfortable or unproductive habits or lifestyle patterns restrict us from achieving many goals. To be able to change habits and such patterns is being in control of your life. The only thing holding us back are the invisible restrains which are often disguised in habits. We just have identify them and make an effort to change them.