Read with Me: Braiding Sweetgrass

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My 2020 reading has a very obvious theme: it’s all about nature and our connection to the natural world.

Braiding Sweetgrass was the first book that I finished this year. Then I read The Overstory; more on that in another post. This morning I started Nature Underfoot. And waiting in the wings is this Rachel Carson biography. It’s a theme, alright. So if you’re looking for a book about rediscovering our connection to nature, there’s no better place to start than Braiding SweetgrassContinue reading

Read with Me : The Soul of an Octopus

In 2018,  we started a series called ‘Read With Me’ where we are sharing all most of what we’ve read each month in hopes you’ll follow suit and dust off that book you’ve been meaning to devour! Here are all the previous Read With Me posts.

There’s no denying that I’m on a non-fiction kick! It started with The Beast in the Garden, continued with The Soul of an Octopus, and there’s no end in sight as the two books I’m working on now are both non-fiction.

The Soul of an Octopus takes us into the intimate relationship that the author and other employees at the Boston Aquarium develop with the resident octopuses. In researching this book, Ms. Montgomery begins to make weekly trips from her home to the aquarium to visit the octopuses.

As you learn, the specific octopuses she visits change throughout the book due to a number of different circumstances. And through her writing, we learn about the unique personalities of these octopuses and of many others as she passes along stories told to her by scientists, divers, and other octopus enthusiasts.

It becomes clear early on in the book that octopuses are amazing creatures, and that we still have a lot to learn about them.

  • We already know that octopuses are masters of disguise, but the more we study them, the more we understand that this is a learned ability and can vary greatly from one individual to the next.
  • Octopuses have the ability to taste and pick up the faintest of chemical signals with the suckers along the length of their arms. They can identify individual humans based upon how the person “tastes”, and so, it’s believed that it’s likely that they can likely taste if a person’s emotions change. The book goes into detail on these points and so many others.
  • Rather than one brain, octopuses have nine! A central brain and eight smaller brains in each of their arms. They seem to be extremely clever and can get bored in tanks with sparse environments. There are a number of stories about octopuses escaping their tanks, without bones, they’re able to squeeze through the smallest of holes. Sadly, these escapades don’t all end well.

I thought that this was a particularly great book for readers that enjoy learning about animals, but may not want the density of a typical scientific article. I think of it as the Discovery Channel version of book, and that’s definitely not a bad thing. This is non-fiction beach reading at its finest!

Sy Montgomery also has an octopus book for kids! Inky’s Amazing Escape is the true story about an octopus’ amazing escape from an aquarium in New Zealand.

Books I’m reading now :

The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs by Tristan Gooley

The Day the Earth Caved In by Joan Quigley

Winter World by Bernd Heinrich

Our Favorite Nature Books

It’s Amazon Prime Day, and we’re re-sharing a few of our favorite book lists. Last year, I shared my six favorite wilderness reads, books I would take on the trail with me or read by headlamp in a tent.

If you’ve been following along, Kate and I are hittin’ the books hard this year. Our Read With Me series is growing each month and as we close out April, earth month, we wanted to share our favorite nature reads with you. It was hard for me to pick only a handful, but these are the first ones that came to mind and they’re all quite different at that.

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Our Favorite Nature Reads :

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Read With Me : The Beast in the Garden

This post was originally published in March of 2019, we’re re-sharing it today because it’s Amazon Prime Day, and you need a good thriller for the beach.

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In 2018,  we started a series called ‘Read With Me’ where we are sharing all most of what we’ve read each month in hopes you’ll follow suit and dust off that book you’ve been meaning to devour! Here are all the previous Read With Me posts.

I know, these book posts are usually Sarah’s domain, and she does a mighty good job of it. But as I mentioned in my 2019 resolution post, I did a bit of reading last year; I just wasn’t that good at sharing those books. I’m hoping to turn that around this year.

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So, what’s my tally? books read: 2, books shared: about to be 1!

