Rainy Day Reads

This is a non-fiction book about character traits, especially introversion and extroversion. Being an introvert myself I have wanted to read this book for a while, in order to really appreciate what I can bring to the table. I stopped thinking I needed to change and be more extroverted a good while ago, but at the same time it’s nice to hear someone else say it.   Cain goes through various results from experiments and studies that detail the difference between introverts and extroverts and how each will react and behave in given situations. She also correlates these traits to other traits, and showcases the strengths and weaknesses of both types.  I really liked this book. A lot of the basics was stuff I was sort of thinking myself. Like, introverts do not need to change and we can bring something valuable to the table. But like I said, it’s nice to hear someone else say it, and really put the right words on it. It was fun reading about the studies and their res...

I have a general interest in history so I thought this one sounded like fun. And it is! As the title says this book explores the lies taught in American high schools. It takes a number of high profile different topics like Columbus, racism, the government etc. and delves deeper into them, shoeing what is taught in schools and why that's not the truth. for instance Columbus is mostly revered as the discoverer of America and has his own day of celebration, but there are a lot of things he did during this "discovery" that are never taught in the schools. Like enslaving the local peoples he met, bringing plagues to the Americas and all round not being the great guy history sets him up to be. The book also looks at WHY these topics are taught like this, when for some of them at least we very well know that that is not the truth of what happened. I found this aspect really interesting too, because who controls history and why do they spin it the way they do? It's hard...

I picked this book up, because I've heard so many good things about it. A lot of vegetarians and vegans talk about this book being a turning point in their lives, so I wanted to see what the deal was for myself. Foer talks about his own journey into vegetarianism and how he thinks about food and how it can bring us together or divide us. He details a lot of his research into the food industry, particularly the meat industry, and tells us of his own thoughts on every new bit of information he dug up. In this book we hear from animal activists, vegetarians, ranchers and butchers, so he does bring a complex set of voices to the debate, and he states himself that the book is not out to turn anyone vegetarian. It presents facts of the industry and you can do with that what you will. He also discusses the philosophy behind eating and coming together for meals, the daily humdrum or special occasions, and I found that quite interesting, but often too short. The main part of the b...

As one of my New Year’s Resolutions I decided to read more non-fiction this year, more specifically 12 non-fiction books. I picked this one as one of them because I don’t like the way the public debate has been conducted lately. There seems to be a lot of hate and intolerance and people try to justify it with “facts” apparently pulled out of almost thin air.   This book promises to take a hard look at these “facts” and refute most if not all of them, and unlike the propagators of the hateful speech, it actually backs up its claims. Granted this does get a little boring sometimes, but this is the stuff we need to refute the haters, so I definitely think it’s worth it to power through. And it really isn’t that bad. Saunders does a good job of giving us enough numbers to back up his claims and then adding a meaningful context to those numbers.  In the first part of the book Saunders takes the claims made by anti-immigrant, anti-muslim people and refutes them one by...