I’ve always been a bookworm, and I set a goal on Goodreads to read 30 books in 2022. Here are the ones I finished in January and February of this year. Let me know if you’ve read any of these or if you have recommendations!
The Miracle Equation by Hal Elrod
I began this book at the end of 2021, and I enjoy reading about productivity, routines, and habits, especially around the new year. Elrod’s first book is The Miracle Morning, which is about the power of morning routines in making success happen in life. The Miracle Equation is a follow-up and takes the formula for the morning routine (S.A.V.E.R.S.) and adds in mindset coaching. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I chose it from the library because I’ve been struggling with waking up and getting going in the mornings through the pandemic. I have implemented the S.A.V.E.R.S. advice in my mornings, and I think it is beginning to make a difference. The acronym stands for silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (or writing). I’ve gotten into a quick yoga practice every morning, and my flexibility has improved drastically. I did think the affirmations and visualizations seemed a bit “woo-woo,” but taking just a minute to visualize how my day will go helps me get into my work and tasks more easily.
Overall, 4/5 stars. Helpful advice, but not for everyone in every season.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
This fiction book had popped up on my kindle ads and had high reviews from friends on Goodreads. It was much longer than I expected, but it kept my attention. It jumps back and forth in time (all over the world, too), which I appreciate since I like historical fiction. I didn’t care for the ending that much, but overall, it was a good read for relaxing.
4/5 stars.
Both books are by Brene Brown, who is now a widely popular author. Originally, she began her writing career in academic social work, and her research is on vulnerability and shame. I realize I’m about nine years late in jumping on the Brene Brown hype train, but both of these books are powerful. I guess when these books first came out in my twenties, I didn’t feel the need to (or have the wisdom) to evaluate how my thoughts and inherent and unconscious beliefs beget my actions. Now at 31 and in a new life stage, these books resonated deeply. I recognize now from personal experience how vulnerability with others is a gift and creates deeper trust and connection between people.
The Gifts of Imperfection is the book that made Brown a nationally known expert, especially after her TED talk on it went viral.
In the book, Brown gives ten guideposts for living a wholehearted life, and as I made it through the back-half of the guideposts, I felt very seen and very attacked, particularly by numbers 3,7,8, and 9:
Letting go of
- #3 Numbing and powerlessness
- #7 Exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth
- #8 Anxiety as a lifestyle
- #9 Self-doubt and “supposed-to”
It is so easy to slip into these behavioral patterns in graduate school and academia because research and publication are the currency that makes your career. I think Brown gets that specific struggle due to her own experiences within the academy.
Rising Strong is a more practical how-to guide on picking yourself back up and staying vulnerable when you get knocked down by life. I read this one first, and it was timely as I am thinking about my career trajectory.
Reading both of these books was a much-needed wake-up call for me; I have often struggled with the idea that a job or career is what defines me, but in reading this I was reminded that a good life is more than a job or work for sure. To paraphrase Jesus in Matthew 6:25: “Is not life more than a job or career?”
5/5 stars.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
I heard of this book from Cal Newport’s blog and podcast, and I read through it pretty quickly. McKeown notes that essentialism as a lifestyle is similar to the idea of minimalism, but living an essential life is not about paring down all of your possessions. It’s closer to being hyper-intentional with your time. An essentialist knows how to set and maintain boundaries in all areas of life so one can do their best in all the things that matter. Essentialism involves exercising discipline in what you say yes to, so you have more time to devote to what you want.
I agree with McKeown, and I found his argument very similar to the coaching in the Powesheets goal planner that I use. The big question of life is what will matter when I’m 85? Probably not email, social media, or a perfectly maintained home and yard. I think the biggest takeaway for me is to be very mindful about what I say yes to. I could have so many opportunities with wonderful potential, but if I say yes to all of them, I’ll end up not being able to do any of them well.
