11) Educated by Tara Westover This memoir was a feature in best-of lists and non-fiction bestsellers last year, and it's been a pleasure to come to it, even if behind many others ('others' includes Barack Obama & Bill Gates, whose recommendations carry a decent amount of weight). The summary version is that Tara Westover grows… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 11: Educated
Category: memoir
Year 4 / Book 6: Poverty Safari
6) Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey The subtitle to this book is 'understanding the anger of Britain's underclass', which gives you some sense of what its pages contain. It is a journey (a safari, perhaps) through lives in poor communities, and particularly McGarvey's own in Glasgow - in that sense it is part-memoir, part-polemic and… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 6: Poverty Safari
Year 3 / Book 45: Priestdaddy
45) Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood This is a difficult book to categorise or introduce; I guess it's best described as a memoir, but it's also at points poetic, often a true picture of parts of America, and has much to say beyond the depiction of a family living in the shadow of a mercurial father… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 45: Priestdaddy
Year 3 / Book 44: The Hard Thing About Hard Things
44) The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz This book came to me recommended by the facilitator of the Action Learning Set I'm in for new CEOs (if I can still be counted as new 9 months in). It's written by Ben Horowitz who I hadn't heard of, but is clearly pretty well… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 44: The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Year 3 / Book 42: This Is Going To Hurt
42) This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay This memoir / diary of a junior doctor working in the NHS has been at the top of the bestseller lists for months, so I am late to this - or at least several months behind many thousands of readers. Based (I assume) on a diary… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 42: This Is Going To Hurt
Year 3 / Book 36: Transit
36) Transit by Rachel Cusk This was recommended to me by a friend who is also a writer (shout out to Chris), and I spotted it in a charity bookshop nearby, so here we are. Brilliantly, I now realise that I've started with the second book in a trilogy - the first being Outline and… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 36: Transit
Year 3 / Book 7: Option B
7) Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant For the uninitiated, Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook, one of the world's most powerful and richest women, and also wrote the influential book Lean In, a sort of pragmatic, work-oriented feminist text (which originated from a TED talk). This isn't a follow-up to Lean… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 7: Option B
Year 3 / Book 2: If I Die In A Combat Zone
2) If I Die In A Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien Many years ago, for reasons that are unclear to me, I bought a book called In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien which I thought was great (I must have been a teenager at the time) but I don't think I really… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 2: If I Die In A Combat Zone
Year 2 / Book 38: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
38) By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart So this is about as far from my typical read as it’s possible to get: I picked it up at the trusty Acton Central community bookshelf, partly because the title rang a bell from past studies, and partly because it was thin… Continue reading Year 2 / Book 38: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Year 2 / Book 32: The Fact of a Body
32) The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich In my search for new books to read and to expand my repertoire (left to my own devices, I might only be reading about Icelandic detectives with a drink problem), I've taken to listening to book podcasts, asking lots of friends for suggestions but also reading… Continue reading Year 2 / Book 32: The Fact of a Body