The Beast in the Garden

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Read With Me : Deep Down Dark

In 2018,  we started a series called ‘Read With Me’ where we are sharing all most of what we’ve read each month in hopes you’ll follow suit and dust off that book you’ve been meaning to devour! Here are all the previous Read With Me posts.

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Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Héctor Tobar

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Read With Me : How Emotions Are Made

 This year, we’ve started a series called ‘Read With Me’ we’re sharing all most of what we’ve read this year in hopes you’ll follow suit and dust off that book you’ve been meaning to devour! Here are all the previous Read With Me posts.

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How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett took me several months to finish maybe closer to a year. This book is written for the layperson, but it is packed full of emerging neuroscience as well as past theories and research about emotion. In short, it’s a lot. Much of the information was new to me, which also meant I had to do a lot of highlighting (320 highlights to be exact!) and rereading as well as jumping back and forth when certain terms or studies were referenced again later. I read a few books at a time so I can chose depending on my mood and I had to bypass How Emotions Are Made before bed because I so badly wanted to read and understand each sentence. Continue reading

Read With Me : Tribe

This year, we’ve started a series called ‘Read With Me’ we’re sharing all most of what we’ve read this year in hopes you’ll follow suit and dust off that book you’ve been meaning to devour! Here are all the previous Read With Me posts.

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Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger, read almost like a term paper, in the best sense of course. Tribe offered a flowing narrative, an easy to follow and logical evolution, while continuously being punctuated with primary sources. I truly enjoyed Tribe because it resonated with me as a human looking for community, but more importantly, I think it allowed me to better understand veterans and military folks.

Tribe investigates our past as humans and discusses the implications of evolving so rapidly. Moving from trees to caves to communal villages to individual boxes where we barely interact with anyone besides family, it’s easy to understand why we feel so disconnected, it’s because we are. Continue reading

Read With Me : Calypso by David Sedaris

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Summer is *almost* over. I know! We hate to say it too, but at least I waited until August 22nd. I’m not one of those August firsters who starts weeping and listing off all the things they didn’t get to do this summer. Nope. I’m a firm believer that summer ends when you want it to or when the weather gets cooler, which doesn’t happen here in North Carolina for another six weeks. So summer, this is it, our final few weeks, which means there’s still time for one more book! If you’re hoping to squeeze another read in, Calypso by David Sedaris it is.

First though, let me remind you of all the books we covered this year, here’s a list. There’s also a rundown at the bottom of this post. Also, I want to openly admit that I am a quitter when it comes to reading. I will pick up a few books at once, set some down, and not pick some of them up ever again. There are also books I plow through just because I know I can read it quickly enough even if I’m not loving it. This is me telling you, ‘IT’S OKAY TO QUIT!’ Reading should be fun and enjoyable, if you can’t get into it or you just don’t like it, move on as quickly as possible!

“Memory aside, the negative just makes for a better story,” Calypso like most other books by David Sedaris, is a series of short stories, mostly about mundane life events. Somehow Sedaris describes each moment its own specific cynical, dark, bleak, weird, and yet absolutely hilarious way. Using no more words than necessary, each page of Calypso will have you shaking your head in empathy and wiping away tears of laughter.

Calypso is a great end of summer read because:

Calypso can be read in short bursts, fitting in a few pages a day or a couple chapters each weekend.

Calypso recounts past summer vacations and the buying of a vacation home on the shores of North Carolina.

Calypso reconfirms the slight irritation mixed with adoration we all feel for our families, especially when sharing a vacation house.

End of summer road trip? Listen to Calypso instead! David Sedaris has a distinct voice that causes me to giggle uncontrollably.

You’ll Enjoy Calypso:

  • You need to laugh.
  • You enjoy wit and self-deprecating humor.
  • You enjoy short stories about life.
  • You’re an aspiring writer.
  • You have short time stints to read – this book is perfect for that because it’s a bunch of essays that are related, but not necessarily linear.
  • You are familiar with other books by David Sedaris.
  • You live in North Carolina.
  • You are middle-aged.
  • You have a bunch of siblings.
  • You love your Fitbit. (One of my favorite chapters is about his obsessive nature in regards to his Fitbit)

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A few storylines + quotes from Calypso :

When writing about political differences between family and friends… “Even my father, who laughs appreciatively at such bumper stickers as DON’T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR THE AMERICAN, draws the line at carrying a pistol into a place where lattes are being served.”

