What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry

 

I wasn't prepared to like this book, but I changed my thinking only a couple chapters into it. It sometimes feels like we medicalize and over-diagnose every aspect of personality and behavior. It seems like we should leave a little room for quirky and off beat, so I don't always buy into the latest, newest scary name for the people who annoy us and make life challenging. So I was prepared to skim the book and basically give it a cursory look to assure myself that I wasn't missing anything. I ended up reading every line on every page.

 

Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken

 

Van Telleken looks at the food we eat through the lenses of economics, public and individual health, and planet health or sustainability. He observes that we basically eat what is marketed to us. The poorer we are, the better the marketing works because ultra-processed food (UPF) is much cheaper than actual food.

Ultra-processed food is refined, bleached, deodorized, modified, hydrogenated, interesterified, and perhaps most importantly, aggressively marketed. There are ingredients, such as dimethylpolysiloxane and polysorbate 80, that we consume with little to no basic understanding of their effects on the human body.

The ingredients in ultra-processed foods are there for several reasons: 1) to save money (as opposed to using costly whole food), 2) to extend shelf life, 3) to allow for wide distribution - ease of transport, and 4) to promote excess consumption.

The purpose of UPF's is to create highly profitable, convenient, hyper-palatable foods that do a pretty decent job nourishing the portfolios of shareholders, but leave consumers malnourished. It is this lack of essential nutrients that, in turn, causes people who consume these substances to overeat. The human body has evolved to eat until it has consumed what it needs.

This book is on the hefty side. Some people will find it fascinating, and some might find it overwhelming. If you read only a few chapters or pages of this, it would still be a worthwhile effort. If thick books are unpalatable, just turn the packages over and read the ingredient list. That's the gist of the book.

Metabolical by Robert Lustig

 

Since cell biology is a mysterious, complicated subject for most of us, this book is definitely not an easy read. It is, however, a very worthwhile read. For me, this book tied together and explained some information that floats around the culture and almost never seems perfectly clear.  We hear that certain things are bad for us, or we suspect on our own that something is harmful; and all of this bad news causes us to second guess ourselves. Who or what should we believe? Are we paranoid or just cautious?

Lustig does a very thorough job of explaining what goes on in our cells when we ingest certain common substances in our environment. Plastics, preservatives, Teflon coating, the myriad items we see on food labels - we know something is  worrisome about all of these things, but it is often hard to access the specifics. The author explains in detail precisely what happens to us on a cellular level  when we eat things that aren't food..

This isn't a beach read kind of book, but I'm also pretty sure you won't be able to put it down. It is true that health is wealth, and work like this makes it possible for everyone to share in that wealth.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

 

I like a joyful cook, and Ina Garten has been just that kind of TV personality for several decades. Her newest show is called Be My Guest. It is as delightful as all of her earlier shows. 

She has written a memoir, and it is an astonishingly interesting and highly readable book. I don't gravitate toward memoirs, in general, but this one is a bit different. This one reads like a novel. The author has used a ghost writer, and she must be a good one. The story most definitely has a a ring of authenticity about it.

The life of Ina Garten has had some surprising twists and turns. How she navigated these is genuinely interesting.

Love Your Enemies by Arthur Brooks

 

Sometimes, quite often actually, I read for amusement, and at other times, I read with the hope of learning something that will help me to be more informed or to help me navigate life in the 21st century. When I read a book from the latter category, I occasionally come away thinking: This ought to be Required Reading for Everyone.  And this is that kind of book. Honestly, my recommendation would be that Everyone not only read this, but read it Often.

The concept of loving your enemies is always a tricky one - good in theory, and annoyingly off-putting in actual practice. Brooks has a convincing way of showing that it is worth making the effort. His stance is that improving our attitudes and our relationships is essential for our health and happiness both individually and collectively.

Some of the ideas that Brooks discusses are:

Saying no to contempt.

Moving out of your bubble.

Disagreeing better.

He advises turning away from rhetoric and diatribe that does not elevate or inform your reasoning.

And maybe most importantly, he addresses a thing that nearly all of us have done which is weaponizing our values, i.e. using our values to insult or put someone else down. He points out that doing so causes us to lose the moral content of those values. Values are a gift, and it is impossible for others to see your gift if you are it in a combat strategy.

Arthur Brooks is a thoughtful thinker and writer, and most of us could always use more of that in our lives.

And Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

 

To date, this is the only book by this author. If I see her name on anything else, I will definitely check it out. This is one of the best pieces of fiction I have read in my longish life as an avid reader.

The story is set during World War II, and on two hemispheres. The author handles this challenge flawlessly. Truthfully, I am cautious about reading WWII stories. But this one humanizes everyone and creates a fascinating look into what must have been a desperate and uncertain time for so many throughout the world.

This book is a joyful read, not because of any lack of seriousness, but because it is a well told story, and the time spent within the pages is quite honestly riveting.

The Good Life Book By Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz

 

Books on happiness often seem like unrealistic exercises because the authors write in general terms about things that most of us find very specific and uniquely individual. But some of us keep reading them anyway. The Good Life book is worth reading for a couple of reasons other than happiness being a very tempting subject. The book is a summary of mountains of research with a heavy emphasis on some of the most longitudinal studies ever conducted. Good research can make for very compelling reading. 

The second reason that this book is good is that the authors are great story tellers. Not everyone can take decades of research and statistics and create a truly fascinating narrative. The authors have found a way to make this book conversational by including a smattering of personal anecdotes and opinions. The combination of statistical analysis and friendly chat are a part of what makes the book highly readable. If you love research and statistics, this book will be mind candy. 

If you are not a sociologist at heart, you can still be confident that the authors have made the information as palatable as any fiction you have ever read. One of the reasons for this similarity to fiction is that there are several people in the book that are followed for essentially their whole lives. The reader gets to know and care about these folks. And then there are useful happiness ideas, such as the meditation question: What's here that I have never noticed before? This book is a blend of philosophy, and research and it makes for rich and meaningful reading. The authors tell us that there is no way to make life perfect, and even if there were, then it would not be a good life. Because a good life is forged from the things that make it hard.