Sharing a roundup of books I’ve read recently and whether they’re worth adding to your collection.
Hi friends! Are you OK? I hope you had a wonderful morning. We get a lot of rain here in Tucson and it’s been a dream. I’m looking forward to a walk in the cooler weather this afternoon!
In today’s post, I want to share a review of a book I recently read. To be honest, reading is still at the bottom of my priority list right now. I haven’t spent as much time reading this year because we’re still trying to figure out the groove of homeschooling, working, and staying in shape while flying. I am also taking the IHP3 and Peptides for Practitioners courses. Often, when I’m raising kids alone, I practically collapse in bed as I put the kids to bed and fold the laundry.
Needless to say, reading is a bit slow, but I’ve still been reading some great books lately!
Here’s a review of what I’ve read recently and whether I recommend adding them to your list!
books i have read recently
From here to the great unknown
I have always been a huge Elvis fan and had the biggest crush on him when I was in high school. (Elvis in his prime, okay? Haha) I’ve always been interested in his life and family, so when I heard about this book written by his daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, I knew I wanted to listen to the audio version. It includes recorded footage from Lisa Marie and is narrated by Julia Roberts (who is awesome) and Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keough.
This book traces Lisa Marie’s extraordinary and turbulent life as the only child of Elvis Presley. It explores fame, identity, addiction, heartbreak and the profound grief of losing a son. Through Riley’s reflections and discovery of her mother’s tapes, this memoir is a model of resilience and a love letter between mother and daughter. I highly recommend the audio version – 9/10
From Amazon:
A month later, Lisa Marie died, and the world would never know the story she told in her own words, never knowing the passionate, joyful, caring, and complex woman that Riley loved and now grieved.
Riley got the tape her mother had made for the book and lay in bed, listening to Lisa Marie tell story after story about hitting golf carts in the Graceland yard, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. She was dragged out of the bathroom screaming as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with my mother, being dropped off at school after school, always getting kicked out, always getting into trouble. About her unique, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about her marriage to Michael Jackson, and what they had in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About the ever-present sadness. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish and reveal these hot and painful memories to the world.
To let her mother know.
This extraordinary book is written in the voices of Lisa Marie and Riley, a mother and daughter who communicate from one world to another while trying to heal each other. Deeply touching and thought-provoking, From here to the great unknown This is a unique book – the last words of an American icon’s only son.
paris architect
The Architect of Paris is a beautifully written and suspenseful story set in Nazi-occupied Paris. The film tells the story of Lucien Bernard, a talented architect who is hired to design a secret hideout for a Jewish family, a job that could cost him his life if he is discovered. What starts out as just a way to make extra money soon becomes something much deeper as Lucian’s courage and conscience grow with each adventure. This is a story about bravery, redemption, and how ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they choose compassion over fear. It’s an amazing story – I also loved the architectural details throughout – and I loved the ending. 9/10
From Amazon:
1942, Paris. Architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him great wealth and possibly even the death penalty. He must devise a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined Nazi soldiers cannot detect it. The problem of hiding the Jews becomes personal when one of Lucian’s designs fails miserably, and he can no longer deny the enormity of his plan. What does he owe his fellow citizens? How far will he go to set things right?
when breath becomes air
when breath becomes air This moving memoir by Paul Kalanithi tells the story of a brilliant neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer while building his life and career. He grapples with the meaning of life and death—from doctor to patient—and explores how to make life meaningful in the face of death. This book gave me a lot to think about and despite such a heavy topic it was somehow still enjoyable and light-hearted. 10/10
From Amazon:
At the age of thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was about to complete ten years of training as a neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating a dying patient, the next he was a patient struggling with life. Just like that, the future he and his wife imagined came to nothing. “When Breath Becomes Air” chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student grappling with, as he writes, “the question of what makes a noble and meaningful life, given the mortality of all organisms,” to a neurosurgeon at Stanford University working in the brain, the most crucial place for human identity, to a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
In the face of death, what makes life worth living? What do you do when the future ceases to be a ladder to your life’s goals and becomes the eternal present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another life dies? These are some of the questions Kalanithi explores in this deeply moving and thoughtfully observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015 while writing this book, but his words live on as a guide and gift to us all. “I came to realize that, in a sense, facing my own mortality changed nothing, but it changed everything,” he writes. “Samuel Beckett’s seven words began to repeat in my head: ‘I cannot go on. I will go on.'” When Breath Becomes Air is a haunting, life-affirming reflection on the challenges of facing death and the relationship between doctor and patient, by a writer exceptional for both.
Okay friends: What books are you reading recently? Is there anything you can recommend?
I just started writing two new books…my goal is to finish them before the holidays 😉
Western Europe
Gina