5/5 stars.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
This was the best fiction book I’ve read so far in 2022. It does deal with a difficult topic (CW: suicide), but it expresses the idea that life is full of infinite possibilities depending on the choices we make from moment to moment. It resonated with me because I’m currently at a crossroads with my career with multiple paths ahead of me, and sometimes, having so many options produces anxiety in me as I wonder if I made the right choice. Reading this novel made me realize that options are a good thing, and one choice does not set me on a predetermined path forever. I always have the agency and ability to choose what’s next for me.
5/5 stars.
This book was originally an essay published in The Atlantic in 2015. I read the article back then and remember disagreeing with the authors’ premise: that “trigger warnings” are detrimental to higher education because they exacerbate rather than help mental health issues. The authors base their argument on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) principles, which treats anxiety by teaching one to reframe their anxious thoughts. People who have anxiety can have distorted thinking around a particular thing. Part of CBT is for someone with anxiety to reflect on what makes them anxious and to consider if there is anything they are thinking or believing that is not true or not based on reality.
Translated to the college classroom, Lukianoff and Haidt argue that having “trigger warnings” around content that might be disturbing (i.e. rape, suicide, lynching) doesn’t help students mature emotionally because they don’t have the opportunity to confront the negative emotions they feel around the topic. They expand on this point in the book and argue that American college students are learning three great untruths: “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; life is a battle between good people and evil people.”
After reading the book in addition to the article, I still disagree with their point on trigger warnings and think the other argument is overgeneralized. I think they miss that college students are much more diverse today than at any other time in history, meaning we don’t know everyone’s background. Some students have been through unimaginable trauma before they ever enroll in classes. Having a general notice that certain content can be disturbing can help those students engage with the material in a way that doesn’t retraumatize them. I don’t believe trigger or content warnings are any different than the notices run at the beginning of TV episodes that depict graphic violence.
Haidt and Lukianoff also extrapolate from trigger warnings in the classroom to demands and protests from students at various colleges and universities about speech on campus. They warn that free speech may be in peril at colleges because of increasingly hostile cultures between students and administrations at various institutions. However, I think with their anecdotes, they might be guilty of what they say students are doing: catastrophizing and overgeneralizing. All of the examples in the book were the most extreme and mainly from schools with long histories of student protests. I also think they did not take much history into account – students were very demanding about what happened at colleges in the 1960s and 1970s (to the point there were student takeovers of campuses). In my experience (granted I’m just one person), most undergrad students do well in engaging with classroom material and being charitable with one another in a discussion. I think we should give college students a little more credit in that regard.
While I disagree with their diagnosis of the present, I think they did a good job tracing the rise in students wanting safe spaces and trigger warnings to changes in parenting in the 1980s and 1990s. Baby boomers raised their children (mainly millennials and GenZ) in an overly regimented way (after-school activities, extra-curriculars, etc.) and with much more fear of what would happen to children if they were allowed to be alone (fears of kidnapping rose exponentially in the 1980s). Roughly a whole generation was raised in a way that lent itself to anxiety.
They also discuss that GenZ probably fairs much worse, as they are the “iGen” generation. They were born digital natives and had access to smartphones in elementary school. As recent studies show a correlation in mental health in teenagers and young adults with smartphone use, Lukianoff and Haidt note that college students now are suffering from mental health issues more than any generation prior. This is something I have noticed, but to also give GenZ some credit, they are much more willing to be open about the fact that they are struggling and ask for help. When I was in college, the basic assumption was that professors would not care about mental health, so few students ever reached out for help.
Overall, the article in The Atlantic is the better read (since it’s shorter), and I think this book doesn’t hold up as well after the changes in our political climate in the last few years. I did see that the authors are writing an afterword in nine parts (the last three parts have not been released yet) to take the pandemic and social changes into account.
2.75/5 stars.
Emily Martin Cochran 
One response to “books I read in January and February”
I hated the ending of Addie LaRue as well! Working on Midnight Library!
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