Books I Read in November

Remember how, in last month's post, I said I had started a lot of books and only finished one? This month, I finished a couple of the books I started, and also read two in their entirety! I'm also pretty excited because a friend and I are starting a book club in December - no name yet, but we're kicking it off with Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It will all be via Zoom in this weird time we're living in, so if you're interested in joining, get in touch with me! (Preferably via socials because I don't know if I'd ever see a comment left on here. Hah) This means that no matter what 2021 looks like, I will read at least one book every month.

Also, happy post-Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a safe, warm holiday with your loved ones or with friends, if you were unable to be with family.

Alright. Let's get into these book reviews!

Be Calm: Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now by Jill P. Weber

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: Health, Self-Help

Review: I bought this book after a trip to the doctor's office showed that I had a lot of issues with controlling my anxiety. It ended up being easy to read and approachable - a book you could skim or read the end-of-chapter summaries for, or continue reading the content if you wanted to know more.

Like any self-help book, you get a good pep talk in each chapter, a general blanket statement that can apply to your situation, and the things you may have heard before but need to hear again. It's not a replacement for therapy or medication if your anxiety is serious enough to warrant those things, but it does provide a good baseline for anyone looking to get their anxiety under better control and/or become more cognizant of when it pops up in daily life, and how to handle it accordingly. This book also provides some good strategies and plans to help implement these new behaviors.

If you're looking for an easy guide to provide techniques for how to manage anxiety, this is a good place to start!

Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us How to Live by Marie de Hennezel, Carol Brown Janeway (Translator)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: Favorites, Modern Lit, Psychology

Review: This book was gifted to me by a college A&P professor when I asked her what book changed her life (or her perspective on life). She pulled this off of her shelf, handed it to me, and told me to keep it. That was in 2008, and I just now got around to reading it. Poignant and like having a conversation with a cherished friend, this book very tenderly offers a solace to the topic of death while also showing the compassion, humility, and love that should be given during the last stages of a person's life. It offers lessons on how to show the dying that you care, even if that's as simple as sitting in the same room silently with them, offering a hand to hold, or asking them simply to talk about what they're afraid of.

Listening, and truly caring, seem to be the main themes of Hennezel's methods for providing an open, accepting space for those who are in their last chapters of this life. Her stories were heart-warming, touching, moving. They made me rethink the concept of death while also offering peace and solace in my own personal view of it. They also gave me new perspectives on how to be with someone who is dying - whether it's a terminal illness, or otherwise.

I highly recommend this book. Its lessons on compassion and tenderness are worth it alone, but the stories are well-written, and lovingly penned.

Jew(ish): A Primer. A Memoir. A Manual. A Plea. by Matt Greene

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: Favorites, Memoir-Biography, Modern Lit

Review: "Jewish identity, as I hope this book begins to convey, is complicated and the times we live in are confusing and will only continue to get more confusing."

Matt Greene does a really remarkable job with this book in how he ties together witty, biting humor with serious, big questions about what it means to be Jewish for him. He tells a personal narrative about growing up Jewish while touching on important topics such as Israel, race, God, family, and identity through a birthday trip to Poland and to the city his ancestors once lived in. I appreciated his challenge in asking what exactly does it mean to be Jewish and tying in cultural, racial, religious, and nationalistic views. He talks about politics - in Great Britain, where he resides, as well as in the U.S., and a little bit in Israel and Palestine - and how that's shaping Jewish identity in the world today.

He also discusses important views for non-Jewish readers. Like the view that anti-Semitism shouldn't have to be proven to us and then proven why it's important that it's still happening in 2020. It's not every Jew's responsibility to have an opinion on what's happening in Israel, or at least an opinion they have to share with you. It also challenges non-Jews to reflect on how we discuss Jewish folks. Are they considered White until they're not? Meaning, when we think about the Jewish community, do we give them the perks of being White until we White folks don't want them to have those perks? Which really means, do we allow them to be safe the way White folks are safe . . . until we feel threatened by their "otherness"?

These are just some of the topics that made me stop and ponder a deeper concept of "Jewishness." I'm not Jewish, and I don't know many Jewish folks personally, so this was a book that shed a brighter light on the culture and realities for them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the concepts it presented, and how they were presented. It challenged my views, and asked me to think about why I thought and felt the way I did whenever I think about certain groups of people, not just Jews. I docked it a star for one reason only: he rambles, and while most of the time he keeps it humorous, there were times when we took a big loop to get to the point. That's fine. But it just didn't appeal to me always.

Anyway, I recommend this book, and I'm glad I tacked it on my reading list this year. Thanks GoodReads for showing it to me!

Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words by Andrew Morton (1992 Edition)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: Memoir-Biography, History

Review: When this version of this book was published in 1992, I can see why it was such a big deal. Secret tape recordings being snuck in and out of Kensington Palace and getting insider information on the Royal Family that had never been heard before. It was groundbreaking and, I think, changed the way modern biographies have been written since. However, today, pretty much everything in this book has been said, re-said, summarized, hinted to, etc., etc., in a thousand documentaries and interviews since. This edition also ends before their divorce, and, of course, before she died in Paris in 1996. From my understanding, later editions of this book include more information about her life and would be a more comprehensive read.

Diana seemed like an unremarkable person growing up - an average student, a child of a divorced (albeit rich and privileged) family, unsure about her life's goals and ambitions. Even in the majority of the first decade of her marriage, she was unsure of herself, overwhelmed with how to juggle growing up, being a mom, and being a Princess amid the pressure of society and the Royal family. She developed an eating disorder, which the Crown thought caused her marital problems and failed to acknowledge that it was a symptom of all the stresses and heartbreak she was struggling with. Given all of this, I can understand why people found her so relatable. In the 155 pages of the book, there isn't much depth to the narrative. It's a biased, one-sided view of the traumas that happened in her life. This book doesn't shy away, however, from the imperfections of both her and Prince Charles, highlighting the slow burn of their union.

It was an interesting book in its own way. There were definitely some "gossipy" elements and language to it. Had it not been for the handwritten note in the front from my grandparents dated a week after Diana died, I probably would have opted for the most recent edition of this book. Considering I've had this book for that long, without having read it, I'm glad it's now on my "read" list. However, I feel that a more comprehensive biography would have yielded the same conclusion. Diana is such a popular figure still that she has been and continues to be documented and written about so often that this book doesn't feel groundbreaking the way it did when it was first published. So, it's probably best to stick with one of the many documentaries that's been made about her - you'll get the same information!