When writing about benign tumors… “I felt betrayed, the way you do when you discover that your cat has a secret secondary life and is being fed by neighbors who call him something stupid like Calypso.”

When writing about long-held beliefs, changes of heart, and not taking life too seriously… “It occurred to me while standing there, cars whizzing by, that the day I marry is the day I’ll get hit and killed, probably by some driver who’s texting or, likelier still, sexting.”

When writing about growing up in a household full of kids…

“If there was a silence in the car, I’d break it by making one of my sisters cry.”

“For a while, when I was eleven or so, I used to drop the empty cardboard toilet rolls into the john. They would take a while to disappear, five or six flushes usually, but I was in no hurry.”

Books I’m (kinda) reading now :

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

The Magic Strings of Frankie Pesto by Mitch Albom

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff

Books I’ve finished in 2018 :

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett Ph.D

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Nature’s Healing Spirit – by Sheri McGregor read my thoughts on that here.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara.

You Are a Badass – Jen Sincero – here are my thoughts.

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching – here are my thoughts on this historic text.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson – read my thoughts on that here.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – read my thoughts on that here.

The Tao of Pooh & The Four Agreements – I read these again as part of Meditative Mondays. You should give it a go!

The Nature Fix – read my thoughts on that here.

Invisible Monsters – read my thoughts on that here.

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

Read With Me : You are a Badass

Want to know something neat? Each time you click through to Amazon from our website, we are kicked back a few cents from each purchase with no extra cost to you. If you ever feel like going wild on Amazon, click through from our site and you’ll be supporting us at the same time! Thanks, yo.

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All hail 2018, the year of the book. You will hear me say this about every possible temperature, weather pattern, and month, but spring is the best time to pull out a book! If it’s going to be raining for a week straight, don’t get caught staring out the window, lose yourself in a book. That’s our attitude at least. I’ve finished a few this past month and I keep wanting to reach for old favorites rather than something new. I might have to read Buddha’s Brain for the fourth time. It’s nice to fall into something comfortable and familiar every once in a while.

Our Read With Me Series is going strong this year, here are all the past installments. Today I’m sharing my thoughts on hugely successful Jen Sincero and her book You are a Badass. Initially, I had some doubts about this book. I felt it was pushy and a little bit bossy or sharp in a way, but after two chapters I became accustomed to the tone and really respected her insight. I think it just took some getting used to at first. I received this book as a gift, so I didn’t really want a kick in the ass at first, but once I found myself shaking my head yes over and over again, I listened hard and took lots of notes. Continue reading

Read With Me : Nature’s Healing Spirit

Want to know something neat? Each time you click through to Amazon from our website, we are kicked back a few cents from each purchase with no extra cost to you. If you ever feel like going wild on Amazon, click through from our site and you’ll be supporting us at the same time! Thanks, yo.

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Sup nerds? Are you Reading With Me this year? Last night, I finished two great books. Nature’s Healing Spirit being a quick, devourable read that I finished within three sessions of picking it up. The other, How Emotions Are Made : The Secret Life of the Brain took me nearly eight months to comprehend, and let me tell you, it was sad and shocking when the kindle book ended abruptly when my progress bar told me I still had 40% of the book to read – damn you Appendix A, B, C, and D! More on that read a different day, today it’s all about Nature’s Healing Spirit – Real Life Stores to Nurture the Soul by Sheri McGregor.

Nature’s Healing Spirit is a compilation of  33 accomplished writers’ experiences with the natural world. Some passages are straightforward, concise, and clear in tone, while others tiptoe into the narrative and only slightly pull back the shades on their personal lives. Some stories have a succinct ending while others leave you wanting for more. Luckily, each author’s piece is followed by a short biography where you can find other published works and their websites.

You’ll Enjoy Reading Nature’s Healing Spirit If :

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